A Beloved Concubine of Louise XV falling into the oblivion
Who would be next? Having covered four Japanese historical figures, I felt worried that my blog looked like a Japanese one or I might be regarded as an Otaku of Japanese inclination. Mom already suggested I write about the antiquity ‘The Sword in Seven Branches’ having endowed from Baekje Dynasty to the Japanese Imperial Court. Reading already several articles about it, I was even more worried that I wouldn’t escape from the myriad hole of Japanese history. So I asked her ‘What about electing a figure from western history at this time since we’ve covered enough of Japanese?’ Without much delay, she replied ‘What about Madame Pompidou, the beloved concubine of Louis XV?’ She's never failed to surprise me with her liberal choice beyond my expectation.
Mom continued ‘She was not a faux-naif – it is the first time for me to know this vocabulary – and I don’t like a lady of that disposition. She was intelligent but still very sensual. I came to know her when my brother bought the book about her. There was a note below her picture as I said. When I went to Europe, for all the historical figures I knew, I could see them – she must talk about the museums – except for Madame Pompidou, although there was the special exhibition for Mona Lisa. Madame Pompidou is more appealing and cuter.’ Mom's memory about Madame Pompidou seemed rather imprinted deeper than as a passing sort since she specifically remembered not seeing Madame in Europe. ‘If I were a man, I like Madame Pompidou more than Mona Lisa.’
Our talks went on more in a liberal way, touching on what qualities would be proper for leaders? The appeals of a figure who is regarded as almost taboo to be discussed - so I wouldn’t mention the name of it -, the darling of that person, why she didn’t like Winston Churchill as the next subject simply because he is rather ordinary and on and on.
Okay! Then Madame Pompidou. She had been raised as King’s concubine even since when she was small, with all the necessary education for socialization in high society, such as music, dancing, arts, and literature; it is because she was foretold to be the king's woman by a fortune-teller. She managed to succeed in seducing King Louis XV to obtain a confession from the king, though she already married another man; she told her husband who passionately loved her that she would stay with him till the end, except for a king. Not only she obtained the king’s affection but also she got the one of the queen by showing her respect and humbleness towards the queen. It showed Madame Pompidou was not a mere beauty but a person of considerable character.
She stayed as a nuptial partner with the king only for around five years but remained more as a friend and an adviser, even working as an acting prime minister for the king. Based on trust and affection from the king, she patronized the arts, literature, and new ideas boomed from the wealth and the cultural abundance from the culmination of the then French monarchy. When she died, the French thinker Montesquieu lamented that she and Voltaire would be the only notable legacy from their time.
So much for that. Where have all they gone, who once attract people’s curiosity and attention, causing intellectual contemplation? I feel like she's already become a figure in total oblivion. Once her gossiped status, influence, and glamour don’t hold any attention from the people of the current generation because her story doesn’t resonate with any interests of people in the present. It might sound cruel to my uncle who was fond of her, even buying an expensive book of her story, and my mom who regards Madame as one of her notable charms. History has only meaning when it has any significant meaning in the interest of the present. Few girls of the current generation, I suppose, would want to become like Madame Pompidou, depending one's success on the love of the precarious powerful man and ending one's life with the end of one's beauty, since the time changed from when masculinity was essential for survival and prosperity to the time when intelligence and one’s assiduous endeavor are decisive factors for life's success.
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