, 1756) By March, she was the King's mistress, installed at Versailles in an apartment directly above his. On 7 May, the official separation between her and her husband was pronounced. To be presented at court, she required a title. The King purchased the
marquisate of
Pompadour on 24 June and gave the estate, with title and coat-of-arms, to Jeanne Antoinette, making her a
Marquise.
Royal mistress Through her position as court favourite, Pompadour wielded considerable power and influence. She was elevated on 12 October 1752 to duchess and in 1756 to lady-in-waiting to the Queen, the most noble rank possible for a woman at court. Pompadour effectively played the role of prime minister, becoming responsible for appointing advancements, favors and dismissals, and contributing in domestic and foreign politics. the Huntress'' (portrait by
Jean-Marc Nattier, 1746) In 1755, she was approached by
Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg, a prominent Austrian diplomat, asking her to intervene in the negotiations which led to the
Treaty of Versailles. This was the beginning of the
Diplomatic Revolution, which saw France allied to their former enemy Austria. Under these changed alliances, the European powers entered the
Seven Years' War, which saw France, Austria and Russia pitted against Britain and Prussia. France suffered a defeat at the hands of the Prussians in the
Battle of Rossbach in 1757, and eventually lost the
American colonies to the British. After Rossbach, Madame de Pompadour is alleged to have comforted the king with the now famous: "
au reste, après nous, le Déluge" ("Besides, after us, the
Deluge"). France emerged from the war diminished and virtually bankrupt. Madame de Pompadour persisted in her support of these policies, and when
Cardinal de Bernis failed her, she brought Choiseul into office and supported and guided him in all his plans: the
Pacte de Famille, the suppression of the
Jesuits, and the
Treaty of Paris (1763).
Britain's victories in the war had allowed it to surpass France as the leading colonial power – something which was commonly blamed on Pompadour. Pompadour protected the
Physiocrates school (its leader was
Quesnay, her own doctor) which paved the way for
Adam Smith's theories. She also defended the
Encyclopédie, edited by
Denis Diderot and
Jean le Rond d'Alembert, against those, among them the Archbishop of Paris
Christophe de Beaumont, who sought to have it suppressed. In Diderot's first novel,
Les bijoux indiscrets (
The Indiscreet Jewels), the characters of Mangogul and Mirzoza are
allegories of Louis XV and Pompadour respectively. Diderot portrayed Pompadour in a flattering light, most likely to ensure her support for
Encyclopedie. Pompadour had a copy of
Les bijoux indiscrets in her library, which may explain why the crown did not pursue Diderot for such an indiscretion against the king. The marquise 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, analogous to
mazarinade against
Cardinal Mazarin and a pun on her family name,
Poisson, which means "fish" in French. Only with great reluctance did Louis take punitive action against her known enemies, such as
Louis François Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu.
Friend of the King Madame de Pompadour was able to wield such influence at court due to the invaluable role she played as a friend and confidante of the King. In opposition to previous mistresses of Louis XV, Pompadour made herself invaluable to the King by becoming the only person whom Louis trusted and who could be counted on to tell him the truth. Pompadour was an indispensable comfort to Louis who was prone to melancholy and boredom. She alone was able to captivate and amuse him and would entertain Louis with elegant private parties and operas, afternoons of hunting, and journeying among their various chateaux and lodgings. She would sometimes even invite his wife, Queen Marie Leszczyńska, with his help. Around 1750 Madame de Pompadour's role as friend of the King became her solitary role, as she ceased her sexual relationship with the King. The end of this sexual relationship was in part attributed to Pompadour's poor health, as she suffered from the aftereffects of
whooping cough, recurring colds and
bronchitis, spitting blood, headaches, three
miscarriages to the King, as well as an unconfirmed case of
leucorrhoea. In addition, Pompadour admitted to having "the misfortune to be of a very cold temperament", and attempts to increase her libido with a diet of
truffles,
celery, and
vanilla were unsuccessful. Furthermore, in 1750 the
Jubilee year placed pressure upon the King to repent of his sins and renounce his mistress. In order to cement her continuing importance as favourite in the face of these impediments, Pompadour took on the role of "friend of the King" which she announced through artistic patronage. Pompadour's announcement was most prominently declared through her commission from
Jean Baptiste Pigalle, of a sculpture representing herself as Amitié [friendship], offering herself to a now lost pendant sculpture of Louis XV. Pompadour also had a related sculpture depicted in a portrait of herself painted by François Boucher in 1759.
