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Madame de Pompadour, portrait by François Boucher circa 1750

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise (later Duchesse) de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour (December 29, 1721 – April 15, 1764) was a well known courtesan and the famous mistress of King Louis XV of France.

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 Francois Poisson, a steward to the Paris brothers--foremost financiers of the French economy--was forced to leave the country in 1725 after a scandal. He 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). She was intelligent, beautiful, and educated; she also learned to dance, engrave and play the clavichord. She later claimed that at the age of nine, she was taken to a fortune teller by her mother and told that she would someday reign over the heart of a king. Apparently her mother believed the prophecy and accordingly nicknamed her "Reinette". She spent a year in a convent upon the wish of her father to be exposed to the Roman Catholic religion. Then her education at home resumed, and she learned to recite entire plays by heart, learned about botany, learned to paint, charm men, and to effectively run a household. Her parents initially found it hard to make her a good match, probably due to their own notoriety rather than any defect in their daughter.

At last, she was married in 1741 (at the age of 19) to Charles-Guillaume Le Normant d'Étiolles, nephew of her guardian, who accepted the match and the large financial incentives that came with it. 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. She founded her own salon and the great philosophes soon circled her flame.

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

As Reinette became known in society, even the King came to hear of her. Madame Poisson, ever ambitious for the prophecy to succeed, numerous times took Reinette in their carriage to the royal forest in the hope of 'accidentally' encountering the King. At last, Reinette caught the eye of King Louis XV in 1745. 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, Antoinette was invited to a royal mask ball at Versailles celebrating the marriage of the King's son. 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, Reinette 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 King's mistress, installed at Versailles. He also bought her the estate of Pompadour, a marquisate with title and coat-of-arms. In July, Louis created her a marquise and she was legally separated from her crestfallen husband; on September 14 she was formally presented at court, where she demonstrated her mastery of the highly-mannered court etiquette. She was now 23, a bourgeoise by birth but nonetheless a royal mistress; however, her mother had died too early to see the prophecy come true. Now she commanded the attention of the court. Quickly, alliances, conspiracies, friends, and enemies swirled around her.

Contrary to popular belief, she never had much direct political influence, but supported the Maréchal de Belle-Isle 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, less experienced O'Murphy was arranged to be married off to a lesser noble and out of the royal court's inner circle. She 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 word meaning something like "fish stew", 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 du Richelieu.

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. 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, the Battle of Rosbach and the loss of New France (Canada). After the defeat of France at Rosbach in 1757, she is alleged to have comforted the king saying this now famous by-word: "au reste, après nous, le déluge" ("After us, the Deluge"). France emerged from the war diminished and virtually bankrupt.

However, Pompadour persisted in her support of these policies, and, when Cardinal de 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.

Madame 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 playwright 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.

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 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 Francois Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and Francois-Hubert Drouais (illustration, right).

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 did not sleep together after 1750, Louis XV remained devoted to her until her death in 1764 at the age of 42. 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 penpusher, 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 haircut 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]
• 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). She is a primary character in the episode.^[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. [1] [2] [3]
• 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 Eva Perón to her.
• In the anime "Le Chevalier D'Eon" she is used as a character that monitors the movements of D'eon and his men against the Revolutionary brethren.
• Domaine Carneros, located in Napa, CA, makes a brut Rosé de la Pompadour in honor of the mistress and her contributions to literature and the arts.
• According to legend, the navette-cut or marquis diamond was commissioned by Louis XV to resemble the mouth of Madame de Pompadour.
• In the Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace, the title character is soon revealed to be Madame de Pompadour.

• List of French royal mistresses

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