After Louis XIV, as Saint-Amand points out, the conditions of
the Court of France were reflected even more vividly in the characters
of the women of Versailles. "With compression and reserve," he
observes, "there followed scandal. During the regency and the reign of
Louis XV the morals of the Court fast deteriorated. A new epoch
opened--troublous, lewd, dissolute. And was not the Duchess of Berry
eccentric, capricious, passionate, the very image of the time? The
favorites of Louis XV indicate to us in their own sad history the
conditions of debasing humiliation and moral decadence of monarchical
power. At first Louis XV chose his favorites from among ladies of
quality--after that, from the middle classes, and, finally, from the
common women of the people." He did not stop at the low-born shop girl
or the frequenter of evil resorts.
Louis began with the Duchesse de Chateauroux, the exquisite, who
lasted, as we might say, but a day. From that he turned to the
Marquise de Pompadour, a descent sufficiently significant, but it was
only the beginning of decadence. The King's feeling for the Marquise
was wholly unworthy, and it soon wore itself out. Her death caused him
no regret. On the day of her funeral, during a heavy rainstorm, the
King, standing at one of the windows of Versailles, watched the
carriage bearing the body of his former favorite to Paris, and observed
carelessly: "The Marquise will not have fine weather for her journey.
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