Madame de Pompadour’s 20 years of power marked the very apogee of taste in France. However, the “secret” staircase didn’t stay secret for long. The future mistress received the best education a young girl could get at an Ursuline convent, with even the philosopher Voltaire admitting that he was impressed by how much she’d read. In 1744 Louis XV’s young mistress, the duchesse de Châteauroux, died suddenly. When the doctors examined her, they had terrible news: the king’s great love had tuberculosis. Here’s the thing: Pompadour wasn’t crazy for setting her sights on the king. One of her last actions was to get Louis XV’s support for the revision of the Calas case, a gross miscarriage of justice in which Voltaire was interested. After five romantic years in her attic, Madame de Pompadour moved downstairs to a regal apartment. Please reach out to us to let us know what you’re interested in reading. outside, their relationship was happy and healthy, modern historians now know that the couple hid a dark secret behind bedroom doors. In fact, Charles’ father approved of Pompadour’s social climbing! Of course, once inside their humble abode, all the “rustic” jugs and bowls were actually made of incredibly expensive materials. Madame de Pompadour was the long-standing mistress of King Louis XV of France. Voltaire said of her: I mourn her out of gratitude.…Born sincere, she loved the King for himself; she had righteousness in her soul and justice in her heart; all this is not to be met with every day. He referenced her great contribution to his career by saying, “I am indebted to her and I mourn her out of gratitude.” Even the weather seemed to mourn her loss. To be fair, they weren’t completely wrong. In 1750, the public began to pressure King Louis XV to clean up his act, get rid of his mistresses, and live as a good Christian ruler. When little Pompadour became ill and rushed home to recover, a mysterious man stepped in to help the young girl: the handsome tax collector Le Normant de Tournehem. In public, the reason for Pompadour’s shifting role was chalked up to her poor health. But some say he didn’t do so just out of the goodness of his heart…, Because of Le Normant de Tournehem’s devotion and care for Pompadour, a dark rumor emerged. I would not be so calm if I saw some pretty woman of the court or the capital trying to conquer it.” But as we’ll see, there were far more reasons for her to be so relaxed about Louis’ side pieces. As the most commanding mistress in the French court, she bettered the lives of many and became a beloved figure in European history and pop culture. Scholars believe that Pompadour may have had “leucorrhoea.”. How did she gain the eye of the king? However, her husband, Charles Guillaume le Normant, didn’t feel the same. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. She agreed to live in another set of apartments to appease the court. But that’s not the full story…, The irony is that while Pompadour’s responsibility for France’s defeat was indirect at best, it is historical fact that Pompadour supported a number of important ministers such as Bertin and Machaut. Even so, there is a dark detail about Pompadour’s involvement in the War and it involves a now-famous quotation. But apparently, there’s a hidden meaning to the hue: It wasn’t just Pompadour’s favorite color, it was the color of her undergarments. Pompadour’s husband remained a sore sport about his wife abandoning him for the … The protector of most of the authors and the editor of the Encyclopédie, she would have liked to do for literature what she did for the arts, but the king had no literary interests and disliked the intellectuals whom he knew. All these little girls with no education will not take it from me. With that done, she made Louis give his wife’s apartments a stylish renovation. This is the entrancing tale of Madame de Pompadour. Thank Madame de Pompadour. She dressed as Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, referencing how she’d first pursued the king on his hunting trip. The answer is simple: She was beautiful. Thanks for your help! The seer allegedly foretold that Pompadour “would one day reign over the heart of a king.” Pompadour would fulfill that prophecy, but her path to the top would be anything but smooth. But what do we really know about this fascinating woman? While on the outside, their relationship was happy and healthy, modern historians now know that the couple hid a dark secret behind bedroom doors. She immediately rebranded, pitching herself as “the friend of the king” with an elaborate gesture. Marie could hardly have been a more unsuitable wife for the handsome, artistic, sensual, and pleasure-loving Louis XV. Pompadour told one of her friends that Louis’ side dalliances didn’t bother her because, “It is his heart I want! At the time, failure to pay debts carried the death penalty. Although the king deeply grieved at Pompadour’s death, court protocol forbade him from attending her funeral. My mom never told me how her best friend died. When Pompadour was 19 years old, her guardian and possibly her secret father, Le Normant de Tournehem, came to her with a proposition. Shy and introspective, he had difficulty in communicating with people whom he did not know well. Her collaboration with the king was twofold, artistic and political. The French court was full of backstabbing and in-fighting, and poor Madame de Pompadour had it worse than most people. In 1764, Madame de Pompadour began to feel unwell. The sitter in this portrait holds our gaze directly. This alliance was the reason that France entered the brutal Seven Years’ War. Thanks for your time! Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Who was the real Madame de Pompadour? Apparently, its shape is based on Pompadour’s mouth. Attractive, educated, and highly intelligent, Pompadour spent several fortunes collecting art and prized gems. These post-Revolution writers were concerned with portraying the Bourbon monarchs as poor creatures; it is now generally admitted that Louis XV was a much more able man than he has been painted. Pompadour was deeply engaged in arts and culture, and one of her project was editing the first French Encyclopedia by her frenemy Diderot and his co-writer d’Alembert. Eight years older than he, she was preoccupied with the welfare of her father (a deposed king of Poland), with childbearing, and with religion. Pompadour stayed at the palace. Pompadour’s dear friend Voltaire told her about the miscarriage of justice, leading Pompadour to intervene. When Madame de Pompadour moved into Versailles, she lived in a room directly above King Louis XV, but apparently, even that wasn’t close enough for the king. Apparently, when he heard that she was planning to leave him, he fell to the ground in shock. After all, Pompadour was still born as a Jeanne Poisson, a middle class woman. He set up a legal separation so that his new mistress could officially leave her unwilling husband. She suffered multiple miscarriages, her childhood bout with whooping cough had weakened her, and she always seemed to have a cold or bronchitis. Because of Pompadour’s disastrous involvement with the Seven Years War, she became the most hated woman in France. After her death, he let the world know how he really felt about the king’s great love. But in order to do so, Le Normant ruthlessly removed all his other nieces and nephews from his will. If the people wanted her gone, she’d be out of the streets. Pompadour had so much sway over the king that she got him to give her brother a noble title too. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. For Pompadour, this was as good as a death sentence. She purposefully rode in the king’s path several times and to make doubly sure that he couldn’t miss her, she wore differently colored outfits each time. Apparently, Charles was absolutely besotted with his new bride. Her father, François Poisson, involved in a black-market scandal, had to flee the country in 1725; his beautiful wife and two small children were then looked after by a more fortunate colleague, Le Normant de Tournehem.
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