"Count William du Barry, the future husband of the king's mistress, was a poor officer in the French Navy who lived in Toulouse with his mother. Upon hearing the proposal, William was as scrupulous as his brother; he accepted the opportunity and left immediately for Paris. As soon as Jeanne became Madame du Barry, her husband returned to Toulouse to live with his mother, and Jeanne took up residence at Versailles in a second-floor apartment located precisely above that of Louis XV." (Marie Antoinette's World: Intrigue, Infidelity, and Adultery in Versailles: 33)
Personal & family background.
Born in Vaucouleurs, the illegitimate daughter of a dressmaker, she was introduced to society as Mademoiselle Lange by her lover, Jean du Barry. She married Jean's brother, Comte Guillaume du Barry, and became the official mistress of Louis XV. She wielded much influence, helped to bring about the downfall of the Finance Minister, the Duc de Choiseul (1770), and was notorious for her extravagance, though she was a generous patron of the arts. She was banished from court after Louis's death (1774), and was guillotined during the French Revolution." (Houghton Mifflin Co: 116)
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| Jeanne Becu Comtesse du Barry |
Physical apppearance & personal qualities.
"She was blond, beautiful, naturally cheerful, and totally disinterested in politics, a fact that did not keep cynics at court from trying to prove otherwise, involving her in intrigues detrimental to the country. . . ." (The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow: 93)
She was dazzlingly beautiful!
"Mme du Barry did have one attribute about which everybody agreed: she was dazzlingly beautiful. It was almost impossible for a man to see her and not be moved. Colleval, one of her visitors, wrote: 'She was nonchalantly sitting, or rather lying, in a big armchair and wore a white dress with pink garlands which I can never forget. Madame du Barry, one of the prettiest women in a court where beauties were legion, was the most seductive of all because of the perfection of her entire person. Her hair, which she often dressed without powder, was the most beautiful blond, and so abundant that she hardly knew what to do with it. Her wide-open blue eyes had a frank and caressing look . . . . Her nose was adorable, her mouth very small, and her skin of a dazzling whiteness.'" (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 82)
A visit by the Emperor Joseph II.
" . . . What she then was, physically and intellectually, we know from such a cool and impartial observer as Joseph II. He visited her in 1777, and though he pretended to do so by mere accident, as if passing the gate and desiring to see the grounds, Marie Antoinette was much hurt at her brother's recognition of the ex-royal mistress. He did not find her so good-looking as he had expected, but he was pleased with her conversation, stayed two hours, offered her his arm to be shown over the place, and on her demurring to this honour, replied, 'Make no fuss about it, beauty is always queen.'". . . ." (The Westminster Review, Vol 147: 30)
Her lovers were:
_-_Portret_van_maarschalk_hertog_Richelieu_-_Lissabon_Museu_Calouste_Gulbenkian_21-10-2010_13-34-54.jpg/572px-Jean-Marc_Nattier_(1685-1766)_-_Portret_van_maarschalk_hertog_Richelieu_-_Lissabon_Museu_Calouste_Gulbenkian_21-10-2010_13-34-54.jpg) |
| Duke of Richelieu |
French soldier, diplomat & statesman.
Husband of:
1. Anne-Catherine de Noailles
2. Marie-Elisabeth Sophie de Lorraine, mar 1734
3. An Irish Lady, mar 1768
2) Henry Seymour (1729-1807)
Lover in 1779/1780.
British politician
Son of: Francis Seymour & Elizabeth Popham, daughter of Alexander Popham.
Husband of:
1. Lady Caroline Cowper (d.1773), mar 1753, daughter of William Clavering-Cowper, 2nd Earl Cowper, mar 1729
2. Anne-Louise-Therese de la Martellière, Comtesse de Panthou (1741-1821), mar, 1775, widow of Comte Guillaume de Panthou, mar 1775, sep 1781.
" . . . Soon she became the lover of her neighbor, Lord Henry Seymour, nephew of the Duke of Somerset, but this affair ended badly. Henry, who was married, was given to jealousy, and objected to her friendships with other men. Though she tried unsuccessfully to regain Seymour's affections, he steadfastly snubbed all her attempts, peavishly (sic) sending back her miniature portrait with the words 'Leave me alone' written across it." (The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues)
" . . . In 1778 he settled in Paris . . . and purchased a country house at Prunay, between Versailles and St. Germain. He thus became the neighbour and may have already been the lover of Madame du Barry. He preserved about forty of her letters to him, together with a lock of her hair. The letters are undated, but were probably written in 1780, shortly before his separation from his wife. They show that his jealous temper led to a rupture. . . ." Wikisource)
" . . . If we are to believe Nouvelles a la main sur Madame la Comtesse Du Barry, published by Cantrel in 1861, . . . we read under date December 12, 1778, that Seymour's attachment to Madame Dubarry began a few months after her return to Louveciennes, and that its flames were not then quite extinct, though there had been talk of her marrying an American. This would agree with the Agge Georgel, who represents the attachment as being formed shortly after her return from banishment. . . Seymour was unquestionably her 'sandwich' between Louis XV and Brissac; but how soon he succeeded Louis we cannot tell. If we fix 1778, Seymour was in his fiftieth year, while the lady was in her thirty-sixth. . . ." (The Westminster Review, Volume 147: 29)
Lover in 1762-1766?
