Marie-Louise O'Murphy

Marie-Louise O'Murphy (French pronunciation: ​[maʁjəlwiz ɔmyʁfi]; also variously called Mademoiselle de Morphy, La Belle Morphise, Louise Morfi or Marie-Louise Morphy de Boisfailly; 21 October 1737 – 11 December 1814) was one of the lesser mistresses (petites maîtresses) of King Louis XV of France, and a model for the famous painting of François Boucher.

Marie-Louise O'Murphy or Morfi, was born in Rouen on 21 October 1737 as the youngest of twelve children of Daniel Morfi and Marguerite Iquy, and was baptized the same day in the church of Saint Eloi:

The family of Marie-Louise O'Murphy was of Irish origin, settled in Normandy recently. The presence of her paternal grandfather Daniel Murphy is attested in Pont-Audemer at the end of the 17th century, when his first wife Marguerite Connard (Irish like him) died. Militant of the Jacobite army, he followed the deposed King James II of England to his exile in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye; in consequence all the Catholic regiments who remained loyal to the King were sentenced to death in absentia by the new English government.

Very little is known about the grandfather of Marie-Louise O'Murphy, except that he was one of the soldiers fired after the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. Daniel Murphy (variously named Morfil, Morfi or Morphy), moved to Rouen by 1699, when he married secondly with Brigitte Quoin; according to the parish records of Saint Eloi, in his marriage certificate he is designated as master shoemaker (maître cordonnier).

His son, Daniel Morfi, father of Marie-Louise O'Murphy, married on 21 January 1714 in the parish of Saint Eloi of Rouen with Marguerite Iquy, also Irish:

Of the twelve children born to the couple between 1714 and 1737, five died shortly after birth and seven survived to adulthood: five daughters (Marguerite-Louise, Marie-Brigitte, Marie-Madeleine, Marie-Victoire, Marie-Louise); and two sons (Jean-François and Michel-Augustin).

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