Madame De Pompadour

About this book

Biography. Jeanne Antoinette Poisson Marquise de Pompadour also known as Madame de Pompadour (29 December 1721 15 April 1764 was a member of the French court and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to her death. Poisson was intelligent beautiful and refined. She spent her younger childhood at the Ursuline convent in Poissy where she received a good education.2 At adolescence her mother took personal charge of her education at home by hiring tutors who taught her to recite entire plays by heart play the clavichord dance sing paint and engrave. She became an accomplished actress and singer and also attended Pariss Club de lEntresol (formed in 1724 and suppressed in 1731). The greatest expense of her education was the employment of renowned singers and actors such as Pierre Jlyotte much of it paid for by Le Normant de Tournehem; and it may have been this in particular that sparked rumours of his paternity to Poisson. She later claimed that at the age of nine she was taken by her mother to a fortune teller and told that she would someday reign over the heart of a king.