refusal,
ordered by the Archbishop of Paris, of the sacraments. "The public, the
public!" wrote M. d'Argenson; "its animosity, its encouragements, its
pasquinades, its insolence--that is what I fear above everything." The
state of the royal treasury and the measures to which recourse was had to
enable the state to make both ends meet, aggravated the dissension and
disseminated discontent amongst all classes of society. Comptrollers-
general came one after another, all armed with new expedients; MM. de
Machault, Moreau de Sechelles, de Moras, excited, successively, the wrath
and the hatred of the people crushed by imposts in peace as well as war;
the clergy refused to pay the twentieth, still claiming their right of
giving only a free gift; the states-districts, Languedoc and Brittany at
the head, resisted, in the name of their ancient privileges, the
collection of taxes to which they had not consented; riots went on
multiplying; they even extended to Paris, where the government was
accused of kidnapping children for transportation to the colonies. The
people rose, several police-agents were massacred; the king avoided
passing through the capital on his way from Versailles to the camp at
Compiegne; the path he took in the Bois de Boulogne received the name of
Revolt Road. "I have seen in my days," says D'Argenson, "a decrease in
the respect and love of the people for the kingship."

Decadence went on swiftly, and no wonder. At forty years of age Louis
XV., finding every pleasure pall, indifferent to or forgetful of business
from indolence and disgust, bored by everything and on every occasion,
had come to depend solely on those who could still manage to amuse him.

[Illustration: Madame de Pompadour----215]

Madame de Pompadour had accepted this ungrateful and sometimes shameful
task. Born in the ranks of the middle class, married young to a rich
financier, M. Lenormant d'Etioles, Mdlle. Poisson, created Marchioness
of Pompadour, was careful to mix up more serious matters with the royal
pleasures. The precarious lot of a favorite was not sufficient for her
ambition. Pretty, clever, ingenious in devising for the king new
amusements and objects of interest, she played comedy before him in her
small apartments and travelled with him from castle to castle; she thus
obtained from his easy prodigality enormous sums to build pleasaunces
which she amused herself by embellishing; Bellevue, Babiole, the
marchioness' h