LA VALLIERE, LOUISE FRANcOISE DE 1710 ) , mistress of Louis XIV., born at Tours on Aug. 6, 1644, the daughter of an officer, was brought up at the court of Gaston d'Orleans at Blois, with the younger princesses, the step-sisters of La Grande Mademoiselle. After Gaston's death his widow moved with her daughters to the palace of the Luxembourg in Paris, and with them went Louise, who was now a girl of sixteen. She was named maid of honour to Henrietta of England, who was about her own age and had just married Philip of Orleans, the king's brother. Henrietta joined the court at Fontainebleau, and was soon on the friendliest terms with her brother-in-law; to avoid scandal it was determined that Louis should pay marked attentions elsewhere. The person selected was Madame's maid of honour, Louise, who became the king's mistress. The affair, begun on Louis's part as a blind, developed into real passion on both sides. It was Louis's first serious attachment, and Louise was an inno cent, religious-minded girl, who brought neither coquetry nor self interest to their relation, which was sedulously concealed. In February 1662 there was a storm when Louise refused to tell her lover the relations between Madame (Henrietta) and the comte de Guiche. She fled to an obscure convent at Chaillot, where Louis followed her. Her enemies secured her removal from the service of Madame, and she was established in a small building in the Palais Royal, where in December 1663 she gave birth to a son, Charles, who was entrusted to two faithful servants of Colbert.
Within a week of Anne of Austria's death in January 1666, La Valliere appeared at mass side by side with Maria Theresa.
She had given birth to a second child in January 1665, but both children were dead before the autumn of 1666. A daugh ter born at Vincennes in October 1666, who received the name of Marie Anne and was known as Mlle. de Blois, was recognized by Louis as his daughter in letters-patent making the mother a duchess in May 1667 and conferring on her the estate of Vau jours. In October of that year she bore a son, but by this time her place in Louis's affections was definitely usurped by Athenais de Montespan (q.v.). She was compelled to remain at court as the king's official mistress, and even to share Mme. de Montespan's apartments at the Tuileries. She made an attempt at escape in 1671, when she fled to the convent of Ste. Marie de Chaillot, only to be compelled to return. In 1674 she was finally permitted to enter the Carmelite convent in the Rue d'Enfer.
La Valliere's Reflexions sur la misericorde de Dieu, written after her retreat, were printed by Lequeux in 1767, and in 186o Reflexions, lettres et sermons, by M. P. Clement (2 vols.). Some apocryphal Memoires appeared in 1829, and the Lettres de Mme la duchesse de la Valliere (1767) are a corrupt version of her correspondence with the marechal de Bellefonds. Of modern works on the subject see Arsene Houssaye, Mlle de la Valliere et Mme de Montespan (186o) ; Jules Lair, Louise de la Valliere (3rd ed., 1902, Eng. trans. 1908) ; and C. Bonnet, Docu ments inedits sur Mme de la Valliere (1904) .