Death
Madame de Pompadour suffered two miscarriages in 1746 and 1749, and she is said to have arranged lesser mistresses for the King's pleasure to replace herself. Although they had ceased being lovers after 1750, they remained friends, and Louis XV was devoted to her until her death from tuberculosis in 1764 at the age of forty-two. Even her enemies admired her courage during the final painful weeks. Voltaire wrote: "I am very sad at the death of Madame de Pompadour. I was indebted to her and I mourn her out of gratitude. It seems absurd that while an ancient pen-pusher, hardly able to walk, should still be alive, a beautiful woman, in the midst of a splendid career, should die at the age of forty two." Yet, at the time of her death, many enemies were greatly relieved and she was publicly blamed for the Seven Years' War. Looking at the rain during the departure of his mistress' coffin from Versailles, the King reportedly said: "La marquise n'aura pas de beau temps pour son voyage." ("The marquise won't have good weather for her journey.")
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Famous quotes containing the word death:
“To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night;
To defy Power, which seems Omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change nor falter nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is unfamiliar. In spite of the fact that it happens all the time, we never see it.”
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926)