“Doctor,” said he, “nothing changes for you; we trust that you will remain with us.”

“Monsieur le Comte,” coldly replied Quesnai, rising from his seat, “I have been attached to Madame de Pompadour in her prosperity, and I shall remain so in her disgrace;” and so saying he left the room.

This Quesnai, of whom we have just made mention, was a man of uncouth and rustic manners, a true Danubian peasant.  He inhabited a little entresol above the apartments of Madame de Pompadour at Versailles, where he would pass the whole of his time absorbed in schemes of political economy.  Quesnai, however, did not want for friends, as he could boast of the esteem of all the most illustrious philosophers of the day.  For those persons who did not go to court would come once a month to dine with the court physician.  Marmontel, in his Memoirs, relates that he has dined there in company with Diderot, D’Alembert, Duclos, Helvetius, Turgot, and Buffon,—­a goodly array of intellect.  Thus on the ground floor they deliberated on peace and war, on the choice of ministers, the suppression of the Jesuits, the exile of the parliament, and the future destinies of France; while above stairs those who had not power, but who possessed ideas, labored unwittingly at the future destinies of the world.  What was concocted in the rez-de-chaussee was demolished in the entresol.  It would frequently happen, too, that Madame de Pompadour who could not receive the guests of Quesnai in her own apartments, would ascend to those of her physician to see and chat with them.

Every Sunday morning Madame de Pompadour received at her toilet all the artists, literary men, and great personages of the court, who had the entree of her apartments.  Marmontel relates that on the arrival of Duclos and De Bernis, who never missed a single Sunday, she would say to the first, with a light air, “Bon jour, Duclos;” to the second, with an air and voice more amiable, “Bon jour, abbe:”  accompanying her words occasionally with a little tap on his cheek.  Artists and men of letters were invariably better received than the titled courtiers of France; while many of the nobility were truly lords-in-waiting, the two Vanloos, De la Tour, Boucher, and Cochin, had never to remain in the antechamber.  The account of her first and only interview with Crebillon is interesting.  Some one had informed her that the old tragic poet was living in the Marais, surrounded by his cats and dogs, in a state of poverty and neglect.  “What say you!” she exclaimed; “in poverty and neglect?” She ran to seek the king, and asked for a pension for the poet of one hundred louis a-year from her privy purse.  When Crebillon came to Versailles to thank her, she was in bed.  “Let him come in,” she exclaimed, “that I may see the gray-headed genius.”  At the sight of the fine old man—­Crebillon was then eighty years of age—­so poor and yet so proud, she was affected to tears.  She received him with so touching a grace that the old poet was deeply moved.  As he leaned over the bed to kiss her hand, the king appeared.  “Ah, madame,” exclaimed Crebillon, “the king has surprised us!  I am lost!” This sally amused Louis XV. vastly; Crebillon’s success was decided.