Louis XV of France
Louis
XV was King of France from 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his
great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached
maturity in 1723, the kingdom was ruled by Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, as
Regent of France.
Historians
generally give his reign very low marks, especially as reports of his
corruption embarrassed the monarchy and as wars drained the treasury and set the
stage for the French Revolution of 1789.
Marriage OF King Louis XV
One
of the first priorities of the Duke of Bourbon was to find a bride for the
King, to assure the continuity of the monarchy, and especially to prevent the
succession to the throne of the Orleans branch of the family, the rivals of his
branch.
A
list of 99 princesses was prepared. In the end, the 21-year-old Marie
Leszczyńska, daughter of Stanislaus I, the deposed king of Poland, was finally
chosen.
The King loves women, and yet there is
absolutely no gallantry in his spirit.In 1738, after the Queen lost an unborn
child, her doctors forbade her to have relations with the King for a time. The
King was offended by her refusal and thereafter never shared her bed.She died
in1768.
The competition for ultimate allure in the French court was
paralyzing, and any woman who hoped to enrapture the king had to have a secret
beauty regime.
Mistresses of Louis XV.
The Four Sisters Who All Became Mistresses
Of Louis XV
Growing
up in 18th century France, the five sisters were beautiful, noble-born and all
set to become good wives…but they didn’t. Instead,
four of the five sisters would all go on to become mistress to the same man: King,
Louis XV of France.
In
their positions as mistresses, Louise, Pauline,
Diane and Marie de Mailly wielded unprecedented power. Their lives would
be risked, and sisterly bonds would be built and broken.
(1)Louise
Julie de Mailly,
King
Louis XV first became attached to one of the ladies of the Queen's court,
Louise Julie de Mailly, who was the same age as he.Without courtship or
ceremony he made her his mistress and raised her to the rank of Duchess.
In 1740, the King turned his attentions to
the sister of Louise-Joulie, Pauline-Félicité, the Marquise de Vintimille, who
was married. Pauline-Félicité became pregnant by the King at the end of the
year. Both the child and mother died in childbirth.
(2)Marie
Anne de Mailly,
After
death of Louise Julie de Mailly.The Countess of Mailly unwisely introduced the
King to her youngest sister, Marie Anne de Mailly, the recent widow of the
Marquis de Tournelle.
The
King was immediately attracted to Marie-Anne; however, she insisted that he
expel her older sister from the Court before she would become his mistress. The
King gave in, and Marie-Anne was named a Lady of the Court of the Queen, and a
month later the King ordered her older sister to leave the Court and to live in
Paris.
(3)Duchess
of Châteauroux.
The
King made his new mistress the Duchess of Châteauroux. The King's relationships
with the three sisters became a subject of gossip in the court and in Parism.
(4)Madame
de Pompadour
Madame
de Pompadour was the most famous and influential of the mistresses of Louis XV.
She was married to a banker. She was noticed by the King following one of his
hunts, and formally met her at a costume ball celebrating carnival in 1745.
She
was the King's mistress and was formally given the title of the Marquise de
Pompadour. For the next twenty years she was the King's confidante and advisor,
helping him choose or demote ministers.
In
private, she often claimed to be used “too well” by the king who had a
voracious sexual appetite and wanted to roll in the satin sheets several times
a day.
Hoping
to stimulate her own libido so as to keep up with the energetic king, Madame de
Pompadour began to eat a steady diet of celery, truffles, and vanilla that only
succeeded in making her sick.
She decorated her lavish apartments with
delightful fabrics, intoxicating flowers, and the best wine money could buy.
She became a student of his moods and could read his every facial expression,
including the cadence of his words.
And
most importantly, she knew when he was hiding anger or frustration behind his
mask of royal calmness and precisely how to cajole or soothe him accordingly.
In short, she molded herself into his perfect mate, even at the expense of her
own joy and comfort.
Many women of the court suffered from
smallpox scars and would cover their ruined complexions and crusty filth with
an abundance of velvet, lace, and a strong perfume. Their ornate outfits would
often become wildly itchy and uncomfortable, forcing the women to insert head
scratchers into their coiffures and bodices to ease the irritation of flea bites
and greasy scalps.
She
ceased to be the King's mistress in 1750 but remained his closest advisor.
Deaths of Madame de Pompadour
Madame
de Pompadour contracted pneumonia and died on 15 April1764. The King was deeply
affected, but, strictly observing court protocol, he did not attend her
funeral, because she was too far below his rank, and, though mourning, carried
on court business as usual.
(5)Marie Louise O’Murphy.
She was the daughter
of an Irish shoemaker called Morphise by courtiers and she became known as the
model for a famous painting created by François Boucher.
O’Murphy was also a
lesser mistress to the King, got pregnant by him, and gave birth on 20 June
1754 to his illegitimate daughter, Agathe-Louise de Saint-Antoine de
Saint-André.
