Editing Louis XV (section)

==Legends: "After us, the flood" and the Parc-aux-Cerfs==
The most famous remark attributed to Louis XV (or sometimes to Madame de Pompadour) is ''[[Après nous, le déluge]]'' ("After us, the flood"). It is commonly explained as his indifference to financial excesses, and a prediction of the French Revolution to come. The remark is usually taken out of its original context. It was made in 1757, a year which saw the crushing defeat of the French army by the Prussians at the [[Battle of Rossbach]] and the assassination attempt on the King himself. The "flood" that Louis XV referred to was not a revolution, but the arrival of [[Halley's Comet]], which was predicted to pass by the earth in 1757, and which was commonly blamed for having caused the flood described in the Bible, with predictions of a new flood when it returned. The King was a proficient amateur astronomer, who collaborated with the best French astronomers. Biographer Michel Antoine wrote that the King's remark "was a manner of evoking, with his scientific culture and a good dose of black humor, this sinister year beginning with the assassination attempt by Damiens and ending with the Prussian victory". Halley's Comet finally passed the earth in April 1759, and attracted enormous public attention and anxiety, but caused no floods.<ref>Antoine (1989), pp. 740–741.</ref>

Another popular legend concerned the [[Parc-aux-Cerfs|Maison-aux-Cerfs]], the house at Versailles where, when the King was no longer having sexual relations with Madame de Pompadour, he sometimes slept with his ''petites maîtresses'', young women recruited for that purpose. The conventional wisdom at the time was to view it as a kind of [[harem]], organized by Madame de Pompadour, where a group of women were kidnapped and kept for the King's pleasure. The legend circulated widely in pamphlets with lurid illustrations, and made its way into some later biographies of the King. In reality the house had only one occupant at a time, and for brief periods. Madame de Pompadour herself accepted the Maison-aux-Cerfs as a preferable alternative to the risks of a rival at court, as she stated: "It is his heart I want! All these little girls with no education will not take it from me. I would not be so calm if I saw some pretty woman of the court or the capital trying to conquer it."<ref>Algrant, (2002), p. 159.</ref> In February 1765, after the death of Madame de Pompadour, the house was closed.<ref name="Antoine 1989, p. 824"/>