Hostile critics at the time generally tarred her as a malevolent political influence, but historians are more favorable, emphasizing her successes as a patron of the arts and a champion of French pride.

[6] Le Normant de Tournehem became her legal guardian when François Poisson was forced to leave the country in 1725 after a scandal over a series of unpaid debts.

At the age of five, Jeanne Antoinette was sent to receive the finest quality education of the day in an Ursuline convent in Poissy, where she gained admiration for her wit and charm.

[8] Madeleine refused to allow this to prevent her daughter from becoming a highly educated and accomplished young lady, enrolling Jeanne Antoinette in private tutoring upon her return to Paris.

[10] As a married woman, Jeanne Antoinette could frequent celebrated salons in Paris, such as those hosted by Mesdames de Tencin, Geoffrin, du Deffand and others.

Within these salons she crossed paths with principal figures of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire, Charles Pinot Duclos, Montesquieu, Helvétius, and Bernard de Fontenelle.

Additionally, Jeanne Antoinette created her own salon at Étiolles, which was attended by many of the cultural elite, among them were Crébillon fils, Montesquieu, the Cardinal de Bernis, and Voltaire.

[11] Due to her involvement in Paris salons as well as her grace and beauty, Louis XV had heard the name of Jeanne Antoinette mentioned at court as early as 1742.

Pompadour effectively played the role of prime minister, becoming responsible for appointing advancements, favors and dismissals, and contributing in domestic and foreign politics.

After Rossbach, Madame de Pompadour is alleged to have comforted the king with the now famous: "au reste, après nous, le Déluge" ("Besides, after us, the Deluge").

She also defended the Encyclopédie, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, against those, among them the Archbishop of Paris Christophe de Beaumont, who sought to have it suppressed.

She was very sensitive to the unending libels called poissonnades, analogous to mazarinade against Cardinal Mazarin and a pun on her family name, Poisson, which means "fish" in French.

[citation needed] Madame de Pompadour was able to wield such influence at court due to the invaluable role she played as a friend and confidante of the King.

[26] The end of this sexual relationship was in part attributed to Pompadour's poor health, as she suffered from the aftereffects of whooping cough, recurring colds and bronchitis, spitting blood, headaches, three miscarriages to the King, as well as an unconfirmed case of leucorrhoea.

In order to cement her continuing importance as favourite in the face of these impediments, Pompadour took on the role of "friend of the King" which she announced through artistic patronage.

The plan of the château, originally designed by Antoine Lepautre, was a classical U-shape and consisted of a long façade with two wings prolonging the main body, facing the river Seine on the garden side.

In addition to this layout, as soon as Madame de Pompadour acquired the estate, a vast project of reorganisation of the entire buildings (including stables and dependences) was planned, costing more than 500.000 livres.

Following the cessation of Pompadour's sexual relationship with Louis, the King met with young women in a house in Versailles established particularly for that purpose, called the Parc-aux-Cerfs, or Stag Park.

"[33] Madame de Pompadour was an influential patron of the arts who played a central role in making Paris the perceived capital of taste and culture in Europe.

She attained this influence through the appointment of her guardian Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem, and later her brother, Abel-François Poisson in the post of Directeur Général des Bâtiments, which controlled government policy and expenditures for the arts.

[35] Numerous sculptors and portrait painters were patronized by Pompadour, among them the court artist Jean-Marc Nattier, in the 1750s François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and François-Hubert Drouais.

[36] Pompadour greatly influenced and stimulated innovation in what is known as the Rococo style in the fine and decorative arts: for example, through her patronage of the artists like Boucher and the constant refurnishing of the fifteen residences she held with Louis.

[4] However it is also widely recognised that Madame de Pompadour engaged with prominent artists as a way to capture the attention of the king whilst cultivating her public image.

The oil sketch of Pompadour's lost portrait by Boucher sits in the Starhemberg room at Waddesdon Manor built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, surrounded by Sèvres porcelain, another industry that she greatly influenced and innovated through personal dissemination across an international network of her own clientele.

[4] She had engraving equipment, to create the prints of works by Boucher and Guay, brought within her personal apartments in Versailles[38] Her political mind also can be attributed to her great book collection.

[42] Some art historians argue whether or not she should be considered a collaborator with the artists under her patronage, since there is no documentation of how much Pompadour might have contributed to the works; whose idea, and whose composition, will remain a mystery.

Madame de Pompadour has been depicted on screen in film and television on many occasions, beginning in 1924 with Paulette Duval opposite Rudolph Valentino in Monsieur Beaucaire.