Louise Julie, Comtesse de Mailly
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Louise Julie, Comtesse de Mailly (1710 - 1751), mistress of Louis XV of France, was the daughter of Louis, marquis de Nesle. Louise Julie was the eldest of four sisters who served as mistresses and courtesans in the French royal court; she was one of three of the Mailly sisters who succeeded each other as mistress to the king.
[edit] Life as a courtesan
Her other three sisters who all served as courtesans in the royal court were Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle duchess de Châteauroux, Pauline-Félicité de Mailly (1712 - 1741) countess of Vintimille, and Diane-Adélaïde de Mailly (1713 - 1760) duchess of Lauraguais.
In 1726 Louise Julie had married her cousin, Louis Alexandre de Mailly. Shortly thereafter she caught the attention of Louis XV, and received her husbands blessing to serve as courtesan for the king. Although Louis XV had paid her attentions from 1732 as a courtesan, she did not become titular mistress until 1738. She did not use her position either to enrich herself or to interfere in politics, unlike her sister Marie-Anne would later do.
In 1740, she received a letter from her younger sister Pauline-Félicité de Mailly-Nesle, asking her to send her an invitation to court. After she did this, Pauline seduced the king and became his mistress. Louise-Julie remained titular-mistress, but the king became in love with Pauline and gave her the title marquise of Vintimille by marrying her to the marquis of Vintimille and the castle Choisy-le-Roi as a gift. However, Pauline quickly became pregnant, and she died of the birth of a son, Louis, the count de Luc, who looked so much like the king that he was called "Demi-Louis"; small Louis. She was laid at Lit-the-Parade in the town of Versailles, but during the night, a mob break in and mutilated the body of "the kings whore". The king and Louise-Julie was both devastated by her death and shocked by the mutilation of her body, and Louise-Julie was said to begin to wash the feet of the poor.
She was supplanted by her sister, Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle duchess de Châteauroux, and obliged to leave court in 1742.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- E. and J. de Goncourt, La Duchesse de Châteauroux et ses soeurs (1879)
- Toussaint, Anecdotes curieuses de . . . Louis XV (2 vols., 1905)
- J. B. H. R. Capefigue, Mesdemoiselles de Nesle et la jeunesse de Louis XV (1864)
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