A high-class pimp
Son of: Antoine Dubarry, Captain of the Isle-de-France regiment & Catherine-Marguerite-Therese La Case
Lover in 1762/1763.
Installation as a count's mistress.
"It must have been towards the end of 1764 that Mademoiselle Beauvarnier was installed in the Comte du Barry's house as his mistress. In the Police journal for that year there is an entry under the date of 14th December, that there was present at the Theatre des Italiens the previous night 'a young woman, nineteen years of age, tall, well made, elegant in appearance, and very pretty, said to be Demoiselle Beauvarnier, the mistress of Comte du Barry.'" . . ." (The Life and Times of Madame Du Barry: 49)
"At the house of the Marquise de Duquesnoy, or at some similar haunt of blacklegs and demireps, the not too chaste Marguerite met her Mephistopheles, the tempter who was to introduce her to 'the heights of harlotry and rascaldom'---the Comte Jean Baptiste du Barry. He was at that time about forty years of age, for he was twenty years older than Jeanne 'Beauvarnier' as we must now call her. He was of a good family, and his father, Antoine du Barry, was a gallant soldier who had fought in the wars of Louis XIV, and had taken part in the battles of Hochstedt, Lille, Malplaquet, and Denain. Antoine du Barry left three sons, of whom Jean Baptiste was the eldest, and three of four daughters. The family estates, or what there let of them, were at Levignac, near Toulouse, and there Comte Jean du Barry lived till his vices and the scandals he created caused him to come to Pars, in 1756. He was in hopes of securing a diplomatic appointment, and he succeeded in getting two Ministers to entrust him with foreign missions but executed both so badly that the Duc de Choiseul refused to employ him again. By dint of endless importunity he managed to secure---possibly from the Duc de Duras, an easy-going man who was said never to refuse anything to anybody---a contract for the supply of provisions to the island of Corsica, and this contract he leased out, or sold. His life was devoted to debauchery, and in the six or seven years he had been in Paris he had managed to acquire the nickname of the Roué---a distinction not easily earned in those days. Gambling then was looked upon rather as a gentlemanly accomplishment than as a vice, and as a matter of course Jean du Barry was a confirmed gambler. It would not seem unjust to him, considering his character, to infer that he turned the king more frequently than is consistent with ordinary luck, and more often threw 'nicks' than 'crabs.' Mademoiselle Beauvarner, he, no doubt, thought would make an excellent lure for the pigeons who were to be plucked. She, it may easily be believed, was by no means averse to become his mistress, for like Catiline he was alienum appetens, sui profusus, and had the reputation of being very liberal to women, who were all fond of him. He was said to cover them with gold and diamonds, which, considering his means, must have been a figure of speech." (The Life and Times of Madame Du Barry: 49)
"As reflected in art from the time, Jeanne was a remarkably attractive blonde woman with thick golden ringlets and almond-shaped blue eyes. Her beauty came to the attention of Jean-Baptiste du Barry, a high-class pimp/procurer nicknamed le roué. Du Barry owned a casino, and Jeanne came to his attention in 1763 when she was entertaining in Madame Quisnoy's brothel-casino. She introduced herself as Jeanne Vaubernier. Du Barry installed her in his household and made her his mistress. Giving her the appellation of Mademoiselle Lange, Du Barry helped establish Jeanne's career as a courtesan in the highest circles of Parisian society; this enabled her to take several aristocratic men as brief lovers or clients." (Wikipedia)
" . . . She became a governess, an apprentice dressmaker and an inn-servant until she was taken up by Jean du Barry, an aristocratic gambler from Toulouse, who brought her to the attention of Louis XV in April 1769 after the death of Madame de Pompadour.
