Madame du Barry

Jeanne Bécu was born in 1743 to circumstances humble enough that when the king wanted her in 1768, his fixers had to forge a birth certificate and rush her into marriage with Comte Guillaume du Barry just to make her presentable at Versailles. Her past as a courtesan made her arrival a scandal; Marie Antoinette refused to acknowledge her existence until New Year's Day 1772, when the young queen's single bland remark — "There are many people at Versailles today" — was considered enough to ease the freeze. She reigned as maîtresse-en-titre until Louis XV's death, then lived quietly through the g…