Madame de Pompadour

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Madame de Pompadour, portrait by François Boucher circa 1750

Madame de Pompadour (December 29, 1721 – April 15, 1764) was a well known courtesan and the famous mistress of King Louis XV of France.

[edit] Early life

Madame de Pompadour was born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson on December 29, 1721 in Paris. It is suspected that her biological father was the rich financier Le Normant de Tournehem, who became her legal guardian when her official father was forced to leave the country in 1725 after a scandal. Her younger brother was Abel-François Poisson de Vandières (who would later become the Marquis de Marigny). She was intelligent, beautiful, and educated; she also learned to dance, engrave and play the clavichord.

She was married in 1741 (at the age of 19) to Charles-Guillaume Le Normant d'Etiolles, nephew of her guardian. With him, she had two children, a boy who died the year after his birth in 1741 and Alexandrine-Jeanne (nicknamed "Fanfan"), born August 10, 1744.

Contemporary opinion supported by artwork from the time considered Poisson to be quite beautiful, with her small mouth and oval face enlivened by her wit. Her young husband was soon mad about her and she reigned in the fashionable world of Paris.

[edit] The King's mistress

Poisson caught the eye of monarch Louis XV in 1745. A group of courtiers, including her father-in-law, endorsed her as courtesan to Louis XV, who was still mourning the death of his second mistress, the Duchess of Châteauroux. In February 1745, Jeanne-Antoinette was invited to a royal masquerade ball that celebrated the marriage of the king's son. By March she was a regular visitor and king's mistress, and the king installed her at Versailles. He also bought her Pompadour, the first of six residences. In July, Louis made her a marquise and had her legally separated from her husband; on September 14 she was formally presented at court.

Mme de Pompadour, pastel by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, shown at the Paris Salon, 1755 (Louvre Museum)

Madame de Pompadour was an accomplished woman with a good eye for Rococo interiors. She had a keen interest in literature. She had known Voltaire before her ascendancy, and the playwright apparently advised her in her courtly role. Contrary to popular belief - and contemporary opinion - she never had much direct political influence, but she supported Belle Île and endorsed the Duke of 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, attempted to replace her around 1754. The younger and less experienced O'Murphy was arranged to be married off to a lesser noble and out of the royal court's inner circle.

Choiseul encouraged the basic shift in French foreign policy away from Prussia and towards France's hereditary rival, the Austrian Habsburgs. This alliance eventually brought on the Seven Years' War, with all its disasters, the battle of Rosbach and the loss of New France (Canada). However, Pompadour persisted in her support of these policies, and, when Bernis failed her, brought Choiseul into office and supported him in all his great plans: the Pacte de Famille, the suppression of the Jesuits, and the peace of Versailles that lost Canada. She also discreetly endorsed Diderot's Encyclopédie project.

Her memorial portrait finished in 1764 after her death, but begun from the life, by her favorite portraitist, François-Hubert Drouais

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 were turning Chinese vases into ewers with gilt-bronze Rococo handles and were mounting 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 Francois Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and Francois-Hubert Drouais (illustration, right).

Pompadour suffered two miscarriages in the 1750s, and she is said to have arranged lesser mistresses for the king's pleasure to replace herself. Although they did not sleep together after 1750, Louis XV remained devoted to her until her death in 1764 at the age of 42. At the time she was publicly blamed for the Seven Years' War.

[edit] In popular culture

• 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]
• The classic pink of Sèvres porcelain is rose de Pompadour.
• The Pompadour haircut is named after her.
• "Pompadour heels", (more commonly known as "Louis heels") are named after her.
• The "Coupe de champagne" (French champagne glass) was supposedly first moulded on her breast, although this is probably not the case.^[2]
• 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-Élyssées, 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) (Doctor Who — "The Girl in the Fireplace", a science fiction story, 2006);^[3]
  • Hélène de Fougerolles (Jeanne Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, 2006).
• 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. [2] [3] [4]
• Madame Pompadour is the name of PeeWee's rag doll in the Robert A. Heinlein juvenile novel Have Space Suit, Will Travel.
• In My Name is Kim Sam Soon, the title character presents an ice cream confection named "Marquis de Glacerie" in honor of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour.
• During the musical Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, she is mentioned by an Argentine senator, comparing her to Eva Perón.

[edit] See also

• List of French royal mistresses

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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Madame de Pompadour

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