“Tout va changer: les crimes d’un volage Ne seront plus érigés en exploits. La Pudeur seul obtiendra notre hommage, L’amour constant rentrera dans ses droits. L’exemple en est donné par le plus grand des rois, Et par la beauté la plus sage.”[29] The choice of Louis XV. was thenceforward settled. The gallant monarch was about to plume himself on fidelity. What do you think of this modesty and this discretion? As Sainte-Beuve says, these poets have a way of taking things which belongs to them alone. There was plenty of adulation, but there was also plenty of fault-finding. The great ladies could not get used to seeing a _bourgeoise_ occupy the post of King’s mistress. They observed with malevolent and ever alert attention this improvised marquise who tried to give herself airs of nobility and grandeur. They recalled the fact that her grandfather had been provision-contractor for the Hôtel des Invalides. She is the granddaughter of a butcher, said they; they jeered pitilessly about meat and fish; they found her awkward in her part, like a grisette disguised as a marchioness. Exasperated at seeing at Versailles a royal mistress not of his choosing, the Duke de Richelieu tried, says Duclos, “to make the King consider her on the footing of a _bourgeoise_ out of place, a passing gallantry, a simple amusement not adapted to remain worthily at court.” If anything in her manners or her language was not perfectly well-bred, the favorite became the butt of sarcasm as soon as her back was turned. Louis XV. used to say: “It will amuse me to educate her.” Madame de Pompadour had at all events the good sense to maintain a humble and submissive attitude when she appeared before the Queen. The rank and virtues of Marie Leczinska intimidated her. Here is a curious passage which occurs in the Memoirs of the Duke de Luynes: “Day before yesterday, as she was returning from Mass, Madame de Pompadour said to Madame de Luynes that she was in the keenest anxiety and most bitter sorrow; that she knew somebody had frightfully aspersed her to the Queen; and, without explaining to what she referred, said she hoped greatly that the Queen would not believe it, and that she begged her to speak about it to her. Madame de Luynes instantly gave an account of this to the Queen.” Here is the letter written to Madame de Pompadour by the Duchess de Luynes: “I have just been speaking to the Queen, Madame, and I earnestly entreated her to tell me frankly if she had anything against you; she answered in the kindliest way that she had not, and that she was even very sensible of your efforts to please her on all occasions; she even desired me to write and tell you so.”