Madame de Montesson

Charlotte-Jeanne Béraud de La Haye de Riou (4 October 1738 – 6 February 1806) was a mistress to Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans, and ultimately, his wife; however, Louis XV would not allow her to become the Duchess. She wrote and acted in several plays. She is known simply as Madame de Montesson. Life Charlotte-Jeanne Béraud de La Haye de Riou was born in Paris of an old Breton family. On 11 October 1757, she married the seventy-year-old widower Jean Baptiste, Marquis of Montesson, who died in 1769. Her beauty and intelligence attracted the attention of the widowed Louis Philippe d'Orléans, the fat (his wife Louise Henriette de Bourbon had died in 1759), whom she secretly married in 1773 with the authorisation of Louis XV of France. After her marriage to the Duke of Orléans, a member of the royal family and a Prince du Sang, her low rank did not allow her the title of Duchess of Orléans.