Versailles.

But Versailles was an unhoped-for shore to such a girl as this, a girl
known to all Paris. Would the King care to be the lover of one who had
ruled all his courtesans? Who could say? The King often wearied of what
he had. Had not a poet already been found who compared her to Venus:

O Jeanne, thy beauty seduces
And charms the whole world;
In vain does the duchess redden
And the princess growl;
They know that Venus rides proudly
The foam of the wave.

The poet, while not Voltaire, was no less a man than Bouffiers.

While the King was seeking a mistress--a nocturnal reverse of Diogenes,
fleeing from the lanterns of the wise--he found Jeanne Vaubernier. He
thought he could love her for one evening. "Not enough," said she, "you
must love me until broad daylight." So he loved her for a whole day.
What should one eat in order to be loved by royalty? Was it necessary to
have a coat of arms? She had them in number, because she had been loved
by all the great names in the book of heraldry. And so she begged the
Viscount Jean du Barry to give her the title of viscountess. "Better
still," exclaimed Jean, "I will give you the title of countess. My
brother will marry you; he is a male scamp, and you are the female. What
a beautiful marriage!"

So they were united. The newly made countess was solemnly presented at
court by a countess of an ancient date, namely, the Countess de Bearn.
King Voltaire protested, in a satire entitled "_The Court of King
Petaud_" (topsy-turvy), afterwards denying it. The duc de Choiseul
protested, France protested, but all Versailles threw itself
passionately at the feet of the new countess. Even the daughters of the
King paid her court, and allowed her to call them by their pet
names: Loque, Chiffe, and Graille. The King, jealous of this gracious
familiarity, wished her to call him by some pet name, and so the
Bacchante, who believed that through the King she held all France in her
hand, called him "La France," making him a wife to his Gray Musketeers.

Oh, that happy time! Du Barry and Louis XV hid their life--like the
sage--in their little apartments. She honeyed his chocolate, and
he himself made her coffee. Royalty consecrated a new verb for the
dictionary of the Academy, and Madame du Barry said to the King: "At
home, I can love you to madness." The King gave the castle of Lucienne
to his mistress in order to be able to sing the same song. Truly the