"Yet her father, whoever he was, made sure she received a decent education in a convent. She became a maidservant like her mother, then a shop girl, before her beauty came to the attention of a nobleman with a shady reputation, Jean-Baptiste du Barry, who made her his mistress en titre. Like many young women of great beauty and little means at the time, Jeanne became a courtesan. One of Jean-Baptiste’s friends, the Maréchal Duc de Richelieu, in turn impressed by her loveliness, had the idea to introduce her to Louis XV." (Versaiiles and More)
Jean du Barry's other lovers were:
4) Lametz.
Lover in 1758/60
A hairdresser.
"By the industrious research of the late M. Charles Vatel, the only writer whose statements concerning Madame du Barry can be accepted with absolute faith. It has been discovered that a young man named Lametz, who was a hair-dresser, did cross the path of Jeanne Becu, but in 1758 not in 1760. On 18th April 1759, Anne Becu, accompanied by her daughter, appeared before the Sieur Charpentier, commissary of police of the quarter, to make a complaint against the Widow Lametz, dress-maker, living in the Rue Neuve des Petits-Champs, opposite the offices of the Compagnie des Indes. At the Hotel of the Compagnie des Indes lived a Dame Peugevin, who had, for maid, Helene Becu, the sister of Anne and aunt of Jeanne. They used often to go and see their relative, and they met there a young hair-dresser named Lametz, who came to coiffer Dame Peugevin. No doubt the young man admired Jeanne, and when Madame Rancon proposed that he should teach her daughter hair-dressing he readily expressed his willingness to do so. In December 1758, he first began the lessons, and they lasted about five months. At last his mother began to notice his frequent absences, and on making inquiries found out that he spent much of his time in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Etienne, where the Rancons then lived. . . ." (The Life and Times of Madame Du Barry: 39)
" . . . Over time she worked at different occupations; she was first offered a post as assistant to a young hairdresser named Lametz; Jeanne had a brief relationship with him that may have produced a daughter, although it is highly improbable. . . . ." (Wikipedia)
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| Louis XV of France |
5) Louis XV de France (1710-1774)
Lover in 1769-1774
Introduction & first encounter at Versailles.
" . . . Under the pretext of visiting a minister, Jeanne went to Versailles and was introduced (probably by the marechal de Richelieu) to Level, the King's confidential valet. Level, who was duly impressed, told the King. Anyone who was decently dressed could enter the palace's state apartments, so Louis XV gave Jeanne a good stare as he passed down the Hall of Mirrors. He agreed with Lebel and arranged a meeting with her outside the palace, where no one would know. Du Barry, of course, was delighted, so was Richelieu; and they both sat back to await the end of the affair and its consequent rewards." (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 82)
Keeping appearances up.
"But Louis had no qualm marrying off his final mistress, the ravishing prostitute Jeanne Becu, to an impoverished nobleman to raise her status. Louis had the taverns and brothels of France searched for her pimp's brother, the comte du Barry. At the altar, the man was given a bag of gold, a pension for life, and a horse to ride away on. This respectable married woman, now a countess, could be presented at court despite the sneers behind painted fans." (Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge: 82)
What Louis XV liked in her.
" . . . Louis XV, that great consumer of women, had always been a little in awe of famous beauties, but this one was easy, sweet, undemanding, and thoroughly experienced in bed. . . The King, who was fifty-eight, found himself rejuvenated by Jeanne's face, figure, and little tricks. . . ." (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 82)
What they meant to each other.
"Just as Louis XV and Mme de Pompadour had known why they were in love year after year, now the King and Mme du Barry knew why she had become the favorite. He wanted a lovely and very sexy woman who amused and soothed him and who never bothered him with political problems. She wanted fame, luxury, glamour, and an easy relationship with the King. As for politics, or indeed anything else that was serious, she neither understood it nor cared about it." (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 86)
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| Mme du Barry's apartment |
The first lady in the world's most luxurious court--and all the luxury that went with the role.
"Her good will was universal. Jeanne was a genuinely kind person who was lucky enough to be living the dream of every Frenchwoman. By the spring of 1769, she had to all intents and purposes become the first lady in the world's most luxurious court. Her dresses were all the more dazzling in that they were adorned with diamonds: one bodice thickly covered with stones was in itself worth over 450,000 livres. Her apartments in the various royal palaces were newly decorated by the greatest artisans, and she was rapidly filling them with a sumptuous array of furniture made by ébénistes of genius. She rode about in gilded carriages. Best of all, she bought---avidly, ceaselessly---more and more jewels." (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 86)
Affair's benefits to the mistress.
