Evening Star Newspaper, June 29, 1930, Page 76

4 Dating Bac i THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 29, 1930. “Hay e s ty LT . From t hetele Lejite ¢ Hozo One Jeanne Antoinette Poisson de Etioles - BY ANDREW STEW ART. ERE is a story pertaining to the Fourth of July that is different. / Had it not been for a woman, ! who lived more than 3,000 miles away and 165 years ago, 4n all likelihood, there wouldn't be any particular Fourth of July for us to celebrate, no Decla,a-~ tion of Independence, no Revolutionary War, no United States. She was a most. remarkable woman—one possessing supreme beauty and charm, great force of character and engaging wit. Had it not been for the influence exerted by Yer, much of history would have been other- wise written. Washington might have lived and died an estimable Virginia squire, nothing more; Jefferson would have remained confined within the sphere of accomplishment of a locally known gentleman of deep learning and exceptional legal attainments; Lafayette would never have seen these shores; Lincoln would, never have struck the shackles from a slave, and, to project the imagination across the broad expause of the ocean, Napoleon Bonaparte possibly would never have had the chance to conquer and hold all Burope in thralldom for his brief hour of, dominion. Not that the woman had any God-given prescience of these exalted destinies, these stupendous, epoch-making events dependent to so.large a degree upon her actions. No pre- vision was vouchsafed her of the train of con= sequences that were to follow inevitably the’ It was - work of her hands. Quite the contrary. due to a great pewer for mischief, wielded by her through her witchery of person and her mastery of intrigue, actuated solely by vanity and’ the demands of selfish ambition, that there was brought about a conspiracy of circum- stances through which the founding of this Nation and its glories were to be made possible. THrough her machinations France was plunged needlessly into the horrors of a war on the Continen{ of Europe that devastated her, de- stroyed 200,000 of the flower of her manhood on inglorious battlefields, bankrupted her treas- ury, and finally lost to her forever her most valyable possessions, while yielding the dominion of the sea to her rival and ancient enemy, lowering at her across the Channel. I'N the year 1721 there lived in the Rue de. ' graimed - knave, occupied a responsible position™ inthe banking firm of Paris Brothers—at least hevdld until in 1726 certain rather serious’ defaleations were laid at his door, Wwhen, in eider to avoid playing the unenviablé leading role in \a bone-breaking spectacle to be staged in'the Place de Greve, in conneection with the use of certain instruments, he fied Paris for thé’ good of that fair eity, and remsiped an “Clery, in the parish of Sainte-Eustache, Paris, a M. Poisson and his wife, born Madeleing " je la Motte. Poisson, a burly, blustering, coarse< " Changed the Course of History and Began a Train of Events W, hich Finally Led to America’s Independence Day.. exile ‘for some 15 years, or until, to slightly anticipate the story, he was enabled to return. Mme. Poisson was a person of very notable pulchritude, but of no discernible virtue or scruples. In the Poisson household on December 29, 1721, a lovely baby girl was bern, who was duly christened Jeanne Antoinette. Fortunately for her, she possessed none of the charaeteristics, either physical or mental, of her alleged father, The rich and influential farmer-general, M. Lenormant de Tournehem, a kindly seul and friend of the baby’s mother, constituted him- self her protector and charged himself with her edueation. Great sums were lavished upon her cultural development. The foremost mas- ters of the day vied with one another in tutering her in various branches of learning, the arts and graces, and under these ministrations she became a notable linguist and musician, and acquired a very considerable founding in art. Her capacity to absorb instruction was only equaled by the sprightliness of her wit and the rare beauty of her person, so that the finished product of all this painstaking training was & creature of Irresistible attraction. But there: was one quality of character that all the tutors in the world would not have been able to change. They could not have altered her cold and selfish nature. With the power to bewitch all men, she was ‘within the depths of her being utterly unresponsive, but it was hers to dis- ' semble these, traits, hiding them by the arts of consummate acting. % : Buring the time of her novitiate the mother " was -appraising the gitl with an evil, greedy eye. Being herself unhampered by scruples in an age of the greatest dicentiousness im France, the unholy idea took form in her mind that- such promise of beauty and accomplish~ ments might: very weil lead to riches and power, in 4hich she might hope to share. She early hsinnated the base ambition of one day becom- g the King’s favorite in the tender mind of the growing child, and continually pictured to Rer ‘in glowing colors the great personal advan- tages inherent in-such a position, deszling her Imagination with the prospeet of unbounded wealth and power it would open up. One. day, “ when the child was 9 years old, her mother taok her to visit a Mme. Leban, a fortune-teller, whe, ' wt;_l:uut doubt, followed instructions previously ‘réceived, predicted that the little Jeanne An- put n her way the nephew of her benefastor, a young man by name Lenormant de Btieles, His Majesty, Louis XV _ef France, from the painting by Van Loo. . Marquise de Pompadour, favorite of Louis XV of France, from a portrait by La Tour. American independence followed her rule and ruin of France. meager ‘personal attractions, it is true, but of very ample wealth. This youth straightway fell an abject vietim to her seductiveness, and finally, after overcoming a strongly pronounced paternal objection, led her to the altar in the year 1721. Tm in no wise interfered with the ultimate plans of mother and daughter. Indeed, " it fell excellently in with them, for, as the wife of .a man of wealth and high connections, social horisons and spheres of action were in- * comparably extended. Her husband denied her nothing. She became a recognized queen of fashion, entertained on