The royal mistress was an institution in France during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV, and Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764) was the most impressive and creative of them all. This is the rags-to-riches story of how she used all she had to achieve independence at a time when women had no status or rights. Jeanne Antoinette Poisson was born into a bourgeoise family and was probably illegitimate. However, a fortune teller predicted that Jeanne would win the heart of a king. In 1741 she married Le normant d'Etoiles and, in 1745, found herself dancing with Louis XV at a masked ball. The affair that was to scandalize the aristocracy (Jeanne was the first royal mistress from the middle classes) began soon after. An extinct title was resurrected for her and, as Madame de Pompadour, Jeanne dedicated the rest of her life to Louis XV, even resorting to weird and wonderful diets to stimulate better sex (which she did not enjoy). When the affair transformed into friendship, she entertained the King by staging amateur theatricals and even helped to procure her successors. She was a patron of the arts, supporting the development of Sevres porcelain, but could not resist entering the power game - with mixed results. Her attempt to control the Seven Years War was a failure, but her successes include the Ecole Militaire. Though she would never have recognized herself as a feminist, the author asserts that Madame de Pompadour was one of its earliest exponents - using the only means of power available to her: sex. Her life reveals the extent and limitations of women's status power in the 18th century.