" . . . Louis XV was unusually generous with her. He gave her an annual pension of 1,200,000 livres, to which he added a separate, irrevocable income of 150,000 livres a year. Moreover, the favorite was able to draw on the treasury for all her household expenses. The King also presented her with the little chateau of Louveciennes---although he kept ownership of the ground so that the estate would revert to the crown on the favorite's death. The building itself was pleasant enough, but by the time Mme du Barry had finished decorating, in had become a jewel box crammed with marble, gilded bronze, carved boiseries, and exquisite furniture---for a further cost of over a million livres." (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 87)
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| Château de Madame du Barry |
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| The Pavillon at Louveciennes @Wikipedia |
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| The Music Pavillon at Château de Louveciennes @Wikipedia |
" . . . In November 1776 she was allowed to return to Louveciennes or Luciennes, a village midway between Versailles and St. Germain, where she had installed herself fin 1769, and had erected near the château, it being disagreeably near the machine which pumped up water from the Seine for Versailles, what the French call a pavillon, a smaller building in which she could live at more ease and undisturbed by the noise of the hydraulic machine. There Louis had been in the habit of visiting her. Both chateau and pavilion are still standing, but no wform two distinct properties. The terrace, or rather embankment, adjoining the pavilion gave Madame Dubarry a view not only of the valley of the Seine, the finest view in the vicinity of Paris but also of a villa, standing on the same slope, but lower down and near to St. Germain, called Prunay. . . ." (The Westminster Review, Vol 147: 26)
Affair's effects on the nobility & other courtiers.
" . . . But most of the royal court found his last mistress, the young, stunningly beautiful but decidedly plebeian Jeanne Becu, known to history as Madame du Barry, completely beyond the pale. For if she had not exactly been a streetwalker, she had certainly been a courtesan, working her way up through noble lovers with the assistance of her ambitious pander, the Count du Barry. Eventually she caught the eye of ambitious courtiers, who slipped her into the royal bed and married her to du Barry's destitute good-for-nothing brother, the Viscount du Barry, in order that she could be named official mistress, an honour reserved for the nobility. In a society where power was determined by proximity to the king's body, her elevation infuriated the powerful Choisseul clan, the aristocracy and most of the royal family, many of whom snubbed her publicly or spread malicious rumours about her. Thus the royal sex life fuelled widespread discontent at all levels of society. . . ." (A King's Ransom: xiv)
Affair's end & aftermath.
"Marie Antoinette had her revenge after May 10, 1774, when Louis XV died of smallpox. The Dauphine became Queen, and Mme du Barry was sent off to a rather bleak convent in the provinces. The ex-favorite endured her boredom without complaint, however, and after two years all was forgiven. She was allowed to go back to wonderful Louveciennes, and there she lived, beautiful as ever, in contented splendor until the Revolution. . . ." (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 92)
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| Louis de Cosse Duc of Brissac @Wikipedia |
6) Louis-Hercule-Timolon de Cosse, Duc de Brissac (1734-1792)
Lover in 1776-1792
[or 1782-1792: " . . . Possibly it was for Seymour that Madame Lebrun, in 1778, copied Madame Dubarry's portrait. The correspondence is certainly prior to 1782, when Madame Dubarry formed a liaison with the Duc de Cosse-Brissac, Governor of Paris, who, as a Court official, had known her in her Versailles days, and had perhaps even then been enamoured of her. . . ." (The Westminster Review, Vol 147: 29)
"The 'M. le Duc' referred to in this letter was an even greater collector than Mme Du Barry; his name was Louis Hercule Timoleon de Cosse, Duc de Brissac, and for many years he had played a part of great importance in her life. A liaison had existed between them since 1776, soon after she first settled at Louveciennes, but it had been conducted with such tact on both sides that it caused little offense. Their acquaintance had begun considerably earlier at Versailles, where Brissac, then Duc de Cosse, was colonel captain of the king's Swiss Guard and occupied a suite of apartments next to those of the Favorite. When Louis XV died and she was sent away from the court, Cosse was one of the first to visit her. When he eventually won her favor, he made it clear that he would tolerate no rivals the most dangerous was Henry Seymour, living in a chateau near Louveciennes and Mme. du Barry, who probably set less store by fidelity than he did, nevertheless remained faithful. By the time of the Revolution their relationship had reached a point where Brissac could write to his mistress of her kindness and 'the perfect agreement of moods which makes a habitual association so delightful.' . . . ." (The Du Barry Inheritance: 10)
