Madame Du Barry - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Her famous last words ("Encore un moment!") serve as a symbol of existential angst when they are raised as a topic of conversation on at least two separate occasions in Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1869 novel, The Idiot.

• She inspired a wax figure at Madame Tussaud's in London, called The Sleeping Beauty, which is the oldest existing figure on display.

• A short two-page comic strip La Rue perdue ("The lost street") was published in 1978, featuring Gil Jourdan, a detective series created by Maurice Tillieux. Set in 1953 it has Jourdan trying to find out why a fake guillotine blade is hanging outside the door of a black African friend. The one responsible turns out to be a man obsessed with du Barry and taking his anger at her death out on Jourdan's friend who looks like Zamor, the man whose actions led to her execution. The action is set in Rue Maître Albert (Maître Albert Street).