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I felt a hot flush mounting to my forehead The very thought of my adored little girl in the category of Suzette! I could have struck my old friend but I had just sense enough to reason things. Maurice was only speaking as any of the Paris world would speak. A secretary, whom a man was obviously interested in, was certainly not out of the running for the post of "Maitresse-en-titre!"
At this time the nobility of France was too corrupt to raise any serious objections to the dispensing of favors by the maîtresse-en-titre, whether she were of noble birth or not.
After her death the king raised the beautiful Mme. d'Etioles to the honor of maîtresse-en-titre; she, as Mme. de Pompadour, was, without doubt, the most prominent, possibly the most intelligent and intellectual, certainly the most powerful, of all French mistresses.
During the Directorate, luxury and libertinism reigned almost as absolutely as during the monarchy. Barras was supreme. He had his mistress, or maîtresse-en-titre, in the beautiful Mme. Tallien, the queen of beauty of the salon of la mode. Ease and dissolute enjoyment were the aims of Barras, and in these his mistress was his equal.
Some of the ladies attached to the court of Louis XV., having heard her sing at evening service during Passion week, had induced the royal chapel master to employ her in the choir. There, and by the warm eulogies of Marmontel during one of his toilette visits to Mme. de Pompadour, the attention of the maîtresse-en-titre was called to her beauty and vocal charm.
Mme. de Montespan's power, lasting fourteen years, was almost unlimited, and was the epoch of courtiers intoxicated with passion and consumed by vice, infatuated with the king and his mistress, whose title as maîtresse-en-titre was considered an official one, conferring the same privileges and demanding the same ceremonies and etiquette as did a high court position.
Although maîtresse-en-titre, and favourite mistress as she became, she could not, however, prevent the unworthy and frequent resort of the debauched prince to rivals of a lower grade, and Madame de Sévigné penned some amusing lines on the subject of those duplicate amours: "Querouaille has been in no way deceived; she had a mind to be the King's mistress, she has her wish.
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