MDDM23: A Grand Melange of Motive

[Dave Monroe]

"Spies were ev'rywhere, some working for this
redoubtable Lady, with her Jansenists and Philosophes,
others for Parties whose Fortunes would have
intermesh'd more and less naturally with those of any
Flying Automaton,-- the Jesuits, of course, the
British, the Prussian Military,-- along with
Detectives upon missions Bourbon and Orleanist,
Corsican Adventurers, Martinist Illuminati, a Grand
Melange of Motive...." (M&D, Ch. 37, pp. 377-8)

"this redoubtable lady" = Mme. la Marquise de
Pompadour ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0203&msg=65321&sort=date

>From Nancy Mitford, Madame de Pompadour (New York:
NYRB, 2001 [1953]), Ch. 11, "Friends and Table Talk,"
pp. 139-55 ...

   "[Francois] Quesnay introduced the Comte de Buffon,
the naturalist, to Madame de Pompadour and she and the
King liked him very much.  They both loved animals and
had a great many pets ....  Buffon was in trouble with
the Jesuits for saying that animals had sould.  He
said so in his article on animals in the first volume
of the Encyclopedie when it appeared in 1752 and this
was one reason for the Church's objection to that
work....  Buffon finally severed his connection with
the Encyclopedie in order to remain on good terms with
the King, whom he loved.
   "Madame de Pompadour supported the Encyclopedistes
against the Jesuits and the Archbishop de Beaumont by
all the means in her power; the Queen, the Dauphin,
and Mesdames of course pulled in the other direction,
and played upon the superstitious side of the King's
nature...." (pp. 148-9)

   "But towards the end of her life the Marquise began
to have doubts about the philosophes.  'What ahs come
over our nation?' she wrote during the defeats of the
Seven Years' War.  'The parlements, encyclopeistes and
so on have changed it utterly.  When all principles
have gone by the board, when neither King nor God are
recognized, a country becomes nature's pariah.'  All
the years she had spent at Court had made her more
royalist than the King." (p. 150)

Just opened the book right to that bit, is all ...

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