Madame de Pompadour Born: Power Behind the French Throne

Madame de Pompadour rose from the Parisian bourgeoisie to become the most powerful woman in France as the official mistress and chief advisor to Louis XV. Born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson on December 29, 1721, she was the daughter of a financier and was groomed from childhood for a life at court. A fortune teller reportedly predicted when she was nine that she would one day captivate the king, and her mother's wealthy protector, Charles Le Normant de Tournehem, ensured she received an education in music, theater, art, and conversation that would make the prophecy self-fulfilling. She met Louis XV at a masked ball in 1745 and was installed as his official mistress within months, receiving the title Marquise de Pompadour and apartments at Versailles. Her influence extended far beyond the bedroom. She served as Louis's most trusted political advisor for nearly two decades, influencing appointments, shaping foreign policy, and exercising patronage that determined the cultural direction of the French Enlightenment. She championed Voltaire, supported Diderot's Encyclopedie, and established the porcelain works at Sevres that became one of France's most prestigious luxury manufacturers. Her political influence helped steer France into the Seven Years' War, an alliance with Austria against Prussia that reversed centuries of French diplomatic tradition. The war ended disastrously for France, costing it nearly all of its colonial possessions in North America and India. She was blamed for the defeats, though the strategic miscalculations were shared by the king and his ministers. She died on April 15, 1764, at forty-two, of tuberculosis. Louis reportedly watched her funeral cortege from a balcony at Versailles, weeping in the rain.