Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle
Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle, duchesse de Châteauroux (French pronunciation:
Early life, family and marriage
Marie Anne was born the youngest daughter of
- Louise Julie de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Mailly, comtesse de Mailly (1710 - 1751),
- Pauline Félicité de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Nesle, marquise de Vintimille (1712 - 1741),
- Diane Adélaïde de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Montcavrel, duchesse de Lauraguais (1714 - 1769),
- Hortense Félicité de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Chalon, marquise de Flavacourt (1715 - 1799).
The only one of the de Nesle sisters not to become one of Louis XV's mistresses was the Marquise de Flavacourt. Louise Julie was the first sister to attract the king followed by Pauline Félicité, but it was Marie Anne who was the most successful in manipulating him and becoming politically powerful.
Marie Anne also had a younger half-sister, Henriette de Bourbon (1725 - 1780), Mademoiselle de Verneuil, from her mother's relationship with the duc de Bourbon, the chief minister of Louis XV from 1723 to 1726.
In her youth, Marie Anne was known as Mademoiselle de Monchy. On 19 June 1734, she married Jean Baptiste Louis, marquis de La Tournelle (1708-1740).
She was a friend of
Royal Mistress
Introduction
In 1732, Marie Anne's oldest sister Louise Julie, who had succeeded their mother as lady-in-waiting to the queen, caught the attention of King
Louise Julie was devoted to her family, and it was said that she was "a loving, sincere little creature with all the qualities of an easy dupe, and she was happy to Introduce her sisters at Court for the sole reason that it gave them pleasure".[2] She invited all her sisters to court on different occasions and helped them to establish themselves there socially. In 1739, Louise Julie received a letter from her younger sister Pauline-Félicité requesting to be invited to court. Louise Julie granted her sister's wish, but upon her arrival at court, Pauline-Félicité seduced the king and became his mistress.
While Louise Julie remained as the official mistress, the king fell in love with Pauline-Félicité, arranged for her to marry the marquis de Vintimille to enable her to stay at court, and gave her the castle of Choisy-le-Roi as a gift. Madame de Vintimille quickly became pregnant by the king, and she died giving birth to his illegitimate son, Louis, the duc de Luc, who looked so much like the king that he was called Demi-Louis ('Small Louis').
Madame de Vintimille's remains stood in
After this, the recently widowed Marie Anne de Mailly, asked Louise Julie for an invitation to court, and successfully relied upon her family devotion to help her establish herself socially at court, where she made a great social success upon her introduction with her beauty and charm.[2] Marie Anne was described as "magnificently beautiful", dignified and graceful, with fair hair, "a complexion so white and pure that it glowed", large blue eyes and red lips with a "childlike smile", and to her behavior as a charming wit who frequently used irony.[2]
Struggle with Louise Julie de Mailly
Louise Julie de Mailly was known to be so in love with the king that she "could do nothing without asking his advice" and never involved herself with state affairs.
At a masked ball on Shrove Tuesday, 1742, Richelieu led Marie Anne up to the king and introduced them. She herself, however, at first rejected the royal advances. She already had a lover, the young
Louis was in despair, but Richelieu, was not one to lightly accept defeat. He sent his nephew to Languedoc, where a woman had been instructed to seduce him. This she did most effectively; letters of a very passionate nature were exchanged; the lady dispatched those which she received to Richelieu, and in due course they were brought to the notice of Marie Anne de La Tournelle, who, furious at her young duke's deceitfulness, turned her attentions to the king and agreed to the suggestion of Richeliu and Soubise.
The fall of Louise Julie de Mailly was orchestrated by means of depriving her of her official office as lady-in-waiting, which was her formal justification for participating in court life and without which she would not formally be allowed to live at court. On 13 September 1742,
After her resignation as lady-in-waiting, the court stopped giving Louise Julie attention and instead turned it to her sister and expected successor Marie Anne de Mailly, whom Louis XV himself started to court openly. However, Marie Anne de Mailly was not in love with Louis, and she presented him with conditions before she agreed to consent to be his mistress. She refused intercourse until he had proved his love by agreeing to provide her with the title of duchess, together with a settled income sufficient to enable her to maintain that dignity and safeguard herself against any reversal of fortune; a house "as sumptuous as
This was a new experience for the king, whose previous sexual partners had never demanded that he court them in any way or made any terms, but he was successfully stimulated to court her by Richelieu, who compared her favorably to his previous lover and presented Marie Anne as a royal mistress to be proud of.[2] The king's courting of the reluctant Marie Anne before the royal court attracted attention, and a song was hummed at court and in town, portraying the lovesick king and his attempts to convince the cold Marie Anne to become his mistress.[2] The king reportedly fell passionately in love with her, but she refused to answer his letters and acted coldly.[2] During his courting of Marie Anne, he reportedly treated Louise Julie more and more coldly, sitting in silence through their meals, talking to her only about his hopes to seduce her sister, causing her to cry.[2] Repeatedly, scenes occurred during which he asked Louise Julie to leave court, after which she fell to his feet and begged him to be allowed to stay, upon which he would allow her a couple of days more.[2]
