The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-29

room a bell was sounded, silently the table
descended, and as silently returned, bearing
on il, as was ordered, the rarest dishes, fruits,
wines, in vessels Of plate or glass, or Sevres.
We are accustomed TO these lifts as we call
them--vulgarizing the name as well as the
thing-but when the Pompadour invented
them they were regarded as stroke of genius,
and their execution triumph of Loriot'5 art.
Rumor told of the orgies of which these petite
SoupeS were the occasion; but though all that
luxury could imagine was expended on them,
it may be doubted whether they went beyond
a refined voluptuousness.
The king rather affected these select aud
semi-seoret parties, and the Marquise en-
couraged his taste. Even when her power
had reached its highest, and she displayed it
most ostentatiously, she reserved for her own
apartment its haughtiest exhibition. The
King of Prussia, Carlyle's Friedrich, had re-
pulsed her advances, though made through
Voltaire when Voltaire was most in favor
pretending not to know her, whilst he be-
slowed Oh the king nickname on her ao-
oount-but the Empress Of Austria answered
her with empresSement, addressed her as ma
couSine, and Ia petite refine, and the Marquise
made all who approached her treat her as queen
indeed. In her cabinet de toilette she received
it was the custom for grand danes to receive
during the toilette even in England, as we
may see by Hogarth's Marriage a.la-Mode-a a.
few OF the highest princes, dukes, and minis
ters of State to talk over matters of State
and matters of scandal; but no one was per-
mitted to sit down. There was but single
fauteuil in the room, and that she occupied.
For the king she would order a chair to be
brought, but it was so done as to mark it as
an exceptional favor.
Choissy was the most splendid Of her man
sions, but she was proudest of Bellevue, as
her own creation. 1t was built for her by
Landureau; Delisle laid out the grounds; the
10. H..
loo, and Pigalle. 81 have made it O pretty
place." she told her friends, "but without any
kind of msgnifcence.' Without any kind of
magnlfcence yet fifteen hundred workmen
were occupied for two whole years upon it,
and she expended three million livres-say
tl20, OOO-upon the decorations alone. Truly,
Antoinette Poisson had come to have right
royal notions of the magnificent.
Her patronage of literature and art is that
which shows the Marquise in the most favor
able light, and has cast a halo around her
memory in the eyes of her countrynen.
Voltaire, Rousseau, Crebillon, Mar
montel, the encyclopedias generally,
were welcomed with smiles to
her earliest salon, and received in various
ways substantial marks of her favor. But
writers of a graver character also found ia
her generous patron. She gave Quesnay an
appointment il her household; Button through
her influence obtained his place in the Jardin
des Plantes, and she doubtless out of the
national purse) betrayed the cost OF printing
the first edition of his ''Histoire Naturelle."
Aud these are but few out of hundred
similar acts of rnunifcence.
There is thin small folio volume, eatly
priced by collectors, but very rarely met with,
for but few copies were struck OFF, that
may be regarded as the most authentic
memorial of the Marquise' devotion TO the fine
arts. 1t is entitled "Suites Estampes exc
MI. n
and contains in all some seventy plates.
They are chiefly after gems, by J. Quay, but
two or three are from carvings in ivory, and
half dozen are NEUROLOGICAL and infantile
groups after Boucher. Several are dated, and
the dates range from 1751 to 175S; they were
executed, therefore, during the most brilliant
period of her reign. The subjects are clss-
steal and allegorical, treated in the fanciful
manner of the time. The drawings seem
to have been mostly made by Wen and
Boucher. Technical critics find a good
deal of difference in the handling; and
it is possible the Marquise may have had
assistance in the manipulative details but
nearly all the prints bear the signature "Pom-
padOur, sculpt." When first published satir-
lists made themselves merry with some of the
subjects. In one, Louis XIV figured nude as
"Apollo couronuant le Genie des Arts" and it
was gravely queried who could have served as
the model-the ultimate suggestion being the
hUDo Dolul5-uOr6 TSlndfhaDl6 OBESITY
rather than grace. In other plates the king
appears as Hercules; the Marquise as Victory.
But the Msrquise best loved to see herself as
Minerva, either as "Protectrice Of the Arts"
where, that there might be no mistake in the
identification, the goddess, instead of the aegis,
bears ON her shield the arms of Pompadour;
or as the "Protectrice OF France" as she is
figured on the royal seal, holding in one hand
the national escutcheon, in the other the regal
sceptre.
Whatever may be thought of the truth or
taste of the latter assumption, there can be no
question of her right to the former title. Her
patronage was, indeed, extended to the whole
range of French art. Painting, sculpture,
architecture, were all encouraged by her with
royal disregard of cost that no sovereign had
exceeded and few approached. Boucher, Van
loo, Watteau, Greuze, Pigalle, were pensoned
or literally encouraged, and the younger and
less eminent artists found in her warm
friend. Under her auspices the school Of
Rome was reorganzed and extended, the
grand prize founded, and the exhibition esta-
blished. Had she lived long enough, Napo-
leon III would hardly have needed to rebuild
Paris. She had sent her brother, created
through her interposition Marquis de Marigny,
to Italy, attended by staff of professors, to
study art; and on his return she procured his
appointment to the direction Of the national
palaces and buildings, and together they de-
Vised a scheme for the establishment OF the
city on the most magnificent scale. Financial
difficulties prevented its accomplishment in ts
integrity, bat boulevards were laid out, the
Champs Eysees formed, churches and hotels
built. 1t was during the Seven Years War
the result of her evil councils-that these
works wera DrOsecutad with the praatast