Madame de Pompadour

Childhood and education

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson was born on 29 December 1721 in Paris to François Poisson and his wife Madeleine de la Motte. However, it is suspected that her biological father was the rich financier Le Normant de Tournehem^{[citation needed]}, who became her legal guardian when François Poisson, a steward to the Pâris brothers—foremost financiers of the French economy—was forced to leave the country in 1725 after a scandal over a series of unpaid debts, a crime at that time punishable by death. Poisson was cleared eight years later and allowed to return to France. Her younger brother was Abel-François Poisson de Vandières (who would later become the Marquis de Marigny). Jeanne-Antoinette was intelligent, beautiful, and educated; she also learned to dance, engrave, play the clavichord and was an accomplished actress and singer.

She later claimed that at the age of nine, she was taken by her mother to a fortune teller and told that she would someday reign over the heart of a king.^{[citation needed]} Apparently, her mother believed the prophecy and accordingly nicknamed her "Reinette". She spent a year in a convent as her father wished her to be exposed to the Roman Catholic religion. She then received a refined education at home, which included learning to recite entire plays by heart, botany, painting, and effective running of a large household. Much of this education was paid for by Le Normant de Tournehem, a close friend of her mother's, and it may have been this in particular that sparked rumours of his paternity to little Jeanne-Antoinette. The greatest expense of her education was undoubtedly the employment of renown singers and actors, such as Pierre Jélyotte. However, her parents initially found it hard to make her a good match.

Marriage

In 1741, at the age of nineteen, Jeanne-Antoinette was married to Charles-Guillaume Le Normant d'Étiolles, nephew of her guardian, who accepted the match and the large financial incentives that came with it. These included the estate at Étiolles, a wedding gift from her guardian, which was situated on the edge of the royal hunting ground of the forest of Sénart. With her husband, she had two children, a boy who died the year after his birth in 1741 and Alexandrine-Jeanne (nicknamed "Fanfan"), born 10 August 1744. Contemporary opinion supported by artwork from the time considered the young Mme d'Étiolles to be quite beautiful, with her small mouth and oval face enlivened by her wit. Her young husband was soon infatuated with her and she was celebrated in the fashionable world of Paris. She founded her own salon, at Étiolles outside Paris, and was joined by many of the great philosophes, Voltaire among them.

As Mme d'Étiolles became known in society, even the King came to hear of her. Her mother, Mme Poisson, ever ambitious for the prophecy to succeed, on numerous occasions had taken her Reinette in their carriage to the royal forest in the hope of 'accidentally' encountering the King.^{[citation needed]} At last, in 1745, Mme d'Étiolles caught the eye of King Louis XV. A group of courtiers, including her father-in-law, promoted her acquaintance with the monarch, who was still mourning the death of his second official mistress, the duchesse de Châteauroux. In February 1745, Jeanne-Antoinette was invited to a royal masked ball at the Palace of Versailles celebrating the marriage of Louis de France (1729-1765), the Dauphin, to the Infanta Maria Teresa of Spain (1726-1746).

Jeanne-Antoinette was formally introduced by the king's cousin, the princesse de Conti.

At the chosen moment in the Grand Ballroom, eight costumed figures appeared, comically dressed as yew tree hedges, one of which was the King in disguise. By chance or design, Jeane-Antoinette, dressed as Diana, goddess of the hunt, had found her prey and soon the King removed his headdress and engaged her in courtly conversation. By March, she was a regular visitor and the King's mistress, installed at Versailles.

Louis XV also bought her the estate of Pompadour^{[citation needed]}, a marquisate with title and coat-of-arms, for, in order to be presented at court, she required a title. In July, Louis made her a marquise and she was legally separated from her crestfallen husband. On 14 September, she was formally presented at court, and quickly mastered the highly-mannered court etiquette, although initially it is said the king joked to his close friends that he would have much to teach her (clearly referring to her bourgeois roots). Unfortunately, her mother had died too early to see the prophecy come true; come true it had, however, and at the age of twenty-three she was the undisputed royal mistress, commanding considerable power^{[citation needed]} and the attention of the court. She was soon to become embroiled in the world of alliances, conspiracies, politics, and frivolity.

Politics

Contrary to popular belief, the marquise de Pompadour never had much direct political influence, but supported the Maréchal de Belle-Isle and endorsed the duc de Choiseul to the king. However, she did wield considerable power and control behind the scenes, which was highlighted when another of the king's mistresses, Marie-Louise O'Murphy de Boisfaily, "la belle Morphyse", attempted to replace her around 1754. The younger and less experienced Morphyse was arranged to be married off to a lesser noble and out of the royal court's inner circle, the Lord of Ayat, uncle of the famous general Desaix. A son from this marriage was present at the execution of Louis XVI^{[citation needed]}.

The marquise de Pompadour had many enemies among the royal courtiers, who felt it a disgrace that the king would thus compromise himself with a commoner. She was very sensitive to the unending libels called poissonnades, a pun on her family name, Poisson, which means "fish" in French. Only with great reluctance did Louis take punitive action against known enemies such as the duc de Richelieu^{[citation needed]}.

Her importance was such that she was even approached in 1755 by Wenzel Anton Graf Kaunitz, a prominent Austrian diplomat, asking her to intervene in the negotiations which led to the 1756 Treaty of Versailles^{[citation needed]}. This was the beginning of the so-called Diplomatic Revolution, which temporarily lessened the long antagonism between France and Austria.

