{ PARIS--1763-64, GRIMM, MDME. DE POMPADOUR.}
all their subsequent success to this "powerful friend." "He has done everything--opened the court to us, managed the first concert, and is going to manage the second. What cannot a man do with sense and a kind heart? He has been fifteen years in Paris, and knows how to make things fall out as he wishes."
Their first object was the introduction at court. The most important personage at that time at Versailles was, of course, Madame de Pompadour. "She must have been very beautiful," writes L. Mozart to Madame Hagenauer, "for she is still comely. She is tall and stately; stout, but well proportioned, with some likeness to Her Imperial Majesty about the eyes. She is proud, and has a remarkable mind." Mozart's sister remembered in after days how she placed little Wolfgang on the table before her, but pushed him aside when he bent forward to kiss her, on which he indignantly asked: "Who is this that does not want to kiss me?--the Empress kissed me."[20021] The King's daughters were much more friendly, and, contrary to all etiquette, kissed and played with the children, both in their own apartments and in the public corridors. On New Year's Day the Mozart family were conducted by the Swiss guard to the supper-room of the royal family. Wolfgang stood near the Queen, who fed him with sweetmeats, and talked to him in German, which she was obliged to interpret to Louis XV. The father stood near Wolfgang, and the mother and daughter on the other side of the King, near the Dauphin and Madame Adelaide.
Once having played at Versailles, they were sure of access to the most distinguished society.[20022]A small oil painting, now in the Museum at Versailles, shows little Wolfgang at the clavier in the _salon_ of Prince Conti, the centre of an assemblage of great people. Finally, having established their
position in private society they gave two great concerts (on March 10 and April 9, 1764) in the rooms of a certain fashionable M. Felix, who had built a little theatre for private representations. The permission to give these concerts was a favour obtained with difficulty, as they infringed the privileges both of the Concert Spirituel and of the French and Italian theatres. The result was in every respect a brilliant success. Marianne Mozart played the most difficult compositions of the musicians then living in Paris, especially of Schobert and Eckart, with a precision and correctness that could not have been surpassed by the masters themselves.