Madame du Barry was born Marie-Jeanne Bécu at Vaucouleurs, Lorraine, France. She was born to poor parents, but relationships with rich men increased her social standing, and in 1769 she became the mistress of Louis XV of France, whose best known mistress Madame de Pompadour had died a few years earlier. She was an enemy of Marie Antoinette's.
Madame du Barry was a light hearted woman, whose influence stayed limited. After the death of the King she left the court. She was executed by guillotine on the Place de la Concorde in 1793 after a predetermined trial. Her last words to the executioner ("Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment.") were her most famous.
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Full text of Memoirs of the Comtesse Du Barry (http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/2563) from Project Gutenberg
The irony is that the structure was commissioned by none other than the Comtesse duBarry, Louis XV's last mistress and the archsymbol of all that contemporaries considered effete and self indulgent in France's ancien regime.
MmeduBarry had none of the intellectual ambition of her predecessor at court, the Marquise de Pompadour, but she was a lady of fashion and eagerly followed the new trend just as soon as it set in.
Paradoxically - and characteristically - Mme Dubarry called it a "folly." Still, when it came to the exterior decor, she rejected the true follies - and gorgeous ones at that - painted by Jean-Honoré Fragonard and ordered a whole new cycle of murals from Joseph-Marie Vien.
DuBarry was indeed born a commoner in the village of Vaucouleurs as Marie Jeanne Becu.
But when Marie did find out she indeed refused to speak to duBarry and vowed to do what was correct, and one incident after another began a dispute between the women.
DuBarry kept by his side as long as she could, but the King takes Communion and Confession and tells duBarry not to return to him.
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