Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/715

Rh of the offenders be ever so great, was an attempt to injure, or even to jest upon La Pompadour.

To convince the world of the high idea she had of her own power, she suffered no stool or chair besides her own in her dressing room, where she received company; and her arrogance increasing with her favour, nothing would serve her but having the honours of the Louvre, which principally consists in the privilege of the tabouret, or stool, to sit on in the presence of the queen, and in being presented to her to be embraced, which is the ceremony of investiture. The triumph however did not come pure and unmixed: for she was treated contemptuously by the dauphin; but on complaining to the king, he adopted her resentment; and the next day, as the dauphin was going to pay him a morning visit, he received orders to retire to his palace at Meudon. The queen, the ministers and members at court, interposed: the king, however, would not hearken to any proposals for a reconciliation, but on condition that he should personally go to La Pompadour, and in full circle disown his behaviour; which he submitted to. Not long after she wished to be lady of the palace to the queen; a place never given but to ladies of the highest rank and character. The queen however, only mildly represented, that it would be too crying an indecency to admit into that station a person, who could not even approach the altar to take the sacrament, as living in a state of separation from her husband. La Pompadour found means to vanquish this difficulty. She wrote a letter to her husband, intreating him to receive her again, and promising, 'that she would henceforward take care to edify the world by their union;' but by her manœuvres, he was induced positively to refuse her request. The