Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour
Madame de Pompadour was the king's mistress for five years and his political adviser for nineteen. She was born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson in 1721 to a financial official who fled the country under indictment, was raised by a wealthy protector who gave her an education of unusual quality — singing, acting, drawing, engraving — and was married into the tax-farming bourgeoisie. A fortune-teller had reportedly told her at nine that she would reign over the heart of a king, and the family treated it as a plan. She met Louis XV at a masked ball in 1745, was installed at Versailles within months, and was given a title so that she could be presented at court. The physical relationship ended around 1750 and her position did not, which is what makes her unusual. She managed the king's boredom, which was the central political fact of the reign — hunting parties, private theatricals in which she performed, small suppers, the building of the Petit Trianon and of the porcelain works at Sèvres — and she took a hand in appointments, in the dismissal of ministers, and in the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 that allied France with Austria. She protected Voltaire and the Encyclopédie and was attacked in verse for everything, including the Seven Years' War. The remark about the deluge coming after is attributed to her. She died of tuberculosis in 1764 at forty-two, and the king watched the funeral from a window in the rain. Her collection of porcelain, furniture, paintings and books was among the finest of the century and was sold and dispersed within months of her death. The pink shade named after her was invented at Sèvres for her, and the hairstyle still is.
- Lived: 1721 CE – 1764 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: royal_favourite, patroness_of_arts, political_advisor
