DU BARRY, Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse (1743-1793). Mistress of Louis XV after the death of Madame de Pompadour.
Document Signed ("La Comtesse du barry"), ordering payment of 1300 livres to M. Labbé, a timber merchant at Versailles.
1 page oblong 8vo, Louviesenne [Luciennes], 30 May 1781.
There is little doubt that Mme. du Barry's extravagance depleted the coffers of state to such an extent that the financial difficulties of Louis XVI's reign became inevitable, hastening the Revolution. After Louis XV's death in 1775, she was exiled from Court, and it was only the intercession of Marie Antoinette, about whom the Comtesse had never been complimentary, which brought her the Chateau at Luciennes. Less intelligent and more grasping than Madame de Pompadour, she sold her jewels at Christie's in London after the outbreak of the French Revolution, but foolishly returned to France and was guillotined in December 1793.
There is a tiny spindle hole at the left, not touching the text.
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