Mistress of Louis XV. of France, the daughter of Louis, marquis de Nesle. She was the eldest of three sisters who succeeded one another as favourites of the king. In 1726 she married her cousin, Louis Alexandre de Mailly. Although Louis XV. had paid her attentions from 1732, she did not become titular mistress until 1738. She did not use her position either to enrich herself or to interfere in politics. She was supplanted by her sister, the duchess of Châteauroux, and obliged to leave court in 1742.
See E. and J. de Goncourt, La Duchesse de Châteauroux et ses sœurs (1879); Toussaint, Anecdotes curieuses de … Louis XV. (2 vols., 1905); J. B. H. R. Capefigue, Mesdemoiselles de Nesle et la jeunesse de Louis XV. (1864).
