1743–1793

Royal Mistress

A Shop Girl.

The last of King Louis XV's notorious mistresses, the Countess du Barry, was born into a poor family and received a convent education before becoming a worker in a Parisian dress shop. There she developed her sense of style and came to the attention of a nobleman from Gascony, the Count du Barry. She soon became his lover and began to circulate in Parisian society, serving in turn as mistress to a number of French noblemen. Eventually she came to the notice of King Louis XV and became his lover in 1768. Since the death of Madame de Pompadour in 1764, Louis had not appointed any mistress to the office of maitresse en titre, the court honor reserved for the mistress of the king. Marie-Jeanne Bécu was a commoner, and one from an unusually...