“Monsieur l’Abbe, your debaucheries render you unworthy of the favors of the church. As long as I remain in power you shall obtain nothing.”
“Well, Monseigneur,” replied De Bernis, “I’ll wait.”
This repartee was an event; it was repeated and applauded everywhere until it reached the ears of royalty itself.
On Madame de Pompadour coming to power, the Princess de Rohan deigned to write to her in behalf of her dear abbe. “Madame la Marquis,” she wrote, “you have not forgotten M. l’Abbe de Bernis; you will deign, I trust, to do something for him, he is worthy of your favors.” Apropos of this letter, Madame de Pompadour wrote the following to some minister of the day: “I forgot, my dear Nigaud, to ask you what you have done for the Abbe de Bernis; write me word, I beg of you, as I shall see him on Sunday.” Like Voltaire, Madame de Pompadour had the mania of nicknaming her friends and acquaintances; even the king himself figured more than once in her grotesque vocabulary.[B]
[Footnote B: She always called De Bernis her pigeon pattu (splay-footedpigeon—on account of his large feet and his love-songs). Voltaire had previously nicknamed him Babet le bouquetiere, at first because the abbe always introduced flowers into his poetry; afterward, on account of the resemblance he bore to a flower girl who used to sell bouquets at the doors of the Opera.]
Madame de Pompadour presented her dear poet to the king, with a smile which so charmed Louis XV. that he offered De Bernis, in the first instance, an apartment in the Tuileries, and a pension of 1500 livres a year; and so cleverly did the future cardinal play his cards, by insinuating himself into the good graces of both the king and his mistress, that, after a sojourn of two years at the chateau, he was appointed ambassador from the court of France at Venice.
But it would appear that the Queen of the Adriatic did not suit the inclinations of our abbe; he sighed for Versailles, and the petits soupers of Louis XV. After a very short sojourn in Venice he demanded his recall from Madame de Pompadour, and on his return composed an epistle to his fair protectress, the opening lines of which we give as a fair specimen of his powers of versification:—
On avait dit que l’enfant do Cythere
Pres du Lignon avait perdu le jour;
Mais je l’ai vu dans le bois solitaire
Ou va rever la jeune Pompadour.
Il etait seul; le flambeau qui l’eclair
Ne brillait plus; mais les pres d’alentour
L’onde, les bois, tout annoncait
l’amour.
For the space of ten years the Abbe de Bernis was the shadow of Madame de Pompadour; he followed her everywhere, sometimes even too far. Louis XV. would meet him in all parts of the palace, in the private as well as the state apartments, which would make him say sometimes,—“Where are you going, Monsieur l’Abbe?” Our abbe would bow and smile, but say nothing. True to his character of abbe, he would listen at all the doors, saying that the chateau of the Tuileries was for him but one huge confessional. He ended, however, by knowing all things, and by sitting in council with the king and his mistress; and a precious trio it must be owned they made.