Madame du Barry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jeanne Becu, Comtesse Du Barry [1] [2] (Marie-Jeanne, Comtesse Du Barry) (August 19, 1743 - December 8, 1793) was a French courtesan who became the mistress of Louis XV of France.

Madame du Barry, a portrait by du Barry's confidante, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun.

1 Early life
2 Life as a courtesan
3 Imprisonment, trial and execution
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Early life

Marie- Jeanne, Madame Du Barry was born Jeanne Bécu at Vaucouleurs, Lorraine, the illegitimate daughter of Anne Becu, who was variously reported as a seamstress or a cook. Her father was possibly Jean Baptiste Gormand of Vaubernier, a friar. During her childhood, one of her mother's extra-marital lovers funded her education at a convent.

At the age of 15 Marie-Jeanne moved to Paris, where, using the name Jeanne Rancon, she worked as a milliner's assistant in a shop. As reflected in art from the time, she was a remarkably attractive woman. Her beauty came to the attention of Jean du Barry, a nobleman, in 1763. He made her his mistress and helped establish her career as a courtesan in the highest circles of Parisian society, enabling her to take several wealthy men as her benefactors.

[edit] Life as a courtesan

She first served as courtesan to Louis François Armand du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu. Jean du Barry, however, saw her as a means of influence with Louis XV, who became aware of her in 1768. Marie-Jeanne, however, could not qualify as an official royal mistress unless she had a title; this was solved by her marriage to Du Barry's brother, Comte Guillaume du Barry, in 1769. She was presented to the King's family and the court on April 2, 1769.

While she was part of the faction that brought down the Duke of Choiseul, Minister of foreign affairs, she was unlike her late predecessor Madame de Pompadour in that she had little political influence upon the King.

Jean-Michel Moreau the Younger, Fête donnée à Louveciennes le 2 septembre 1771. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

While known for her good nature and support of artists, the King's financial extravagance towards her was the source of increasing unpopularity. Her relationship with Marie Antoinette, the Dauphine of France, was contentious. The Dauphine supported Choiseul as the proponent of the alliance with Austria and also defied court protocol by refusing to speak to the Madame Du Barry, due to her feelings about the latter's background. She was reportedly christened 'the du Barry'.

At the King's request before his death in May 1774, she was banished from the court to the convent of Pont-au-Dames, as her amoral presence would have prevented the king from receiving absolution. Two years later she moved to her famous Château de Louveciennes, where she continued her career as a courtesan, having relationships with both Henry Seymour and the Duke of Brissac.

[edit] Imprisonment, trial and execution

In 1792 she made several trips to London on the pretext of recovering stolen jewellery; she was suspected of giving financial aid to emigres from the French Revolution. In the following year, she was arrested by the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris on charges of treason. While in prison, her cellmate was fellow courtesan Grace Elliott. After a trial, she was executed by guillotine on the Place de la Concorde on December 8, 1793.

Reportedly, she became quite hysterical during her execution: "She screamed, she begged mercy of the horrible crowd that stood around the scaffold, she aroused them to such a point that the executioner grew anxious and hastened to complete his task." Her last words to the executioner, "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment", (Just a moment, executioner, a small moment) were her most famous. [3]

[edit] Trivia

She inspired a wax figure at Madame Tussaud's in London, called The Sleeping Beauty which is the oldest existing figure on display.
Her famous last words ("Encore un moment!") serve as a symbol of existential angst when they are raised as a topic of conversation on at least two separate occasions in Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1869 novel, The Idiot.