King Louis XV of France kept mistresses like many monarchs before him, but none pushed the limits quite like he did. His love life became one of the biggest scandals of the eighteenth century, yet one family’s story stood above all others. Not one, not two, but four sisters from the same aristocratic house became the official mistresses of the same king. This is the story of the infamous de Nesle sisters.
The de Nesle, or de Mailly, sisters came from a distinguished noble lineage. Their father, Louis de Mailly, was a French aristocrat, a well-known writer, and the Marquis de Mailly and de Nesle. His family had held a place in French high society for centuries, and in 1713 he was granted the title of Prince of Orange, a principality in Provence that had previously been ruled by the Dutch House of Orange. It was a highly prestigious designation, placing the sisters among the leading noble families in France.
Their mother, Armande Félice de La Porte Mazarin, was the Marquise de Nesle. The Nesle title came from her family, and her husband only acquired that part of his name after their marriage in 1709. Through their mother, the sisters inherited a partial Italian heritage. Armande’s father was a descendant of Hortense Mancini, whose family had been elevated by their uncle, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the powerful chief minister to King Louis XIV.
Under his patronage, the Mancini women became famous at the French court for their beauty and influence. Like many daughters of the high nobility, the de Nesle sisters were educated for life at Versailles. They were trained in music, dance, etiquette, conversation, and the other skills required of aristocratic women before making their debut at one of the most glamorous and politically dangerous courts in Europe. Before the de Nesle sisters, the Mancini women had already made their mark on European history.
Several of them became mistresses to some of the most powerful kings of the seventeenth century, including Louis XIV of France and Charles II of England. But their achievements would soon be overshadowed by what came next. The de Nesle sisters accomplished something that was virtually unprecedented. Four sisters became the official mistresses of the same king.
Louis XV was born in February 1710, just one month before the eldest of the five de Nesle sisters. He ascended to the French throne in September 1715 at the age of just five, succeeding his great-grandfather, Louis XIV. Over the next 59 years, Louis XV became one of France’s most notorious kings, not for war or politics, but for the extraordinary scandals of his personal life. In 1725, Louis married Marie Leszczyńska, a member of a prominent Polish noble family.
She was 22 and he was only 15. They had ten children together, although three died in childhood. The marriage remained stable for years, but by the early 1730s, Louis XV began to look elsewhere. Over the following decades, he would acquire a reputation as one of France’s most infamous womanizers.
Madame de Pompadour would later become the most famous of his mistresses, but before her came a scandal that overshadowed everything else: the remarkable rise of the de Nesle sisters. Louise Julie de Mailly was the eldest of the five de Nesle sisters. She was born in Paris on March 16, 1710, and she was the first to become the king’s mistress. Like many aristocratic women of the era, her future was decided before her own opinion was considered.
At just 16, she was married to her cousin, Louis Alexandre de Mailly, in order to consolidate the family’s control over lands and titles. It was not a happy marriage. In 1729, the sisters lost their mother, who died at around the age of 38. Since 1725, Armande had served as the queen’s principal lady-in-waiting, a position known as “dame du palais.
” After her death, Louise Julie took over that prestigious role, placing her at the center of the court just as King Louis XV was beginning to take an interest in her. By 1732, the two had begun an affair that would change her life and the history of her family forever. Her husband had little say in whether his wife would become the king’s mistress. In early modern European courts, the king’s will was absolute, and few aristocratic families dared refuse it for fear of losing their standing.
In fact, the families of royal mistresses and often their husbands welcomed the arrangement, using their wife’s new influence to obtain pensions, titles, military posts, government offices, and other royal favors. Louise Julie’s relationship with the king was not entirely accidental. Cardinal André Hercule de Fleury, Louis XV’s most powerful minister, actively encouraged it. He believed Louise Julie could be used to exert influence over the king.
Having a discreet royal mistress loyal to his own interests was far preferable to allowing rival factions around the queen to gain power. In that sense, the de Nesle sisters’ remarkable role at court began as political calculation as much as romance. Louise Julie herself seemed little interested in wielding political power. Instead, she enjoyed the immense wealth, lavish gifts, and elevated social status that came with being the king’s favorite.
At first, the relationship was kept from the public eye. Between 1732 and 1738, Louis XV was determined to keep his affairs as discreet as possible. To the outside world, he still appeared to be a devoted husband who regularly spent time with the queen. Then came a disaster in 1738.
After one pregnancy after another, the queen’s doctors warned that another pregnancy could be fatal for her following a miscarriage. From that moment, the royal marriage became a friendship rather than a physical relationship. This change transformed life at Versailles. With the queen unable to fulfill her conjugal duties, the court formally accepted the position of a mistress.