" . . . Jeanne became the lover of the duc de Brissac. With his wife seemingly indifferent to his conduct, Brissac and du Barry became a devoted couple, dividing their time between her estate at Louveciennes and his hotel on the rue de Grenelle. Wealthy himself, Brissac supported her in the style in which she had been indulged as the king's favorite. And paradoxically, as his mistress, she was more acceptable to the aristocracy than she had been as the king's favorite. Over time, she even gained the approval of the royal family." (The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues: 247)
" . . . She was even happy in love---with the duc de Brissac, who was tall, handsome, kind, and married to a sickly woman whom he never saw. Soon he and Mme du Barry formed a united couple. She won wide acceptance in society; even Emperor Joseph II, Marie Antoinette's brother, made a point of visiting her when he came through Paris." (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 92)
"After the death of Louis XV, Jeanne was quickly exiled to the Abbey du Pont-aux-Dames near. After about one year, she was allowed to visit the surrounding countryside on condition she returned and slept behind the abbey's walls at sundown. Jeanne started to slowly recover and even managed to purchase some property. Later on Timoleon de Cosse, Duke of Brissac. Brissac was captured while visiting Paris, and was slaughtered by a mob during the French Revolution and an angry crowd threw his head through the open window. Madame du Barry herself was arrested in 1793 for treason and beheaded by means of the guillotine on 8 December in the same year. Her last words to the executioner were Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau (One more moment, Mr. Executioner)." (youvisto)
Madame du Barry's other lovers:
a. Jean-Louis d'Usson de Bonnac, Bishop of Agen
b. Duc de Rohan-Chabot
Lover in 1793
"This was in May 1793. France was living under the Reign of Terror, but th ex-favorite saw no reason why anything should happen to her. Then Zamor denounced her again, and on July 1, she was arrested. She complained so vigorously, however, that she was set free. . . 'There is no accusation that can legitimately be made against the citizenness Du Barry.' And the triumphant Jeanne spent an idyllic summer with her new lover, the duc de Rohan-Chabot." (The Eighteenth-century Woman: 93)
c. Radix de Ste Foix
" . . . The principal person with whom her name was associated at this time was Radix de Ste Foix, a fermier general and naval contractor, and who seems to have been the only one of Madame du Barry's lovers of whom Louis XV had ever heard of, for, soon after the favourite made her appearance at Court, the King in talking about her to the Duc d'Ayen asked, 'Is it true, as they say, that I have succeeded to sainte Foix?'" (The Life and Times of Madame Du Barry: 44)
d. "Nor is there any ground for assuming that she was unfaithful to her 'protector.' Scandal has attributed to her half a dozen lovers, amongst whom were Sainte Foix, an old admirer, now Chief Clerk in the Foreign Office, M. d'Arcambal, and Comte de Fitz James,
a charming young man,' who was none the better for having the blood of James II in his veins, but who at least showed better taste in the matter of women than his royal relative. If there was any intrigue between Mademoiselle Vaubarnier and any, or all of these adorers, it was certainly with the knowledge and tacit consent of Jean du Barry." (The Life and Times of Madame Du Barry: 51)
Madame du Barry Gallery.
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| Madame du Barry by Jean-Jacques Caffieri |
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| Madame du Barry by Sevres Manufactory, 1772 |
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| Madame du Barry by Francois-Hubert Drouais |
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| Madame du Barry by Richard Cosway, 1791 |
Anecdotes on the Countess du Barry (1775).
A Wronged Woman: The Betrayal of Madame du Barry @Persephone Magazine.
Death of Madame du Barry @Tea at Trianon.
Du Barry @Tumblr.
Du Barry's 'Only Fault' Failed at Last to Avail Her @Chicago Tribune.
Jeanne Becu, Madame du Barry @This is Versailles.
Jeanne Becu, Comtesse du Barry @encyclopedia.com
The Du Barry Inheritance @ archive.org
The Life and Times of Madame du Barry (Full Text) @archive.org
The Life and Times of Madame du Barry (EPub) @archive.org
The French Revolution -- Madame Du Barry and Princess de Lamballe @The Love of History.
Madame du Barry: The Process f Digging Amongst the Remains @Spectator Archive
Madame du Barry: The Wages of Beauty @Google Books.
Madame du Barry, 8th December 1793 @Madame Guillotine
Madame du Barry @Chateau Versailles
Madame du Barry @Palaces of Europe.
Madame du Barry @FB
Madame du Barry: At the Side of the King @Important to Madeleine
Madame du Barry @YouTube
Madame du Barry @Louvre
Madame Vigee Lebrun on Madame Du Barry @History and Other Thoughts.
Progress of Love @New York Social Diary.
Portraits of Madame Du Barry @batguano
Madame du Barry @Palaces of Europe.
Madame du Barry @FB
Madame du Barry: At the Side of the King @Important to Madeleine
Madame du Barry @YouTube
Madame du Barry @Louvre
Madame Vigee Lebrun on Madame Du Barry @History and Other Thoughts.
Progress of Love @New York Social Diary.
Portraits of Madame Du Barry @batguano
