Marie Émilie de Joly de Choin (Marie Émilie Thérèse; 2 August 1670–1732) was a French lady-in-waiting, the lover and later the morganatic spouse of Louis, Dauphin of France. As a morganatic spouse, she was not styled the Dauphine of France.
Marie Émilie was born in Bourg-en-Bresse to Pierre de Joly de Choin, grand bailli of Bourg-en-Bresse, and Mademoiselle d'Urre d'Aiguebonne. She was a lady-in-waiting to the king's favourite daughter, the princess de Conti. Marie Émilie was considered to be unattractive but spiritual.
She entered into a relationship with Louis, le Grand dauphin, in parallel to having a relationship with the Count of Clerment-Chaste. It was rumoured that Marie Émilie and Clerment-Chaste planned to conquer the throne by producing a child from Louis through her. When these plans were discovered, Marie Émilie and Clerment were both exiled from court (1694).
The relationship to Louis did not end, however.
Marie Émilie married Louis secretly in 1695. Marie Émilie did not, however, acquire the title of Dauphine, and she was not received at court. Pregnant at the time of her secret marriage, she gave birth a son who was sent to the countryside and died aged two in 1697 without receiving a name.[1] Ultimately the marriage remained childless.
Marie Émilie resided in the palace of Meudon, where she imitated the morganatic spouse of the king, Madame de Maintenon, by acting as the queen of a court and receiving dukes and foreign diplomats.
After the death of the dauphin in 1711, she withdrew into retirement. She died in 1732 in Paris, "universally respected for her private virtues".