Louise Julie, whose extraordinary beauty had first captivated Louis, was the first woman to publicly occupy this role. Despite all the wealth, prestige, and influence she gained, she remained shy and introverted by nature and never fully adapted. She seemed to genuinely love the king and considered him more than just a passing companion. In the end, Louise Julie’s greatest rival was not some other ambitious beauty at court.
It was a member of her own family. Believing she was securing her sisters’ futures, she used her influence with the king to obtain prestigious positions for them at Versailles. Without realizing it, she was paving the way for the woman who would eventually take her place. By the late 1730s, while Louise Julie was the king’s official mistress, Louis had also begun relationships with her younger sisters.
For a woman who had devoted herself completely to him, this betrayal was devastating. In the spring of 1742, she was replaced by one of her own sisters. Even worse, her younger sister had her evicted from her apartment at Versailles, completing the humiliation. After losing the king’s love and her place at court, Louise Julie retreated to a convent, where she spent the rest of her life.
She died there in March 1751 at the age of 41. But while her story ended in quiet retreat, the scandal of the de Nesle sisters was only just beginning. Pauline Félicité, the second eldest of the five de Nesle sisters, was born in 1712. Unlike Louise Julie, who was shy and introverted, Pauline was tall, outspoken, and far more clever.
She had a fierce desire for wealth, influence, and attention, qualities that would turn her into one of the most feared and hated women at Versailles. In her mid-twenties and still unmarried, Pauline wrote to Louise Julie asking for an invitation to court. Her older sister happily agreed, never considering the consequences. Instead of showing gratitude, Pauline quickly drew the king’s attention to herself.
By 1739, she had become Louis XV’s mistress alongside Louise Julie. The incredible scandal of two sisters sharing the same king had become reality. Like Louise Julie, Pauline was showered with gifts, money, and property. A marriage was then arranged for her to the Marquis de Vintimille, one of France’s leading aristocrats.
The marriage gave Pauline a prestigious title, and her new husband conveniently retreated to the countryside while his new wife continued her relationship with the king. But Pauline’s rise was tragically short-lived. In September 1741, after only two years as the king’s mistress, she died giving birth at the age of 29. The child’s father was almost certainly the king, although legally the boy was recognized as the son of the Marquis de Vintimille.
He received financial support from Louise Julie for the rest of his life, but the king showed little interest in him. What happened after Pauline’s death made her tragic end even more horrifying. While her body lay at Versailles, guards neglected their duties to drink at night. An enraged mob then broke in and mutilated her corpse, accusing her of debauchery.
Both Louis XV and Louise Julie were reportedly devastated by Pauline’s death, with Louise Julie terrified that she had brought her sister to court and set her on the path to such a terrible fate. But even Pauline’s tragic end would soon be overshadowed. Marie Anne, the youngest and most ambitious of the de Nesle sisters, was waiting for her opportunity. Marie Anne was born on October 5, 1717, the youngest of the five sisters.
She was the most ruthless of them all and the complete opposite of her older sister. Where Louise Julie was modest, shy, and uninterested in politics, Marie used her beauty, charm, and ambition to take her sister’s place in the king’s heart and build her own faction at court. In June 1734, at the age of 16, Marie Anne married Jean-Baptiste Louis, the Marquis de La Tournelle, who was nine years her senior. Like her sisters before her, she was soon invited to court through Louise Julie.
But Marie Anne had no intention of living in her sister’s shadow. By 1741, Pauline was dead. Louise Julie’s position was weakening, and there was intense competition for influence over the king. Seeing an opportunity, the Duke of Richelieu, a fierce rival of Cardinal Fleury, decided to support Marie Anne as Louis XV’s next mistress.
At a magnificent royal ball at Versailles in 1742, Richelieu carefully introduced the young aristocrat to the king. The plan worked perfectly. Within weeks, Marie Anne had captured Louis’s attention and become his new mistress. Contemporary accounts describe her as ruthless, even insisting that Louis dismiss his other mistresses so she could take the role exclusively.
Determined to hold sole power, she wasted no time in removing her own sister. As noted earlier, she ordered the furniture removed from Louise Julie’s apartment at Versailles, a calculated insult that left no doubt the former mistress’s days of power were over. Marie Anne was now the king’s chief mistress and at the center of the court’s political intrigues. Europe was embroiled in the War of the Austrian Succession, and Richelieu hoped to use his close relationship with Marie Anne to influence Louis’s decisions and secure command of France’s military campaigns against Austria, Britain, and the Dutch Republic.
Her remarkable rise, however, was also short-lived. In early winter 1744, Marie Anne fell seriously ill. Believing she had been poisoned, she died on December 8, 1744, at just 27 years old. Rumors of murder spread throughout Versailles, though no definitive evidence was ever found.
