Louise Julie de Mailly

Early life, family and marriage

Louise Julie was born the eldest daughter of Louis de Mailly, marquis de Nesle et de Mailly, Prince d'Orange (1689–1767), and Armande Félice de La Porte Mazarin (1691–1729). Her parents had been married in 1709. Her mother was the daughter of 'Paul Jules de La Porte, duc Mazarin et de La Meilleraye (1666–1731), the son of the famous adventuress, Hortense Mancini, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin. Her mother was a lady-in-waiting in service to the queen, Marie Leszczyńska, from 1725, and her father reportedly "wasted his substance on actresses and the capacious requirements of Court life".

Louise Julie had four younger full sisters:

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).

Marie Anne de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Monchy, marquise de La Tournelle, duchesse de Châteauroux (1717–1744).

The only one of the de Nesle sisters not to become one of Louis XV's mistresses was

Hortense Félicité de Mailly, Marquise de Flavacourt. Louise Julie was the first sister to attract the king, but it was Marie Anne who was the most successful in manipulating him and becoming politically powerful.

Louise Julie 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, Louise Julie was known as Mademoiselle de Mailly. On 31 May 1726, she married her cousin, Louis Alexandre de Mailly, comte de Mailly (1694-1743). The marriage was forced upon her against her will and was reportedly unhappy.

Mistress to Louis XV

"The Fair Unknown"

In 1729, her mother died. Louise Julie replaced her as lady-in-waiting, Dame du Palais, to the queen. She also became the mistress of the Marquis de Puysieux.

Queen Marie was frequently pregnant, which prevented her from entertaining the restless King Louis XV. Cardinal Fleury, the de facto ruler of France, wished to prevent Marie from acquiring any political influence over the king and harming his own position. Fleury therefore favored the idea of the king taking a mistress to keep him entertained, as long as she was apolitical.

Reportedly, years passed before they finally kissed, and throughout their relationship, she remained "the bolder and more enticing of the two." In 1732 or 1733, according to the memoirs of the Duke de Richelieu, Louise Julie finally became the King's mistress after Louis XV was set up by Mademoiselle de Charolais and other courtiers by literally throwing him on top of a half naked Comtesse de Mailly on a sofa by his valet Gabriel Bachelier.

Louise Julie de Mailly was described as a thin beauty, with a perfect oval face and dark eyes with marked eyebrows, which gave her a "provocative and sensuous charm". She knew how to adjust the fashion to suit her, designed her own "piquant and suggestive" negligees, and often wore her diamonds in her carefully dressed black hair – she was, however, not graceful but rather clumsy in her movements. As a person, she was described as good-tempered, witty and entertaining at social occasions, without being so at the expense of others, and as a loyal and devoted friend and a passionate and sincere lover, ready to sacrifice herself to make those she cared for happy. She enjoyed pleasure and social life but was also described as generous and sympathetic to others.

She completely lacked ambition and interest in politics, and genuinely "wanted nothing but the love of Louis XV, whom she adored with all the strength of her passionate nature". She nevertheless was regularly paid per sexual encounter with King according to the memoirs of the Marquise de Argenson Louis XV reportedly appreciated her adoration and love for him and was satisfied with the fact that she was afraid of Cardinal Fleury, never trying to interfere in politics. The King, however, felt guilty on betraying his wife.

Official mistress

In 1738, Marie's 11th pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and she was warned a next pregnancy will be fatal. She ended any sexual relationship with her husband. This signaled the end of her influence over the king and a shift of the courtiers towards de Mailly as the king's mistress.

There was speculation at court as to the mistress's identity: it was only known that she visited his private apartments at night, wearing a hood over her face in order not to be identified by anyone she met in the corridors on her way to and from his rooms. To find out who she was, in the summer of 1738 Gabriel Bicheher stopped Mailly one night on her way to the king's bedroom and knocked her hood off, watched by two of the queen's ladies-in-waiting posted nearby. These spread the word through the court the following day, exposing Mailly's identity. This was probably done on the initiative of the courtiers, who wanted to have an alternative channel to the king after the queen had lost her influence with him.

Following this incident, on 14 July 1738 the king "declared his passion" and acknowledged Louise Julie de Mailly as his official mistress by eating supper with her before his court at the Château de Compiègne. After this she was given rooms next to the king's apartments and appeared as his hostess at his private parties at the Royal castles at Versailles, Choisy and La Muette. The queen regarded Louise Julie as the most hurtful of all the lovers of her spouse because she was the first, but grew accustomed to her; she did not dislike her as a person, as she would come to dislike her sister and successor, Marie Anne.

Louise Julie de Mailly was widely celebrated at court after she was introduced as the king's official mistress, but this put a great deal of strain their relationship. Her new position exposed her to public criticism, and Louis XV reportedly felt humiliated when some regarded her as insufficiently beautiful for her role. She became tormented by jealousy and incidents were noted when they argued, such as once, when she lost at cards and remarked to the king: "It is not to be wondered at, with you here."

The king reacted badly to the fact that she was approached by petitioners who expected her to be able to influence him, and when she showed him the letter from a petitioner, Monsieur de Luc, who ended his petition with: "It needs but one word from the beautiful mouth of a lovely lady like yourself and the business is done," the humiliated king exclaimed: "A beautiful mouth, indeed! I scarcely think you can plume yourself on that!" Nonetheless, she did not use her new position to enrich herself or interfere in politics, and it soon became known that she did not involve herself in political issues or the advancement of petitioners.

Dismissal

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. This made her acceptable to Cardinal Fleury, but also a disappointment to the court nobility, who wished for the king to have a mistress who could influence the king against the pacifist policy of Fleury and engage in warfare, which the ideals of nobility regarded as necessary for national dignity and glory. Among the war-favoring aristocrats were the kings friends, the manipulative duc de Richelieu, and Charles, Prince of Soubise, who supported the idea to introduce a new mistress to the king, who could be used to oppose the influence of the Cardinal and his peace policy and push France to engage in war, and they viewed Louise Julie's sister Marie Anne de Mailly, marquise de La Tournelle, as a suitable candidate for this purpose.

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 duc d'Agénois, and was not inclined to give him up for the king's sake. As a result, Louis conspired with Richelieu, who was d'Agénois's uncle, to rid himself of the young suitor. Richelieu was quite anxious to do anything to bring about a liaison between the king and Marie Anne de La Tournelle because he knew Louise Julie de Mailly did not view him in a kindly light. The result was that Louis, in imitation of the biblical David, sent his rival to fight the Austrians in Italy. Here, more fortunate than the husband of Bathsheba, the duc d'Agénois was only wounded, and returned to the court in glory.

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, the Amable-Gabrielle de Villars, previously a dame du palais, was promoted to dame d'atour, and there was thereby a vacancy among the ladies-in-waiting of the queen. The recently deceased Françoise de Mazarin, a personal friend of the queen, had shortly before her death wished for a post of her favorite step-granddaughter Marie Anne de Mailly, in order to embarrass Louise Julie de Mailly, whom she detested, and the queen herself asked for the vacant place to be given to Marie Anne de Mailly, and by the mediation of d'Argenson, Marie Anne secured the king's approval for her candidacy to this office as dame du palais. In parallel, Marie Anne persuaded Louise Julie to write to Cardinal Fleury and resign her own post as dame de palais in favor of their sister Flavacourt by convincing her that the king wished to favor her sisters for the sake of Louise Julie. She agreed, though she resigned on condition that she be compensated with the post of dame d'atours at the court of the next dauphine.

In fiction

She is a character in the 1959 novel Louis the Well Beloved by Eleanor Alice Burford (under the pen name Jean Plaidy).