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Countess Du Barry, a portrait by the girlfriend of Du Barry's confidante, Le Brun (?lisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun). Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry[1] [2] (Marie-Jeanne, Comtesse du Barry) (August 19, 1743 - December 8, 1793) was a French mistress of King Louis XV of France, and one of the most famous of the Reign of Terror. was also one of the most famous victims of the Reign of Terror.
Table of Contents [hidden]
1 Early life
2 Life as a mistress
3 Imprisonment, trials and execution
4 Other accounts
5 External links
[edit] Early life
Countess Marie-Jeanne du Barry was born in Vougouleur, Lorraine, and was the son of the tailor (or cook) Anne Bécuil. cook) Anne Bécu's illegitimate daughter. Her father may have been the abbot Jean Baptiste Gormand of Vaubernier. During her childhood, one of her mother's extramarital lovers financed her education at the convent.
Marie Jeanne moved to Paris at the age of 15, where she went by the name of Jeanne Rancon, and where she worked as an assistant bonnet seller in a store (in the store of the lover with whom she had a brief relationship). Her appearance conformed to the aesthetics of the time and she was a blonde woman who was noticed and possessed attractiveness. In 1763 her good looks attracted Jean du Barry, owner of a high-class brothel and casino. He made her his mistress and also helped her to establish connections in Parisian high society, leading her to meet many wealthy men who became her patrons.
[edit] Life as a mistress
Image:Madame du barry.jpg
Madame du Barry, painted by Francois Hubert Drouais She started out as a high-class socialite under the name of Mademoiselle Lange. The Duke of Richelieu was her patron. In 1768, however, Jean Dubarry discovered her and Louis XV began to take notice of her, and Dubarry seemed to have considerable influence over the king. At this time, however, she was not qualified to be the king's official mistress, as she lacked a title; this problem was solved by her marriage in 1769 to Du Barry's brother, the Comte Guillaume du BarryGuillaume, who was presented to the royal family on April 2, 1769, as well as to members of the court. Since then, she had been carrying an Indian entourage, Zamor, wearing sumptuous evening dresses, and wearing delicate and ornate jewelry around her neck and earlobes [as she was now officially Louis XV's public mistress.
When she began to engage in factional rivalry, she became a bitter rival to the Duc de Choiseul, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Unlike her predecessor, Madame de Pompadour, who was also Louis XV's mistress, du Barry had no political influence over the king, and was only interested in fancy dress and jewelry. (
Jean-Michel Moreau the Younger, Fête donnée à Louveciennes le 2 septembre 1771. Musée du Louvre, Paris. When the king became aware of her artistic talent and her unstinting support, he financed large sums of money to her. But this became a cause of gradual discontent among others. Her relationship with Marie-Antoinette also caused controversy. Antoinette supported Schwartzel because she was a champion of the alliance with Austria and defied a court order for her conversation with Dubarry (and the main background to the events that followed).
Marie Antoinette was forced to say to her at a ball, "There are so many people at Versailles ooh." The pair of conversations breaks the norms of royal etiquette, as Du Barry wasn't allowed to talk to Marie-Antoinette.
At the king's request, before her death in May 1774, Du Barry was banished by the court to the convent of Pont-au-Dames, a move made because her immoral behavior would have prevented the king from receiving a pardon. Two years later she moved to her famous Chateau de Louveciennes, where she continued her career as a mistress, her lovers at the time being Henri Seymour and the Duc de Brisa.
[edit] Imprisonment, experimentation and execution
In 1792 she made several trips to London under the pretext of recovering stolen jewels, although it was suspected that she was there to provide financial support for the exiles of the French Revolution. The following year she was arrested for sedition in support of the revolution. While she was in prison, her cellmate was the socialite Grace Elliott, who was guillotined on December 8, 1793, in the Place de la Concorde after a trial. She had revealed where the jewels were hidden in her residence in an attempt to save herself.
On the way to the guillotine, she kept breaking down on death row screaming, " You are going to hurt me! Why?" (sic: You are going to hurt me! why!). When the execution took place she became hysterical, hissing and begging the crowd around the guillotine for mercy. Her appeal to the crowd makes the guillotine's executioner more eager and speeds up his task. Her final words to the executioner, "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment" (Wait, executioner, just a moment.), are also her best known words. , which are also her best known last words. [3]
[edit] Other notations
She became the inspiration for Madame Tussaud's (see "Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum"), which makes wax figures in London. This is the most historic of all the pieces on display, and the wax figure is named Sleeping Beauty.
Her famous last words, ""Encore un moment!"", became a symbol of existential angst, and the incident became a topic of conversation on at least two occasions in author Dostoyevsky's 1869 novel The Idiot.
Actress Martine Carol played the role of Du Barry in the 1954 film "Madame du Barry", directed by Christian-Jaque.
Actress Asia Argento played the role of Du Barry in the 2006 film Marie Antoine.
She also appeared in the famous Japanese comic strip Rose of Versailles, in the episode where the male nobles fall out of favor because Queen Marie is married to Louis XVI.
She was the subject of Cole Porter's stage production of "DuBarry Was a Lady", starring Ethel Merman in the title role. The 1943 movie version of the play starred Lucille Ball, and the film also featured Red Skelton and Gene Kelly***.