Jeanne Agnès Berthelot de Pléneuf, marquise de Prie (August 1698 – 7 October 1727), was a French noblewoman who for a brief period exercised extraordinary control of the French court during the reign of King Louis XV.

Life

She was the daughter of the wealthy but unscrupulous financier Étienne Berthelot de Pléneuf. At the age of fifteen she was married to penniless Norman aristocrat Louis de Prie (1673-1751), marquis de Plasnes (with Courbépine), known as the marquis de Prie, and went with him to the court of

Savoy Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south. Savo ...

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

, where he was

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

. At the age of 21, she returned to France, and was soon the declared

mistress Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to: Romance and relationships * Mistress (lover), a term for a woman who is in a sexual and romantic relationship with a man who is married to a d ...

Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon (Louis Henri Joseph; 18 August 1692 – 27 January 1740), was a French nobleman and politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1723 to 1726. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a '' pr ...

("Monsieur le Duc"), who was prime minister at the beginning of the reign of Louis XV (1723-1726). During his ministry she dominated the royal court and engineered the marriage of

Louis XV of France Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), 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 ...

to Marie Leszczynska instead of Henriette Louise de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Vermandois, the younger sister of the Duke of Bourbon. In 1725, her scheme to have Bourbon's rival André Hercule de Fleury, Fleury exiled failed. Instead, Fleury was recalled and in turn became prime minister causing Bourbon to be banished to his castle at Chantilly, Oise, Chantilly. In 1725, at the time of Louis XV's marriage, she brought Voltaire to court. Thanks to her, three pieces by Voltaire were included in the wedding festivities. Madame de Prie was exiled to Courbépine, where she committed suicide the next year. Her exile from the court and suicide are the subject of a short fictional work by Stefan Zweig, "Geschichte eines Unterganges" or "Story of a Downfall" (1910). At the start of Alexandre Dumas' drama Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle (1839), the Duke of Richelieu breaks off a relationship with the Marquise de Prie while the latter is titular mistress of the Duke of Bourbon. Charlotte Rampling played de Prie in the 1996 TV movie ''La dernière fête'', titled in English ''The Fall of the Marquise de Prie''.

Sources

* M.H. Thirion, ''Madame de Prie'' (Paris, 1905).

References

;Attribution * * 1698 births, Prie 1727 deaths, Prie 18th-century French women 17th-century French women People of the Regency of Philippe d'Orléans People of the Ancien Régime French marchionesses, Prie Suicides in France, Prie 18th-century suicides French salon-holders {{Women's-History-stub