French adventuress, the daughter of a rich but unscrupulous father and an immoral mother. At the age of fifteen she was married to Louis, marquis de Prie, and went with him to the court of Savoy at Turin, where he was ambassador. She was twenty-one when she returned to France, and was soon the declared mistress of Louis Henri, duc de Bourbon. During his ministry (1723–1725) she was in several respects the real ruler of France, her most notable triumph being the marriage of Louis XV. to Marie Leszczyński instead of to Mlle. de Vermandois. But when, in 1725, she sought to have Bourbon’s rival Fleury exiled, her ascendancy came to an end. After Fleury’s recall and the banishment of Bourbon to Chantilly Mme. de Prie was exiled to Courbépine, where she committed suicide the next year.
See M. H. Thirion, Madame de Prie (Paris, 1905).