a most lavish scale, " and established a salon in which were to be met the leading savants and men of letters and the "arts of the period. . Many were the attempts that Mme. de Etioles made to attract the notice of the King before the moment arrived to put her powers of seductiveness to the supreme test—the mo- ment toward which all of the efforts and money ‘ expended ¢én her training and her own striving ‘had been directed. The opportunity arrived at ‘ & great masked ball, given on a most sumptuous scale in the ‘Hotel de Ville, in Paris, on February 28, 1745, in honor of the marriage of the young dauphin to the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain. During the course of the ball the King, moving among the guests, was suddenly stopped in his - progress by a young woman of most alluring beauty and grace of form garbed ravishingly as Diana. A bow was in her hand and a silver quiver dangled at her side, while her light chestnut hair, garnished with many- precious stones, fell in rich ringlets over her shoulder. The King was immediately captivated, and vic- tory was achieved. He told her very gallantly that her charms were more to be feared.than her darts. His complete subjugation and the inevitable formal installation of Mme. de Etioles as matresse on titre (official mistress) at Ver- sailles were details that were worked out with all practicable dispatch by the lady, with the willing co-operation of sycophantic fellow con- spirators. Meantime the husband, who idolized her, was discarded as nonchalantly as one would lay aside a garment no longer needed. In time the King bestowed upon his favorite the ancient estate of Pompadour, together with the title of marquise, and in the course of events other rich properties, perquisites and enormous wealth became hers at the expense of the French tax- payer, and the conduct of the destinies of France were delegated to her by the King. Her rule over him and the realm lasted until her death, extending over a period of some 19 years, until 1764. Her power was ab:zolute. At her fiat and subject to the varying exactions of her ambition, commanders of armies were madé and unmade, statesmen lost their port- folios, and the hosts of the nation’s officials of high and low degree were employed, rewarded or dismissed. All who stood in her way were either won to her service or overthrown and crushed; and with exile, the Bastille, or worse, as the forfeit to her displeasure, opposition to her rule finally ceased. Ministers took their orders from her, and all the mail passing through the post office was culled to yield her intimate information of what was passing in the ds of the people, and, incidentally, her Leétters were opened by steaming off the seals, of which preliminary impressions were made. The missives were scanned by her, and they were then restored to their original condi- tion and sent to their destination. X YET, strangely enough, not all of the aets of this supreme siren were unworthy: She found the time and had the interest to estab- lish the great porcelain works at Sevres and the Ecole Militaire, a school for the education of cadets for the army from among the sons ot the impoverished nobility. From this school in its 27 years of existence there were te issue meany of France’s best military leaders, among them an Bmpero_r—Napoleon. The great Gobelin tapestry works were enlarged and capitalized through her efforts, and she was a sincere, generous and sympathetic patron and - bene- factress of the artists and literateurs of the day. This operated as a powerful cultural infiu- ence in a time of universal social degeneracy. But what of his most Christian majesty the King, Louis XV? Perhaps the least said of him the better. A weakling from birth, his one objectlnlflensfioumwhhvhlmand fancies, and the exertion of governing his eoun- try was to one of his disposition an intolerable bore. - On questions of state he was rarely able to make decisions of his own, and he was only too giad to defer to others. When, therefore, fate led to him the ravishing de Etioles, en- dowed with brains and ambition, and, being a consummate actress, able to keep him amused, she becameé the embodiment of a great political force—a force, however, that was to be potent * for the undoing of France. Charles VI of Austria, having no male heir, endeavored through a sort of family contract entered into with the Diets of the various Haps- burg territories and guaranteed by the leading states of Europe to secure the succession to his" throne through his female descendants and to insure the integrity of the Austrian dominions. This compact, or instrument, was called the Pragmatic Sanction. The oldest daughter of Charles, Maria Theresa, duly succeeded him on his demise in 1740, but almost immediately Frederick II of Prussia, without any real right, but on the strength of an ancient unsettled claim to Silesia, through an act of brutal aggression, proceeded to make war on Austria in order to despoil her of the Silesian territory on his southern border. This was another instance of where treaties or agreements became merely scraps of paper when the lust of conquest gained the mastery over men. Drawn into the war with Frederick were France, Bavaria, Saxony and Spain, while England allied herself with Austria. After eight years. of weary, costly struggle, the conflict, which is known as the War of the Austrian Succession, was ended by the signing of a treaty of peace at Aix la Chappelles in 1748. But no real peace was established. Prederick, triumphantly clutching in his iron fist the bloody trophy of Silesia, torn from Austria, was highly content, but no other state, let alone Austria, was satisfied with the fortunes of war. Animosities smoldered, grievances rankled, and throughout Europe there prevailed nothing more enduring than a sort of unstable, armed truce. It needed but a spark to again set roaring the flames of war. Strangely enough th's spark was emitted in far-away America. It came in the blast from the rifles of a handful of provincial skirmishers led by the young surveyor-soldier, George Wash~ ington, in the backwoods of Pennsylvania in 1754, The renewed conflict is known as the Seven Years’ War; in its American phase it is called the French and Indian War. This was the Continued on T'weniy-first Page