"The future Madame de Pompadour, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson was born on 29 December, 1721 in Paris to François and Madeleine La Motte Poisson. Her father was exiled for fraud, leaving her mother to raise her and her brother, Abel-François. Fortunately for the family, the local férmier général (tax collector), Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem, became Jeanne-Antoinette and Abel-François's legal guardian, raising suspicion that he was their biological father."
"Jeanne-Antoinette was a precocious and uncommonly pretty child, and a fortune teller told her mother that the little girl would one day win the heart of the king, causing her to be nicknamed Reinette, "little Queen." From then on Madame Poisson was determined that her daughter would be prepared for the heady heights of a role as a royal mistress, though it was well known that fortune tellers, of which there were many in 18 th century Paris, frequently predicted such "good fortune" to their clients."
Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson was born on 29 December 1721 in Paris to François and Madeleine La Motte Poisson. Her father was exiled for fraud, leaving her mother to raise Jeanne-Antoinette and her brother Abel-François. Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem became their legal guardian, prompting suspicion he was their biological father. A fortune teller predicted that Jeanne-Antoinette would win the king's heart, earning her the nickname Reinette. Her mother arranged extensive tutoring in memorization, dance, music, painting and engraving. At nineteen she married Charles-Guillaume Le Normant d'Étiolles, cultivated relationships with philosophers and writers, rose into Parisian elite, and became a powerful royal mistress, major arts patron and adviser to Louis XV.
Read at The Good Life France
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