The consecration and the château de Saint-Ouen Built in the second half of the 17th century, the
château de Saint-Ouen, (near Paris, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department), has belonged to the prestigious dukes of Gesvres until its destruction in 1821, to build the actual château for the comtesse du Cayla. After the sale of her , unexpectedly, the marquise de Pompadour did not purchase Saint-Ouen but benefited from the
usufruct of this residence from 1759 until her death in 1764. The plan of the château, originally designed by
Antoine Lepautre, was a classical U-shape and consisted of a long façade with two wings prolonging the main body, facing the river Seine on the garden side. Saint-Ouen's originality resided in its interior distribution: the main body consisted of a succession of three "salons à l'italienne", whose decoration was entirely modified by the
Slodtz family in the 1750s for the Gesvres family. In French architecture, a "salon à l'italienne" is a room filling all the height of a building: a memorable example is the Grand salon at
Vaux-le-Vicomte. In addition to this layout, as soon as Madame de Pompadour acquired the estate, a vast project of reorganisation of the entire buildings (including stables and dependences) was planned, costing more than 500.000 livres. In the absence of the original plans, a restitution of the ground floor has been proposed. It seems that the architect who supervised this reorganisation was
Ange-Jacques Gabriel, who, at that time, directed all the renovation and building works of the different residences of Mme de Pompadour. Using the central "salon à l'italienne" as a pivot, an apartment was created for the King as a counterpart to that of the henceforth Duchesse de Pompadour, making the prestigious château de Saint-Ouen into a reflection of her own status – a symbol of her social and political achievements.
Historical misconceptions Despite misconceptions perpetuated by her contemporaries and much of historical discourse, Pompadour did not supplement her role as mistress by employing replacement lovers for the king. Following the cessation of Pompadour's sexual relationship with Louis, the King met with young women in a house in Versailles established particularly for that purpose, called the
Parc-aux-Cerfs, or Stag Park. It was not, as often described, a harem; it was occupied by only one woman at a time. Pompadour was not involved, other than to accept it as a "necessity". Pompadour's only contribution to the Stag Park was to accept it as a favorable alternative to a rival at court, as she stated: "It is his heart I want! All these little girls with no education will not take it from me. I would not be so calm if I saw some pretty woman of the court or the capital trying to conquer it."
Patron and participant in the arts , shown at the
Paris Salon, 1755 (
Louvre) Madame de Pompadour was an influential patron of the arts who played a central role in making Paris the perceived capital of taste and culture in Europe. She attained this influence through the appointment of her guardian Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem, and later her brother,
Abel-François Poisson in the post of
Directeur Général des Bâtiments, which controlled government policy and expenditures for the arts. She championed French pride by constructing and later outright buying a
porcelain factory at Sèvres in 1759, which became one of the most famous porcelain manufacturers in Europe, and which provided skilled jobs for the region. Numerous sculptors and portrait painters were patronized by Pompadour, among them the court artist
Jean-Marc Nattier, in the 1750s
François Boucher,
Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and
François-Hubert Drouais. Pompadour greatly influenced and stimulated innovation in what is known as the
Rococo style in the fine and decorative arts: for example, through her patronage of the artists like Boucher and the constant refurnishing of the fifteen residences she held with Louis. Like Pompadour, this style was critiqued by some as a pernicious "feminine" influence, despite the fact that it was embraced by many men as well as women. Her political mind also can be attributed to her great book collection. She collected influential books such as the
History of the Stuarts, printed in 1760 with her own printing press which can be determined through the stamp markings of her arms located on the cover. Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, an avid 19th-century collector in London and Waddesdon Manor, collected a number of her books, including this previously mentioned book and a copy of her published catalogue of books from 1764, which lists her entire collection. == Artwork ==