This alliance eventually brought on the Seven Years' War, with all its disasters, like the loss of New France in Canada to the British and the defeat at the hands of the Prussians in the Battle of Rossbach, in 1757. After Rossbach, she is alleged to have comforted the king saying this now famous by-word: "au reste, après nous, le Déluge" ("After us, the Deluge")^{[citation needed]}. France emerged from the war diminished and virtually bankrupt.

However, Mme de Pompadour persisted in her support of these policies, and when Cardinal de Bernis failed her, she brought Choiseul into office and supported him in all his great plans: the Pacte de Famille, the suppression of the Jesuits and the Treaty of Paris (1763) sealing the loss of Canada^{[citation needed]}.

Position at court

The marquise de Pompadour was an accomplished woman with a good eye for Rococo interiors. She was responsible for the development of the manufactory of Sèvres, which became one of the most famous porcelain manufacturers in Europe and which provided skilled jobs to the region. She had a keen interest in literature. She had known Voltaire before her ascendancy, and the writer, essayist, philosopher apparently advised her in her courtly role. She also discreetly endorsed Diderot's Encyclopédie project. After the War of the Austrian Succession, when economy was the thing the French state needed most, she drew more and more resources into the lavish court. Her influence over Louis increased markedly through the 1750s, to the point where he allowed her considerable leeway in the determination of policy over a whole range of issues, from military matters to foreign affairs^{[citation needed]}.

Mme de Pompadour was a woman of verve and intelligence. She planned buildings like the Place de la Concorde and the Petit Trianon with her brother, the Marquis de Marigny. She employed the stylish marchands-merciers, trendsetting shopkeepers who turned Chinese vases into ewers with gilt-bronze Rococo handles and mounted writing tables with the new Sèvres porcelain plaques. Numerous other artisans, sculptors and portrait painters were employed, among them the court artist Jean-Marc Nattier, in the 1750s François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and François-Hubert Drouais (illustration, right).

Mme de Pompadour suffered two miscarriages in 1746 and 1749, and she is said to have arranged lesser mistresses for the King's pleasure to replace herself. Although they had ceased being lovers after 1750, they remained friends, and Louis XV was devoted to her until her death from tuberculosis in 1764 at the age of forty-two. Even her enemies admired her courage during the final painful weeks. Voltaire wrote: "I am very sad at the death of Madame de Pompadour. I was indebted to her and I mourn her out of gratitude. It seems absurd that while an ancient pen-pusher, hardly able to walk, should still be alive, a beautiful woman, in the midst of a splendid career, should die at the age of forty'. Yet, at the time of her death, many enemies were greatly relieved and she was publicly blamed for the Seven Years' War. Looking at the rain during the leaving of his mistress' coffin from Versailles, the King reportedly said: "La marquise n'aura pas beau temps pour son voyage." ("The marquise won't have good weather for her journey.").

• The 56th (West Essex) Regiment of Foot, a unit of the British Army that existed from 1755 to 1881, was nicknamed "The Pompadours", as the purple facing of the regiment's uniform was allegedly de Pompadour's favourite colour.^[1] Some soldiers of the regiment preferred to claim that it was the colour of her underwear.^[1] Its successor, the Essex Regiment, kept the colour and the nickname.
• The classic pink of Sèvres porcelain is rose de Pompadour.
• The Pompadour hairstyle is named after her.
• "Pompadour heels", (more commonly known as "Louis heels") are named after her.
• The "coupe de champagne" (French champagne glass) is sometimes claimed to have been modelled on the shape of her breast, although this is probably not the case.^[2]
• She is referenced in the song "Personality" written by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen

On Screen

Madame de Pompadour has been depicted on screen in film and television on many occasions, beginning with Madame Pompadour in 1927, in which she was played by Dorothy Gish. Other actresses to have played her include:

• Anny Ahlers (Die Marquise von Pompadour, 1931);
• Jeanne Boitell, (Remontons les Champs-Élysées, 1938);
• Micheline Presle, (Si Versailles m'était conté, 1954);
• Monique Lepage, (Le Courrier du roy, 1958);
• Elfie Mayerhofer (Madame Pompadour, 1960);
• Noemi Nadelmann (Madame Pompadour, 1996);
• Katja Flint, (Il Giovane Casanova, 2002);
• Sophia Myles (as adult) and Jessica Atkins (as child) ("The Girl in the Fireplace" - an episode of the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, 2006). She is a primary and titular character in the episode, as well as the name of the 51st century spaceship in the story. ^[3]
• Hélène de Fougerolles (Jeanne Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, 2006).

Other

• Madame Pompadour, a German operetta with music by Leo Fall and book and lyrics by Rudolph Schanzer and Ernst Welisch that also had successful adaptations in London (1923) and Broadway (1924).
• She was the subject of several portraits throughout her lifetime.[1]
• During the musical Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, she is mentioned by an Argentine senator, comparing Eva Perón to her.
• In the anime "Le Chevalier d'Eon", she is portrayed as a character that monitors the movements of d'Eon and his men against the Revolutionary brethren. She is voiced by Mayumi Yangisawa in Japanese and by Shelley Calene-Black in the English dub.
• According to legend, the navette-cut or marquis diamond was commissioned by Louis XV to resemble the mouth of Madame de Pompadour.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jeanne-Antoinette Lenormant d’Étiolles, marquise de Pompadour.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Madame de Pompadour.

• List of French royal mistresses

• Madame de Pompadour site