Après moi, le déluge

"Après moi, le déluge" (pronounced [apʁɛ mwa lə delyʒ]; lit. 'After me, the flood') is a French expression attributed to King Louis XV of France, or in the form "Après nous, le déluge" (pronounced [apʁɛ nu lə delyʒ]; lit. 'After us, the flood') to Madame de Pompadour, his favourite. It is generally regarded as a nihilistic expression of indifference to whatever happens after one is gone. Its meaning was translated in 1898 by E. Cobham Brewer in the forms "When I am dead the deluge may come for aught I care", and "Ruin, if you like, when we are dead and gone".

One account says that Louis XV's downcast expression while he was posing for the artist Maurice Quentin de La Tour inspired Madame de Pompadour to say: "Il ne faut point s'affliger; vous tomberiez malade. Après nous, le déluge." Another account states that the Madame used the expression to laugh off ministerial objections to her extravagances. The phrase is also often seen as foretelling the French Revolution and the corresponding ruin brought to France.

The phrase is believed to date from after the 1757 Battle of Rossbach, which was disastrous for the French, and may have been a reference to the biblical flood. A recent interpretation from biographer Michel Antoine argues that in taking the remark out of original context—which included anticipation of a 1757 arrival of Halley's Comet—earlier interpretations ignore the King's proficiency in astronomy and knowledge of the impending comet, and that it was commonly blamed for causing the Genesis flood (in French, déluge). Thus the expression, Antoine argues, was not a reference to fear of revolution, but to the predicted comet's passing and possible impact.