At the age of nineteen, Mlle. Poisson gave her hand to a kinsman of her guardian, M. Le Normant d’Etoiles. The marriage seems to have been the result of a sincere passion on his part, but was looked upon merely as a matter of convenience by everybody else; for not long thereafter we find her luring the King with her “delicious smile,” while he was hunting in the forest of Senart; and in 1745 she was formally installed at Court, under the title of the Marquise de Pompadour. This story, unadorned, may sound paltry, even commercial, but we should not fall into the error of judging it by twentieth century standards. The morals of the French Court, never austere, were especially lax in the reign of Louis XV., and galanteries were the fashion, rather than the exception; while for the post of King’s favorite there was a continual rivalry among high-born dames.
Once in this coveted position, the Marquise devoted her energies to two things, and these she kept ever before her,—the pleasing of her royal master, and the furthering of her party’s interests. How well she succeeded, this book shows. She entertained and amused the King by elaborate pageants, in the various chateaux which she built, or remodelled. Bellevue, Choisy, the Hermitage at Versailles, Menars, La Celle, Montretout,—these are among the monuments of her lavish career, and in these palaces she accumulated costly art objects, such as the Saxe porcelains, the Boulle marbles, and the sumptuous hangings and fittings which have later been known as “Pompadour.” Herself an artist and connoisseur, she “set the pace” during a period of unbridled luxury. She was patroness of the famous Sevres ware. She drew around her such painters and litterateurs as Bouchardon, Carle Van Loo, Marmontel, Bernis, Crebillon, and Duclos. To her Voltaire dedicated his Tancrede.