Marie Françoise Catherine de Beauvau-Craon, marquise de Boufflers (1711–1786), commonly known as Madame de Boufflers, was a French noblewoman. She was the

royal mistress A royal mistress is the historical position and sometimes unofficial title of the extramarital lover of a monarch or an heir apparent, who was expected to provide certain services, such as sexual or romantic intimacy, companionship, and advic ...

of Stanislas Leszczyński and mother of the poet Stanislas de Boufflers.

Family

Her father was Marc de Beauvau, Prince of Beauvau-Craon, and her mother was Anne Marguerite de Lignéville (1686–1772), mistress of

Leopold, Duke of Lorraine Leopold the Good (11 September 1679 – 27 March 1729) was Duke of Lorraine and Bar from 1690 to his death. Through his son Francis Stephen, he is the direct male ancestor of all rulers of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, including all Emperors o ...

. She had nineteen siblings, including Charles Juste de Beauvau, through whom she was a sister-in-law of Marie Charlotte de La Tour d'Auvergne. Marie Françoise Catherine married Louis François de Boufflers (1714–1752), marquis d'Amestranges, with whom she had Stanislas de Boufflers, later famous as a poet.

Life

Witty, well-educated and beautiful, the marquise de Boufflers wrote verse and drew in pastel. At the court at

Lunéville Lunéville ( ; German, obsolete: ''Lünstadt'' ) is a commune in the northeastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. It is a subprefecture of the department and lies on the river Meurthe at its confluence with the Vezouze. History Lu ...

, aged 34, she became the chief mistress to king Stanislas, then aged 64. This did not stop her also collecting other lovers; nicknamed ''La Dame de Volupté'' ("the lady of delight"), she was also the mistress of the poet Jean François de Saint-Lambert, then of M. of Adhémar, of the intendant de Lorraine

Antoine-Martin Chaumont de La Galaizière Antoine-Martin Chaumont de La GalaizièreAlso spelled Chaumont de La Galaisière (22 January 1697, Namur - 3 October 1783, Paris), marquis de La Galaizière, chancellor of Lorraine, was a French nobleman active at the court of Lorraine. He was one ...

, of the lawyer and poet

François-Antoine Devaux François-Antoine Devaux (12 December 1712, in Lunéville – 11 April 1796, or 22 germinal year IV, Lunéville) was a Lorraine (and, after 1766, French) poet and man of letters. He was called ''Panpan'' by his friends. Life Devaux trained as a l ...

.Ian Davidson - ''Voltaire, a life'' - Profile Books - London, 2010 - pages 232 and fol. To try to make the Marquise de Boufflers jealous and regain her affections, Saint-Lambert attempted to seduce the Marquise du Châtelet when the latter arrived in Lunéville in 1748. The Marquise du Châtelet fell passionately in love with the poet and became best friends with the Marquise de Boufflers, thus completely ruining the plans of Father Menou, Stanislas' confessor, who wanted to use her to dislodge the Marquise de Boufflers as chief mistress to the king. Her witty poem "Sentir avec ardeur" is cited in French and in full by the twentieth-century Modernist poet

Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. Early life Moore was born in Kirkwood ...

in the notes to Moore's poem "Tom Fool at Jamaica."

References

1711 births 1786 deaths Marie-Francoise French marchionesses Mistresses of Polish royalty People from Lunéville {{France-noble-stub