Finally, Louis XV agreed to the list of demands of Marie Anne, and on 2 November 1742, he concluded the first demand and evicted Louise Julie de Mailly from court by having the furniture removed from her rooms next to the king's apartments on the pretext that they had been reserved for her sister Flavacourt.[2] She convinced the king to grant her another night through an appeal at supper, but the next day, she refused to leave. Richelieu visited her and advised her to leave out of respect for her own dignity and as a duty to her king, and when she consented, Richelieu informed the king that Marie Anne would agree to meet him that very night provided that it would be a secret, and escorted him in disguise to the house of Richelieu for the meeting.[2] However, Louise Julie would still not leave, and Marie Anne was discontent at the king's patience. Louise Julie successfully asked for a last dinner with the king, and when she cried upon departure, he embraced her and promised to meet her a couple of days after her departure.[2]
Marie Anne displayed her discontent over the king's last promise to see Louise Julie again and demanded that Louis should retract his promise of a last encounter, and that Louise Julie should never be allowed to court again if he wished to keep her favor. In a letter written soon after, Marie Anne wrote to Richelieu: "Meuse has surely told you, uncle, of the trouble which I had in getting Madame de Mailly to budge", but added that it would still be difficult to achieve something in politics as long as Cardinal Fleury lived.[2]
Royal Mistress
Despite having achieved the banishment of her predecessor and the king's agreement to her demands, Marie Anne de Mailly reportedly refused to fulfill the sexual union with Louis XV several times from November until 19 December 1742, after which she "ostentatiously showed herself at the opera so that Louis' choice might be approved", and installed herself in the royal favorite's apartment three days after.[2]
In preparation for her own elevation to duchess, she arranged a marriage between her favorite sister, Diane Adelaide, to the Duke of Lauraguais, and secured her a dowry and the office of designated lady-in-waiting to the future bride of the crown prince. On 22 October 1743, letters patent were issued creating Marie Anne duchesse de Chateauroux with a duchy representing an annual income of 80,000 livres.[2]
The king "asked for nothing more than a place among those who formed her little court", was in despair when she refused to attend his dinners, begged her to be allowed to join the suppers in her room, curtailed his councils so that he could be with her, attending her baths and sitting at her bedside while she was recovering from them, and could be observed writing letters to the
Cardinal Fleury's death on 29 January 1743 signified the beginning of her own political career as the successor of Fleury, the political adviser of Louis XV, and the de facto ruler of France.[2] Marie Anne made the king comfortable confiding in her about political issues by giving the impression that she was indifferent to it and made him ask her advice by supporting his own ideas. "She had the supreme cleverness never to question Louis on affairs of State, and so the infatuated King was convinced that his pretty mistress took no interest in politics. The voluptuous nonchalance of her intimacy with him confirmed this opinion. The consequence was that he spoke with her of State affairs without apprehension, and even went so far as to consult her, nay, beg her, to be so kind as to give him advice. In this way she slipped into the government at the King’s request without him being aware of it."[2] She only spoke in favor of people she knew he already liked and would be favorable to such as d'Argensson and Noailles, thereby giving him the impression that she only voiced his own views whenever she spoke of politics, and the king thereby felt comfortable saying that his mistress' opinions was his own.[2]
However, her influence was opposed by
Marie Anne reportedly felt threatened by her sister Flavacourt, who distanced herself from her and whom she therefore suspected of having the ambition to replace her as royal mistress. She suspected the queen of trying to disturb her relationship with the king by presenting Flavacourt as a rival to her position. While the queen regarded Louise Julie de Mailly as the most hurtful of all the mistresses of Louis because she was the first one, she had grown accustomed to her, and she disliked Marie Anne on a more personal level.[3] The queen regarded her as haughty and insolent, seldom spoke to her, and feigned sleep when Marie Anne was in attendance.[3] In reality, de Flavacourt had no wish to become a royal mistress and only wanted to enjoy her position as a courtier because it gave her independence from her spouse.[3]
War of the Austrian Succession
When her influence over state affairs was secured, the War-Party of Richelieu demanded progress in their military warfare ambitions. Directed by Richelieu, himself dominated by
She visited Louis XV when he was with his army at
Death
Louis XV recovered from his illness and upon his return from the battlefield made a triumphal entry into Paris. Missing Marie Anne, he visited her in secret on 14 November. On the 25th, minister Maurepas was obliged to recall Marie Anne to Versailles where she was restored in her former position as royal mistress. Her return to court was described as a triumph and there were fears that she would exact revenge upon her enemies. However, she had barely arrived at court before she fell sick with convulsive pains and cramp attacks.[2] She died on 8 December 1744, convinced on her deathbed that she had been poisoned.[2] She was swiftly buried without ceremony in the church of St Sulpice in Paris in 13 December.
After her death, the king for a short time consoled himself with her sister, Diane Adélaïde de Lauraguais. A few months later in 1745, however, the king already had a new mistress, Madame de Pompadour.
Depiction in fiction
Marie Anne is one of the central characters in Sally Christie's The Sisters of Versailles (Simon&Schuster 2015), a novel about Louis XV and the notorious Mailly-Nesle sisters.
Marie Anne is also the mistress on the King's arm depicted in Season 2, Episode 2 of Outlander.
Sources
- ^ a b c Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 963–964.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am Latour, Louis Therese, Princesses Ladies And Salonnieres of The Reign of Louis XV, 1927
- ^ a b c d e f Clarissa Campbell Orr: Queenship in Europe 1660-1815: The Role of the Consort. Cambridge University Press (2004)
- ^ a b Herman, Eleanor (2005). Sex With Kings p. 116
- Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, La Duchesse de Châteauroux et ses sœurs (Paris, 1879)