Madame de Pompadour at her Dressing Table , François Boucher (1758) I recently taught the Age of Enlightenment, and spent some time discussing the extraordinary Madame de Pompadour. As I was regaling a series of interesting tales about the marquise to my eager students, I thought, "This would make for an excellent blog!" Donc...voilà! Jeanne Antoinette Poisson was born into a middle class family on 29 December 1721. The story goes that as a nine-year-old girl, the future Marquise de Pompadour and her mother visited a fortune teller who predicted that Jeanne would be the maîtresse-en-titre , or official mistress, of the king. From that point on, her mother groomed her to be a king's mistress, even dubbing her daughter Reinette (little queen). Reinette was well-educated, beautiful, a talented singer and performer, and refined - all of which made her the perfect candidate for mistress. Portrait of Madame de Pompadour , François Boucher (1756) In 1741, Rei
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