“La contenance éventée, Et chaque dent tachetée, La peau jaune et truitée, Les yeux froids et le cou long, Sans esprit, sans caractère, L’âme vile et mercenaire, Les propos d’une commère, Tout est bas chez la Poisson. “Si dans les beautés choisies Elle était des plus jolies, On pardonne des folies, Quand l’objet est un bijou. Mais pour sotte créature Et pour si plate figure Exciter tant de murmure, Chacun juge le roi fou.”[43] Nor did people content themselves with ballads. They likewise produced long pieces of emphatic verse, distilling venom and hatred. More or less skilful imitators of Juvenal composed satires full of gall and bitterness. What specially excited the indignation of the authors of these diatribes were the representations at the theatre of the little cabinets. One of them, addressing himself to Madame de Pompadour, exclaimed:-- “Parmi ces histrions qui règnent avec toi, Qui pourra désormais reconnaître son roi?”[44] Another thus expressed himself:-- “Sur le trône français on fait regner l’amour. La fureur du théâtre assassine la cour. Les palais de nos rois jadis si respectables, Perdent tout leur éclat, deviennent méprisables; Ils ne sont habités que par des baladins!...”[45] A pamphlet entitled “The School of Man, or parallel between contemporary portraits and those of Holy Writ,” contained attacks of this sort against Louis XV.: “Too much incommoded by his greatness to take a girl from the green room, Lindor satisfied himself in true princely style: he had a large house with a theatre in it built expressly for him, where his mistress became a danseuse by title and office; men infatuated by the vanity of dancing women, insensate imitators of Candaules, do not fancy that the last Gyges died in Lydia.” One should read the Memoirs of the Marquis d’Argenson and those of Barbier the advocate in order to get a just notion of the hatred felt for the Marquise by both the aristocracy and the middle classes. The people despised her quite as much, and held her solely responsible for all wretchedness and every disaster. The luxury of this parvenu irritated them, and they detested her profoundly. The following quatrain expressed the popular sentiment:-- “Fille d’une sangsue et sangsue elle-même, Poisson d’une arrogance extrême, Étale en ce château, sans crainte et sans effroi, La substance du peuple et la honte du roi.”[46] For those who knew how to listen, the Revolutionary storm was already rumbling in the distance. Madame de Pompadour could not rely on her flatterers themselves. Voltaire, who had burned so much incense at the adored feet of the Marquise, who at Versailles had been her most zealous, ardent, enthusiastic courtier, forgot all that in his retreat at Ferney. He chaffed at his former idol and drew a most malicious portrait of her in his poem _La Pucelle_.