Marquise de Pompadour
Marquise de Pompadour, Jeanne. Antoinette Poisson, (1721-64). Mistress of Louis XV of France. Having married in 1741, she lived at Versailles and was created Marquise in 1745, the year she became the king’s mistress. For the next 20 years she exercised control of French public affairs, using large amounts of money to further her ambitions. Her political influence ex-tended to both domestic and foreign policy and may have cost France the Seven Years War (1756-63). A patron of the arts, she founded the Sevres porcelain factory and the Ecole Militaire.