In 1755, O’Murphy made
the mistake of trying to officially replace Madame de Pompadour as Louis’s
favorite. It resulted in O’Murphy’s downfall: She was repudiated by the King,
expelled from Parc-aux-Cerfs in the dead of night, and sent far away from
Versailles forever.
In
order to prevent further rivals and similar situations, Madame de Pompadour
decided to take action. She organized a constant stream of very young beauties
to entertain the bored King in his bedroom.
In
November 1755 Marie-Louise O'Murphy was expelled at night from her home at
Parc-aux-Cerfs. Repudiated by the King, she was sent far away from Versailles.
She
maintained a comparatively anonymous life with her second husband, who left her
widowed once again in 1783. Upon his death she was granted a generous royal
pension, which she held until the outbreak of revolution in 1789.
(6)Madame du Barry.Last Mistress of King
Louise xv
After
the death of the Madame de Pompadour, several women in the court sought to
replace her, including the Duchess of Gramont, the sister of the Duke of
Choiseul, the King's chief minister.
However, the King's favor turned to Jeanne
Bécu, the comtesse du Barry. She was thirty-three years younger than the King.
She was the illegitimate daughter of Anne Bécu, a seamstress
However,
the King kept du Barry close to him until the final days before his death, when
he sent her away before he made confession.
The
competition for ultimate allure in the French court was paralyzing, and any
woman who hoped to enrapture the king had to have a secret beauty regime.
Madame
du Barry, who followed Madame de Pompadour after her death as Louis VX’s main
squeeze, was noted for her particular attention to personal hygiene—something
the majority of the king’s women had always overlooked.
She took a rose-scented bath once a day and would
deck herself in outrageously expensive dresses made of a fine white material to
accentuate her scrubbed neck and even line her décollage with real diamonds to
highlight the beauty of her glowing white breast.
Having
been hastily married off to the Count Guillaume du Barry, in 1768 the new
Countess was presented to the Court and became the official mistress of the
monarch, who was bedazzled by her beauty. All this in spite of the best-laid
plans of the Duke of Choiseul, who was hoping to install his sister the Duchess
of Grammont in this privileged position.
Like
all royal mistresses, Madame du Barry lived comfortably. After moving in on the
second floor of the King's chambers she began to enjoy the perks of her position,
receiving jewellery and estates from the king, including the Louveciennes
Estate where she stayed regularly.
Upon the king's death in May 1774, his
successor Louis XVI banished her from Versailles and sent her to the
Pont-aux-Dames convent in Meaux. In 1776 she retired to Louveciennes. Denounced
to the authorities during the Terror, she died at the guillotine in October
1793.
Death of King Louis xv
On
26 April 1774, the King left for the Petit Trianon with Madame du Barry and
several nobles from his entourage, and reported that he felt ill.
He
participated in the hunt the next day, but rode in his carriage instead of on
horseback. That evening he was still feeling ill, and sent for the Court
physician, Le Mariniére.
At
the surgeon's insistence, the King was brought back to the Palace of Versailles
for treatment, along with Madame du Barry and the others.Louis died in the
morning on 10 May 1774.
Legend of Parc-aux-Cerfs
Louis
XV kept a place called Parc-aux-Cerfs (The Deer Park): a harem of young women
he could have sex with. The name is most notoriously known in history for an
area in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles and a house there owned by
Louis XV, where his secret mistresses were accommodated, being taken from there
to the palace to visit the king.
The Parc aux Cerfs may be said a brothel
“of which Louis XV would be the only client “, nothing could be further from
the truth. The house never shelters more than one girl at a time! If the young lady
becomes pregnant, she withdraws and gives birth quietly, well surrounded, having
all the necessary care. Then, either she resumes service, or she is fired.
Between
1752 and 1768, many women and girls lived in the house, often more than one at
a time, many of which are unidentified.
The
day-to-day lives of the women who lived there would have differed from other
women's only in that they were not married and yet not living in their family
homes: they were single, but had access to enough money to eat and dress well.
They
came from poor enough backgrounds that this was considered a good alternative
to prostitution on the street or in a real brothel; before the former
prostitute Madame du Barry, who came in after Pompadour's death, it would have
been unthinkable for girls of this level to become the officially accepted
royal mistress.
Secret Door of Parc-aux-Cerfs
It
would seem that the girls were sometimes brought from the Parc-aux-Cerfs to the
king’s quarters in a sedan chair with closed windows.
The
Comte de Saint-Priest noticed: ‘I have seen several arrive under the little
vault where one opened a secret door which led by a hidden staircase to a room
next to the king’s suite’
Some people claimed thousands of girls
passed through the small house and that there were wild orgiesIn February 1765,
after the death of Madame de Pompadour, it was closed.
And the rest is history.
The
End
NOTE: This Blog has been written with help of
Wikipedia and several material and photos available on net.With thanks to all original
writers over this topic.
