Louise-Jeanne Tiercelin de La Colleterie (26 December 1746 – 5 July 1779), known as Madame de Bonneval, was a mistress to King Louis XV of France from 1762 to 1765.Sylvia Jurewitz-Freischmidt: ''Galantes Versailles – Die Mätressen am Hofe der Bourbonen''. Katz Casimir Verlag, .

Biography

Louise-Jeanne was born in Mortagne on 26 December 1746, as the daughter of Jeanne-Jacqueline Vautorte and a guardsman named Pierre Tiercelin de La Colleterie. At the age of 11, she was recruited by

Dominique Guillaume Lebel Dominique Guillaume Lebel (1696–1768) or also Le Bel, was first chamber servant, or ''valet-de-chambre'', of king Louis XV of France.Patrick Wald Lasowski, L'Amour au temps des libertins, Editions First-Gründ, 2011 He is mainly known in history f ...

to be trained with the purpose of becoming a ''petite maîtresse'' (unofficial mistress) of King Louis XV of France in

Parc-aux-Cerfs A Parc-aux-Cerfs (literally, stag park), in France, was generally the name given to the clearings that provided hunting fields for the French aristocracy prior to the French Revolution. The name is most notoriously known in history for an area i ...

, and was finally installed as such at the age of 16 in 1762. When she arrived,

Marguerite-Catherine Haynault Marguerite-Catherine Haynault (1736–1823) was a French noblewoman, mistress to Louis XV of France from 1759 to 1762.Sylvia Jurewitz-Freischmidt: Galantes Versailles – Die Mätressen am Hofe der Bourbonen. Katz Casimir Verlag, She was born in ...

and

Lucie Madeleine d'Estaing Lucie-Madeleine d’Estaing (1743–1826), was a French noblewoman, mistress to Louis XV of France from 1760 to 1763. Sylvia Jurewitz-Freischmidt: Galantes Versailles – Die Mätressen am Hofe der Bourbonen. Katz Casimir Verlag, Life She was ...

were already staying at the Parc-aux-Cerfs. Louise, reportedly, threw the gifts the king had given her upon him while screaming that she hated him and called him ugly, which the king was not offended but was rather amused by. She had a son by the king: Benoît-Louis Le Duc (1764-1837). When the abbé de Lustrac encouraged her to plot to have her son legitimised, the king discontinued the affair and had her confined to the

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stor ...

on 25 July 1765; she was released with a pension of 30.000

livres The (; ; abbreviation: ₶.) was one of numerous currencies used in medieval France, and a unit of account (i.e., a monetary unit used in accounting) used in Early Modern France. The 1262 monetary reform established the as 20 , or 80.88 gr ...

on 18 August. She did not marry but lived as a boarder in several convents and had several love affairs, notably with the Comte de Langeac and the American adventurer Paul Jones. She was often placed in debt, spending about 100.000 livres annually, which was paid by the royal treasury; both by Louis XV and his successor Louis XVI. She died of cancer on 5 July 1779, at the age of 32.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tiercelin De La Colleterie, Louise-Jeanne 1746 births 1779 deaths 18th-century French people Mistresses of Louis XV People imprisoned by lettre de cachet Prisoners of the Bastille