MADAME DU BARRY
If the nobility had a problem with Mme de Pompadour’s background, it paled into insignificance when the next (and last) official mistress arrived on the scene. Madame du Barry was from a working class family and had been a high class call girl before she became Louis XV’s mistress.
Marie Leszczynska had died before Madame du Barry was presented at court.
Louis XV met the very beautiful blue eyed blonde when he was 58 and she was 24. The King defied everyone’s opinion. He was in love and had never been happier. Unlike most mistresses, she had no political ambitions. Even when people hated her (as Marie-Antoinette did), she tried to get on with them and was polite.
Madame du Barry occupied a large luxurious apartment on the second floor. This was not the original mistresses’ apartment. Its previous occupant had been Louis XV’s widowed daughter in law, who had died the year before Louis met Madame du Barry.
The apartment was immediately above the King’s private bed chamber, overlooking the marble courtyard. Access was via the King’s staircase but there was also hidden staircase directly linking the King’s private apartment and Madame du Barry’s bedroom.
In the wood panelling there is a service door which opens on to a toilet (the new kind with a flush!) and a small room for the maid.
Unlike many of the courtiers, Madame du Barry was fastidious about hygiene and bathed regularly. It was something the King appreciated.
The records of the “Garde-Meuble” – the department responsible for the furniture – show that in
1772 a fine sculptured bed was delivered to the Petit Trianon for Madame du Barry. Like the rest
of the furniture, it was painted white and not gilded.
At the Petit Trianon, the majority of the “noble” floor was taken up with spaces for dining—the
antichamber “salle des buffets”, grand dining room and small dining room. There was also a grand salon. The series of small rooms on the other side were the King’s “retreat”, for his private use—the corner room contained an area where the King could make his own coffee and a staircase leading directly from the garden. The centre room was his private retreat and there was a toilet and botanical library.
Louis XV’s bedroom was on the top floor. He originally had a “lit à la Turque”. This was later replaced by Louis XVI who had a bed “à la polonaise” with the red and white silk decorated with Chinese motifs as visitors to the Petit Trianon can now see it.
Six years after his first dinner at the Petit Trianon, Louis XV was staying there with Mme du Barry
when he fell ill. His surgeon insisted he return to Versailles. He had smallpox and it became clear he
would not survive. He sent Mme du Barry to stay with a friend and died a few days later. Within
days of Louis XV’s death, his successor Louis XVI exiled Mme du Barry. She was sent to a convent 60
kilometers away. Her Versailles days were over.
Madame du Barry was in the convent for almost a year before being allowed to return to
Louveciennes, the chateau Louis XV had given her.
She was beheaded during the French Revolution.