Marie-Louise O'Murphy

Francois Boucher, Louise O'Murphy c. 1752, oil on canvas, 59 x 73 cm., (23.23 × 28.74 in), Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Marie-Louise O'Murphy de Boisfaily (Rouen, 21 October 1737 - 11 December 1814)—whose original surname is also given in sources as Murphy, Morphy, or O'Morphy—was one of the younger mistresses of King Louis XV of France. Her life was dramatised in the 1997 novel Our Lady of the Potatoes.

Life

She was the seventh and youngest child of Daniel O’Murphy de Boisfaily, an Irish officer who had taken up shoemaking in Rouen, France, and his wife Marguerite Igny. After the death of her father in 1753, her mother brought the family to Paris.

In his Histoire de ma vie (vol. 3, chap. 11), Giacomo Casanova relates that he found her "a pretty, ragged, dirty, little creature" of thirteen years in the house of her actress sister. Struck by her beauty when seeing her naked, however, he had a nude portrait of her painted, with the inscription "O-Morphi" (punning her name with Modern Greek ὄμορφη, "beautiful"), a copy of which found its way to the King, who took her as one of his mistresses. (This portrait is apparently not to be identified with the memorable and provocative portrait by François Boucher, though Casanova's description indicates that the poses were similar.)

She quickly became a favourite, and, after a miscarriage in 1753 (who apparently deeply affected the King), she gave birth Louis XV's illegitimate daughter, Agathe Louise de Saint-Antoine, born in Paris on 20 May 1754 and baptized that same day at Saint-Paul. On 27 December 1773 at the Parisin Convent of the Visitation, Agathe married with René Jean de la Tour du Pin, marquis de la Charce (born Paris, 26 July 1750), and died after only nine months of marriage, on 6 September 1774, at consecuence of a miscarriage. Her widow remarried and had a son, but died young in 1781.

After serving as a mistress to the King for just over two years, O'Murphy made a mistake that was common for many courtesans, that of trying to replace the official mistress. Around 1754, she unwisely tried to unseat the longtime royal favorite, Madame de Pompadour. This ill-judged move quickly resulted in O'Murphy's downfall at court; a marriage was arranged to Jacques Pelet de Beaufranchet, seigneur d'Ayat (born 5 March 1728), who took place on 27 November 1755 in Paris. From this union, the former royal mistress had two children: a daughter, Louise Charlotte Antoinette Françoise (born 30 October 1756 - died 6 February 1759), and a son, Louis Charles Antoine Pelet (born 22 November 1757 - died on 2 July 1812), the later comte de Beaufranchet and General under the Republic.

Jacques de Beaufranchet was killed in action on 5 November 1757, at the battle of Rossbach. Two years later, on 19 February 1759 at Riom, O'Murphy married again to François Nicolas Le Normant, comte de Flaghac (born 13 September 1725), a widower with three children. From this union, O'Murphy gave birth a daughter, Marguerite Victoire (born 5 January 1768 - died 1814), who, according to one theory, could be another illegitimate daughter of Louis XV.

Following the French Revolution, O'Murphy was imprisoned because of her royal connections, but she survived the Reign of Terror and many years of political turmoil. She died in 1814 at the age of 77.