Bernier told us that with the coronation of Louis XIV, France was becoming “civilized.” This was a concept that was “new” – and doesn’t even exist anymore (we are allegedly civilized). Women, Bernier told us, were regarded as the more civilized of the genders. More refined, more clever.
![]() | ![]() | | Marie Leszczyńska, Queen of France. | ![]() |
For a girl like Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, a child of uncertain parentage, the greatest achievement would be to become a mistress of a rich man. Little Jeanne’s mother knew this and with the assistance of a man who was or wasn’t her father, she was “educated” to the refinements and the ways of the world which she would enter.
She was a year old when the King, then only fifteen, married his only wife, Marie Leszczyńska, who was daughter of the King of Poland. Jeanne was 21 – and he was 30 – when she met him for the first time at Versailles in 1745. She became his official mistress within weeks.
Pompadour was given the title because a king’s mistress had to be titled. That way she could live down the hall – the “hall” in this case being the Hall of Mirrors.
Bernier told us that “rouge” was important. The way it was worn was telling. A young girl would wear it very lightly. An older woman, like Marie Leszczyńska, might not wear any. She might instead a scarf of black lace instead, indicating the end of something. But rouge in their world: a woman might wear it in two round daubs on a very white face. Jeanne Poisson knew how to wear it. |
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