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As, however, during this long reign of fifty-eight years, women were the presiding geniuses of the court and the virtual directors of the kingdom, I cannot give a faithful portrait of the times without some allusion, at least, to that woman who was as famous in her day as Madame de Montespan was during the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. I single out Madame de Pompadour from the crowd of erring and infirm females who bartered away their souls for the temporary honors of Versailles.

"Mademoiselle's hair has got loose and looks like a Huron's," said her maid Lizette, as her nimble fingers reaerranged the rich dark-golden locks of Angelique, which reached to the floor as she sat upon her fauteuil. "No matter, Lizette; do it up a la Pompadour, and make haste. My brain is in as great confusion as my hair. I need repose for an hour.

It is to be said that even in these bad days when religion meant cruelty and cabal, the one or two men who boldly withstood to the face the king and the Pompadour for the vileness of their lives, were priests of the church. D'Alembert's article hardly goes beyond what to us seem the axioms of all men of sense. We must remember the time.

"I undertake it," said Brigaud; "my costume does not excite suspicions. I will engage you a lodging as if it was destined for a young man from the country who has been recommended to me, and who has come to occupy some place in an office." "Truly, my dear Brigaud," said the Marquis de Pompadour, "you are like the princess in the 'Arabian Nights, who never opened her mouth but to drop pearls."

The prudent moderation of Abbe de Bernis, then in great favor with Madame de Pompadour, and managing the negotiations with Austria, had removed from the treaty of Versailles the most alarming clauses.

Thus, like a kind of chivalrous Bellona, vengeance in her right hand, tears and fire in her eyes, the DAUPHINESS advances; and will join Reichs-Heer at Erfurt before August end. Such the will of Pompadour; Richelieu encouraging, for reasons of his own.

"And yet of all the extra expenditure which the dignity and circumstances of Marie Antoinette exacted, not a franc came from the public Treasury; but everything out of Her Majesty's private purse and savings from the above three hundred thousand francs, which was an infinitely less sum than Louis XIV. had lavished yearly on the Duchesse de Montespan, and less than half what Louis XV. had expended on the last two favourites, De Pompadour and Du Barry.

She wanted to laugh at the gratified importance in Raymie's half-shut eyes; she wanted to weep over the meek ambitiousness which clouded like an aura his pale face, flap ears, and sandy pompadour. She tried to look admiring, for the benefit of Miss Sherwin, that trusting admirer of all that was or conceivably could be the good, the true, and the beautiful.

On reflecting on this conversation afterwards, I was forcibly struck with this fresh proof of the intrigues of the Jesuits, which, indeed, I knew well already. I thought that, in spite of what I had replied to Madame du Chiron, I ought to communicate this to Madame de Pompadour, for the ease of my conscience; but that I would abstain from making any reflection upon it.

"What are you talkin' about?" exclaimed her mother, whose pompadour fairly heaved in the jerk with which its wearer rose from the oven at this significant information. "They are," repeated Minty, secure in her tremendous discovery; "come and look. Do you s'pose," in a hushed tone, "do you spose they're beaux, ma?"