After the first infidelities of the king, Marie Leczinska’s life became more and more austere and secluded; she remained indoors, far from the noise and activity of Versailles, leaving only for charitable purposes or for the theatre.  Her mornings were entirely occupied in prayers and moral readings, after which followed a visit to the king, a little painting, the toilette, mass, and dinner.  After dinner, she retired to her apartments and passed the time making tapestry, embroidering, and in charity work—­no longer the recreation of leisure, but the duty of charity which the poor expected.  Her taste for music, the guitar, the clavecin, all amusements in which she delighted before her marriage, were abandoned.  Under such circumstances the mistress had full control of everything.

It was prophesied of Mlle. Jeanne Poisson, at the age of nine, that she would become the mistress of Louis XV. (Mme. Lebon, who made this pleasing prediction, was later rewarded with a pension of six hundred livres.) Mlle. Jeanne was the natural daughter of a butcher, but received a good education and, at the age of twenty, was married to Le Normand d’Etioles, farmer of taxes.  It was shortly after this that she managed to attract the king’s attention, at a hunting party in the forest of Senart.  With the assistance of her friends, she was successful in winning the king, and, in April, 1754, at a supper which lasted far into the early morning, reposing in his arms, she virtually became the mistress of Louis XV.  The actual accomplishment of this, however, depended upon the disposal of her husband, which was easily arranged by Louis, who ordered Le Normand d’Etioles from Paris, thus securing her from any harm from him.  The brothers De Goncourt write thus of her talents: 

“Marvellous aptitudes, a scholarly and rare education, had given to this young woman all the gifts and virtues that made of a woman what the eighteenth century called a virtuoso, an accomplished model of the seductions of her time.  Jeliotte had taught her singing and the clavecin; Guibaudet, dancing; Crebillon had taught her declamation and the art of diction; the friends of Crebillon had formed her young mind to finesse, to delicacies, to lightness of sentiment, and to irony of the esprit of the time.  All the talents of grace seemed to be united in her.  No woman mounted a horse better; none captured applause more quickly than did she with her voice and instrument; none recalled in a better way the tone of Gaussin or the accent of Clairon; none could tell a story better.  And there where others could vie with her in coquetry, she carried off the honors by her genius of toilette, by the graceful turn she gave to a mere rag, by the air she imparted to a mere nothing which ornamented her, by the characteristic signature which her taste gave to everything she wore.”