page_title: Louis XV
section_title: Queen, children, and the first mistresses
hierarchical_section_title: Louis XV / Personal government (1743–1757) / Queen, children, and the first mistresses
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of a Lady, said to be Louise Julie de Nesle, Comtesse de Mailly (1710-1751)
context_page_description: Louis XV, known as Louis the Beloved, was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity on 15 February 1723, the kingdom was ruled by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, as Regent of France.
  Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinal's death in 1743, at which time the king took sole control of the kingdom.
  His reign of almost 59 years was the second longest in the history of France, exceeded only by his predecessor and great-grandfather, Louis XIV, who had ruled for 72 years. In 1748, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands, won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745. He ceded New France in North America to Spain and Great Britain at the conclusion of the disastrous Seven Years' War in 1763. He incorporated the territories of the Duchy of Lorraine and the Corsican Republic into the Kingdom of France. He was succeeded in 1774 by his grandson Louis XVI, who was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution. Two of his other grandsons, Louis XVIII and Charles X, occupied the throne of France after the fall of Napoleon.
context_section_description: Between 1727 and 1737, the Queen gave birth to two sons and eight daughters. The first son, born 4 September 1729, became the dauphin and heir to the throne, though he did not live to rule. The second son, the Duke of Anjou, born in 1730, died in 1733. Only the two oldest daughters were raised at Versailles; the others were sent away to be raised at the Abbey of Fontevrault. The first-born daughter, called Madame Premiere, was married to the infant Philip of Spain, the second son of Philip of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese.
  Louis had been very much in love with the Queen, and they were inseparable in the early years of his reign, but as his family grew and the Queen was constantly pregnant or exhausted by her maternities, he began to look elsewhere. He first became attached to one of the ladies of the Queen's court, Louise Julie de Mailly, who was the same age as he and from an ancient noble family. Without courtship or ceremony he made her his mistress and raised her to the rank of Duchess. The Duke of Luynes commented on the King's behavior: "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. Acknowledging that he was committing adultery, Louis refused thereafter to go to confession and to take the sacrament. The Cardinal de Fleury tried to persuade him to confess and to give up his mistress, but without success.
  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. The King went into mourning and for a time turned to religion for consolation. When the King had finally recovered his spirits, 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 on 4 October 1742, 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. 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 Paris, where a popular comic poem was recited, ending: "Choosing an entire family – is that being unfaithful, or constant?"
  In June 1744, the king left Versailles for the front in order to take personal command of his armies fighting in the War of the Austrian Succession. This otherwise popular move was marred by the king's indiscreet decision to bring along Marie-Anne de Mailly. In August, the king fell gravely ill in Metz. Death appeared imminent, and public prayers were held all across France to ask God to save the king from death. The king's chaplain refused to give him absolution unless the king renounced his mistress, which he did; Marie-Anne left the court but was reunited with the King a few months later. The king's confession was distributed publicly, which embarrassed him and tarnished the prestige of the monarchy. Although Louis' recovery earned him the epithet "well-beloved" from a public relieved by his survival, the events at Metz diminished his standing. The military successes of the War of the Austrian Succession inclined the French public to overlook Louis' adulteries, but after 1748, in the wake of the anger over the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, pamphlets against the king's mistresses were widely distributed and read.
caption: Purported portrait of Louise Julie de Mailly, by Alexis Grimou
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