Louis XV was emotionally devastated by her death, and the powerful political faction that had formed around her came to an abrupt end. Yet Marie Anne’s notorious career was not the last sign of the de Nesle sisters’ astonishing hold on the king. Another sister was still waiting. After Marie Anne’s death, the king sought comfort in the arms of a fourth de Nesle sister.
Diane Adélaïde, born in 1713, was the middle child of the five sisters. During the intense rivalry between Louise Julie and Marie Anne in the early 1740s, Diane had firmly sided with Marie Anne. When Marie Anne won the struggle, Diane remained at court. In January 1739, she had married Louis de Brancas, the Duke of Villars.
Like most of her sisters’ marriages, this union involved infidelity on both sides, though the couple did have a daughter named Louise. Unlike Louise Julie’s sincere devotion or Marie Anne’s ruthless political ambition, Diane’s relationship with Louis XV was far less dramatic and largely a matter of circumstance. It began in the final weeks of 1744 and ended three months later. The 31-year-old Diane was displaced as royal mistress by a 23-year-old commoner named Jeanne Antoinette Poisson.
After meeting Louis at a masquerade ball celebrating the wedding of the Dauphin to the Spanish princess Maria Teresa Rafaela, she would become the legendary Madame de Pompadour, ushering in a new chapter in the king’s life. Diane then retired from court and lived quietly until her death in Paris in 1769 at the age of 56. Still, one sister remained who we have not yet discussed. Why was she not involved with the king?
Hortense, the second youngest of the five de Nesle sisters, was born in Paris on February 11, 1715. She was completely different from her four siblings. Hortense was the only sister who never became a mistress of King Louis XV. At the relatively late age of 24, she married François Marie de Foix, the Marquis de Flavacourt, in 1739.
Their married life was extremely unhappy due to François Marie’s harsh and sometimes violent behavior. Despite this, they had two children, a son named Auguste and a daughter named Adélaïde. Like her sisters, Hortense spent much of her time at the French court from the mid-1730s onward after Louise Julie became the king’s mistress. In 1742, as the king was shifting from one de Nesle sister to another, Hortense was appointed as a lady-in-waiting to the queen.
To many observers, this seemed like the next step in the familiar pattern. Surely now it was Hortense’s turn. They were wrong. Hortense refused the king’s advances.
If court gossip is to be believed, she was caught between the king’s wishes and threats from her husband, who vowed to kill her if she became Louis’s mistress. Whatever the truth, Hortense was the only de Nesle sister who never shared the king’s bed. Shortly afterward, Louis’s attention turned to the famous Madame de Pompadour, who became his official mistress in 1745. In the years that followed, Hortense remained at court as a lady-in-waiting.
By the 1760s, she began to distance herself from the pomp of Versailles. In the end, she lived a long life, outliving most of her sisters by half a century and Diane by 30 years. This meant she lived to see the French Revolution of 1789. As a member of the aristocracy and the last of the de Nesle sisters closely tied to Louis XV, she was arrested and interrogated during the Reign of Terror in 1793 and 1794.
According to accounts, her sardonic wit saved her during interrogation. Maximilien Robespierre, who led the revolutionary terror, apparently found no justifiable reason to drag a woman in her seventies to the guillotine at the Place de la Révolution. Hortense finally died peacefully in Paris on December 28, 1799, at the age of 84. Just one month earlier, Napoleon Bonaparte had come to power as First Consul.
The world she and her sisters had once known was gone forever. After the arrival of Madame de Pompadour in 1745, the de Nesle sisters lost their influence as the king’s mistresses. Pompadour managed to hold her position into the early 1750s, when illness made a physical relationship risky, just as it had been for the queens before her. Yet unlike the de Nesle sisters, Pompadour retained her influence and remained close to the king for many years thereafter.
During the 1750s, 1760s, and early 1770s, Louis took more than a dozen other influential mistresses. Around 1752, Pompadour ran a building in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles where these mistresses lived. It was called the Parc-aux-Cerfs, meaning the “Park of the Stags. ” Even with all the women who came later, the extraordinary story of the de Nesle sisters was never forgotten.
In 1765, the French painter Charles-André van Loo created the painting “The Three Graces. ” Although it depicted a scene from Greek mythology, the three nude women in the painting were understood to represent Louise Julie, Pauline, and Marie Anne. Nearly three centuries later, the de Nesle sisters remain one of the most notorious families in European royal history. Four sisters had become mistresses of the same king, one after another, and a fifth had been on the brink of joining them.
It was a scandal that has endured long after the monarchy itself collapsed.