Madame de Pompadour, portrait byFrançois Boucher circa 1750
Madame de Pompadour was born as Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson on December 29, 1721 in Paris. It is suspected that her biological father was the rich financier Le Normant de Tournehem, who became her legal guardian when her official father was forced to leave the country in 1725 after a scandal and she lived with her mother and sister. Her younger brother was Abel-François Poisson de Vandières (who would later become the Marquis de Marigny). She was intelligent, beautiful, and educated; she also learned to dance, engrave and play the clavichord.
She was married in 1741 (at the age of 19) to Charles-Guillaume Le Normant d'Etiolles, nephew of her guardian. With him, she had two children, a boy who died the year after his birth in 1741, and Alexandrine-Jeanne, born August 10, 1744, and nicknamed "Fanfan."
For more about Madame de Pompadour, visit http://www.madamedepompadour.com/
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