Year: 1872

of Stuart found in her warm and sym pathizing friend to the last upon the oc- casion of the birth of Louis (afterwards the Sixteenth of that name) she urged up on the king, in the place of fetes ana nfe- works to distribute food among the poor of Paris during one month, and to endow six hundred poor girls with six hundred livres each and in 1759 she sent her own plate and some of her treasures to the mint for public use. To literary men and artists she was most munifcent patron ess many an one whose works have be- come the delight of posterity might have languished and died in obscurity and neg lect had it not been for the fostering care of Pompadour; and under king utterly indifferent to intellectual pursuits men of letters and art rose to a more indepen- dent position than they could claim un- der the ostentatious patronage of Louis the Fourteeth.

 It has been said that her patronage of art and letters, far from being the result of an innate love of them, was but the de- sire to raise nobility of genius to coun: terbalance the nobility of birth, behind which former she sheltered her own pie beian origin. Such scheme might have been mingled in her mind with more dis

  to deny all genuine love of intellectual pur- suits to one who proved herself to be so exquisite an adept in several, would be to yield to an unjust prejudice. To enter into all the intricacies of diplomacy, and to even attempt to guide the state affairs of so great nation as France during so criti- cal period of her history, argued pow CT of mind that but few women have pos sessed. But did it argue no genius to sustain during nineteen years her empire over the cold-hearted, fickle Louis, to amuse his morbid melancholy by an ever- changing variety of brilliant amusements? Surely great inventive faculties were re- quired for such task.

 Even hostile historians admit that du- ring her regime 1t was less the age of Louis the Fifteenth than that of Pompa- | dour-that the taste which reigned indesign, in fashions, in manners in poesy, in every art of her time, carries her seal, and yet in the very same page they will assert that she left little or

 no trace upon her age! To her taste and

 talent France owes the first impetus

 which has since made her pre-eminent in art manufactures. In the streets of Paris

 are yet to be traced her designs, and i'll | the magnificent establishment at Sevres, | SOAAA OAA0N4 R6SO0OO1AA HUI SAAC AhO left one of the most splendid monuments

 that her country can boast.

 l have no desire to gloze over the faults

 of this woman, or to elevate her into

 heroine much wronged by posterity; nei- ther am I prepared to receive as veracious all the abomniable tales told against her by the scandalous chronicles published during and after the Revolution, of which l the sole purpose was to blacken and de- grade monarchy and all its belongings with the most unblushing medacity. My only object is to present her as she was -one who, after making all allowance for her vicious life and for all the bitter evils l she brought upon France, was not an ut terly redeemless demon of iniquity, but guilty, erring woman-one who, however morally destitute she might be, still pos sessed brilliant talents, which were ire quently employed for the good of art, lit erature, and her country.