Jeanne Bécu, (an illegitimate daughter of a seamstress) was a remarkably attractive woman who became Louis XV's last mistress.

 

Because the king could not be seen to consort with a common woman she was married off to the Comte Guillaume du Barry to ‘legitimise the relationship’ and give her a title so that the king would not be seen to be associating with someone not of the nobility.

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After an eventful life, on 8 December 1793, at the age of 50, she was guillotined on the Place de la Revolution (now Place de la Concorde).

 

On the way to the guillotine, she collapsed in the tumbrel and cried "You are going to hurt me! Why?" Pleading for mercy she begged the watching crowd for help to no avail.  Her last words to the executioner are said to have been: “De grâce, monsieur le bourreau, encore un petit moment” (I beg you, Mr. Executioner, just a little more time).