POMPADOUR (JEANNE ANTOINETTE Poisson), :Marquise de, a notable mistress of Louis XV., was b. in Paris in 1720 or 1722. Her reputed father was a certain Francois Poisson, who held a humble office in the army-commissariat; but 31. le Normand de Tournheim. a rich fermier-general. claimed for himself the honors, of a dubious paternity, and brought up the little Jeanne as his daughter. She turned out a wonderfully clever child, and M. le Normand spared no pains to give her the best, or, at least, the most stylish education possible. She excelled in such accomplishments as music, elocution, and drawing; but what charmed the brilliant society that frequented the salons of the rich financier, wat the perfect grace and beauty of her figure, and the exquisite art with which she dressed. A crowd of suitors constantly besieged her, but the one who obtained her hand was her cousin, Le Norway l'Etioles. They were married in 17-11. But Mute. l'Etioles, who was constantly told by her infamous mother that she was a " morsel for a king," was careless of her husband's honor and peace. Though he loved her to distraction—and he was a man with whose love auv woman might have been content—she, cold, heartless, and ambitious, was scheming clay and night to attract the notice of the monarch. Her efforts were after a time crowned with success, and Mme. l'Etioles was installed in the palace of Versailles; she was soon afterward ennobled by the title of marquise de Pompadour, and long ruled the king, first as mistress, and afterward as anise neeessaire. One reads with some astonishment of the incessant artifices she had recourse to in order to preserve her influence—the everlasting buntings, concerts, private theatricals, little suppers, and what not—anything to distract the royal mind (surely sufficiently distracted already by nature), and to make it think only of the clever pur veyor of gayeties! The private theatricals, in particular, were a great success, and were "got up" every winter from 1747 to 1753—the marquise herself proving a charming actress.
The king thought the marquise extremely clever, and, when he ceased to "love" her, was 0lad to avail himself of her services as his political adviser. In fact, she became 9 premier of France; the council of ministers assembled iu her boudoir, where the most important affairs of state were settled. The choice of ministers, of ambassadors, of generals, depended on the caprice of a female; the abbe de Bemis, the favorite of a favorite, entered the council. Foreign diplomacy turned the circumstance to account. The Austrian prime-minister induced Maria Theresa to sacrifice her pride to the exigencies of her position, and the empress-queen wrote the courtesan a letter in which she addressed her as ma cousine. That word turned the head of the marquise, and changed for a time the foreign policy of France. She died (April 15, 1764) with the reins of government in her hands. During her lifetime, immense sums from the national treasury were paid away to the marquise, and to her brother, created marquis de 3larigny. In the years 1762-63 alone, they amounted to 3,456,000 livres. She had numerous houses and lands also given her. In 1853. M. le Roi, keeper of the town library of Versailles, published in the Journal de Unstruction Publique, a list of the expenses of the marquise de Pompadour during the years in which she had enjoyed the royal favor, which he had found in MS. in the archives of the department of Seine-et-Oise. They amounted to 36,000,000 livres. She was imperious and vindictive beyond measure, and with relentless cruelty doomed to pemetnal imprisonment, in the dungeons of the bastille and elsewhere, multitudes who had dared to speak about her ill-gotten gains and power. After facts like these, it is but a poor apology for the marquise to say that she encouraged savans, poets, and philosophers, patronized and protected the Encyclopedic, and aided in the expulsion of the Jesuits. The LcIlrec in her name are mostly spurious. See the Life by Goncourt (new ed. 1878).