Robert Darnton
An Early Information Society
[Page 22]
This was a dangerous game, however, and it backfired. On April 24, 1749, the king dismissed Maurepas from the government and sent him into exile by lettre de cachet. Contemporaries interpreted Maurepas' fall as a spectacular upheaval in the power system of Versailles. What had caused it? they asked. The answer, as it appears in letters and diaries, was unanimous: not political conflict, not ideological opposition, not questions of principle or policy or even patronage . . . but songs. One song, in particular, written to the tune, "Quand le péril est agréable":34
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To the modern reader, the text, and the entire episode, is utterly opaque. Translated literally, the song sounds like an innocent exercise in gallantry:
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To insiders in Versailles, however, the meaning was obvious, and it showed that the current wave of songs had gone beyond the boundaries of the permissible, even among the nastiest wits at court. The song cast Pompadour as Iris (some versions referred to her by her ignoble maiden name, Poisson, "Fish") and alluded to an intimate dinner in the private chambers of the king, where Louis was supposed to be protected from gossip by a barrier of secrecy. The little party consisted of the king, Pompadour, Maurepas, and Pompadour's cousin, Mme. d'Estrades. After arriving with a bouquet of white hyacinths, Pompadour distributed the flowers to her three companions: thus the "white flowers" in the song. But "fleurs blanches" also meant signs of venereal disease in menstrual discharge ("flueurs").35 Of the three witnesses, only Maurepas was capable of turning this episode into verse and leaking it to the court. So whether or not he had actually composed the song, it produced such outrage in the private chambers that he was stripped of power and banished from Versailles.
Of course, there was much more to this than met the ear. Maurepas had enemies, notably his rival in the government, the comte d'Argenson, minister of war and an ally of Mme. de Pompadour. Her position as maîtresse en titre, a quasi-official role
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