Yolande de Polastron, Duchess of Polignac (Yolande Martine Gabrielle; 8 September 1749 – 9 December 1793) was the favourite of Marie Antoinette, whom she met when she was presented at the Palace of Versailles in 1775, the year after Marie Antoinette became the Queen of France. She was considered one of the great beauties of pre-Revolutionary society, but her extravagance and exclusivity earned her many enemies.
Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron was born in Paris in the reign of King Louis XV. Her parents were Jean François Gabriel, Comte de Polastron, seigneur de Noueilles, Venerque and Grépiac (1722-1794), who served as French ambassador to Switzerland, and his wife, Jeanne Charlotte Hérault de Vaucresson (1726-1753), who via marriage became the Duchesse de Polastron. As was customary with aristocrats, most of whom bore more than one Christian name, she was generally known by the last of her names (Gabrielle). She was born into a family of ancient aristocratic lineage, but by the time of Gabrielle's birth the family, despite its exalted ancestry, was encumbered by many debts, and its lifestyle was far from luxurious.
While Gabrielle was still an infant, her parents moved the family to Château of Noueilles, in the province of Languedoc in southern France. When Gabrielle was 3, her mother died and her welfare was entrusted to an aunt, who arranged for her to receive a convent education.
At the age of 16, Gabrielle was betrothed to Jules François Armand, comte de Polignac, marquis de Mancini (1746–1817), whom she married on 7 July 1767, a few months before her 18th birthday. Polignac's family had a "well-bred" ancestry similar to Gabrielle's family, and was in equally uncomfortable financial straits. At the time of his marriage, Polignac was serving in the Régiment de Royal Dragons ("1er régiment de dragons"), on an annual salary of 4,000 livres. Within a few years of the marriage, Jules and Gabrielle had two children: a daughter Aglaé and a son. Two more sons followed several years later, including Jules, prince de Polignac, who became the prime minister of France in 1829, under Charles X.
Most surviving portraits show her to be pretty. One historian said that Gabrielle, in her portraits by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (see Self-portrait in a Straw Hat), generally looks "like some harvested and luscious fruit." She had dark brunette hair, very pale white skin, and, perhaps most unusually, lilac or violet-coloured eyes.
Compiling the contemporary accounts of her, one modern historian has summarised her physical appearance thus: Her particular freshness of appearance [gave] an impression of "utter naturalness" ... with her cloud of dark hair, her big eyes, her neat nose and pretty pearly teeth, [she] was generally likened to a Madonna by Raphael.
When her sister-in-law Diane de Polignac invited her to the court at Versailles, Gabrielle came with her husband and was presented at a formal reception in the Hall of Mirrors in 1775, at which time she was formally presented to the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, who was instantly "dazzled" by her, and invited her to move permanently to Versailles. The cost of maintaining oneself at the court of Versailles was ruinous, and Gabrielle replied that her husband did not have the money to finance a permanent move to the palace. Determined to keep her new favourite by her side, the Queen agreed to settle the family's many outstanding debts and to find an appointment for Gabrielle's husband.
Once she was installed in the palace, near the Queen's apartments, Gabrielle also won the friendship of the King's youngest brother, the comte d'Artois, and the approval of King Louis XVI, who was grateful for her calming influence on his wife and who encouraged their friendship. Gabrielle was, however, resented by other members of the royal entourage, particularly the Queen's confessor and her chief political adviser, the Austrian ambassador. In a letter to the Queen's mother, Empress Maria Theresa, the ambassador wrote, "It is almost unexampled that in so short a time, the royal favour should have brought such overwhelming advantages to a family."
Gabrielle became the undisputed leader of the Queen's exclusive circle and ensured that few entered without her approval. Gabrielle was considered by many of her friends to be elegant, sophisticated, charming, and entertaining.
Together with Pierre Victor, Baron de Besenval, Gabrielle played a key role in settling the affair: An Incident at the Opera Ball on Mardi Gras in 1778.
The entire Polignac family benefited enormously from the Queen's considerable generosity, but their increasing wealth and lavish lifestyle outraged many aristocratic families, who resented their dominance at court. Ultimately, the Queen's favouritism towards the Polignac family was one of the many causes which fueled Marie Antoinette's unpopularity with some of her husband's subjects (especially Parisians) and members of the politically liberal nobility. In 1780, Gabrielle's husband was given the title Duke of Polignac, thus making Gabrielle a Duchess, a further source of irritation to the courtiers.
By the late 1780s, thousands of pornographic pamphlets alleged that Gabrielle was the Queen's lesbian lover, including accusations that the pair had engaged in tribadism. Although there was no evidence to back up these accusations, they did immeasurable damage to the prestige of the monarchy, especially given the deep-rooted suspicion of homosexuality held by the bourgeoisie and urban working-classes at the time.
Several historians have suggested that reports of Gabrielle's extravagance have been greatly exaggerated, and they point out that, during her 14-year residency at Versailles she spent as much as Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, had spent in one. Others have contended that to some extent she deserved her negative reputation because, despite the inaccuracies of the claims that she was sexually disreputable, other criticisms of her were valid: she was cold, self-centred, self-indulgent, and masked a love of gossip and intrigue behind a sweet-toned voice and flawless manners. This argument was particularly championed by the author and biographer Stefan Zweig, who wrote:
"Not even Madame de Maintenon, not even the Pompadour, cost as much as this favourite, this angel, with downcast eyes, this modest and gentle Polignac. Those who were not themselves swept into the whirlpool, stood at the marge contemplating it with astonishment ... [as] the Queen's hand was invisibly guided by the violet-eyed, the lovely, the gentle Polignac."
Another critic is Elisabeth de Feydeau.
Governess of the Children of France
In 1782, the Governess of the Children of France, Victoire de Rohan, princesse de Guéméné and wife of Henri Louis de Rohan, had to resign her post due to a scandal caused by her husband's bankruptcy. The Queen replaced the princess with Gabrielle. This appointment generated outrage at court, where it was felt Gabrielle's social status was insufficient for a post of that magnitude.
As a result of her new position, Gabrielle was given a 13-room apartment for herself in the palace. Technically, this was within the acceptable limits of etiquette, but the size of the apartment was unprecedented, particularly in a place as overpopulated as Versailles. Royal governesses had previously been quartered in four- or five-room apartments. Gabrielle was even given her own cottage in Marie Antoinette's favorite pastoral refuge, the Hameau de la Reine, built in the 1780s on the grounds of the Petit Trianon in the park of Versailles.