Julie Louise Bibault de Misery

Julie Louise Bibault de Misery née de Chemault (1732-1804) was a French court official. She was the Première femme de Chambre to the queen of France between 1765 and 1786 (first to Marie Leczinska, then to Marie Antoinette).

Julie de Misery was the daughter of Jacques and Marguerite de Beaucousin. DShe married the court official Charles François Bibault de Misery in 1750.

She belonged to a family that had a tradition of serving the royal family. In 1765 she was named femme du chambre (chamber maid) to queen Marie Leczinska, and succeeded her aunt Marie Marguerite Bibault as Première femme de Chambre. After the queen's death in 1768, she was transferred to the household of the new crown princess, Marie Antoinette, in 1770. She was an ally of the Madame de Noailles, and Marie Antoinette referred to Madame de Noailles as Madame Eiquette and Julie de Misery as l'impératrice reine ('Empress Queen') as reference to their adherence on formal etiquette.^[1] When Marie Antoinette first arrived at the French court, she was happy over the presence of Julie de Miserys's children, who she enjoyed to play with, thereby breaking the etiquette rules.

Marie Antoinette became queen in 1774 and the following year the office of Première femme de Chambre was split in four, between de Misery and her three deputies Henriette Campan, Marie-Élisabeth Thibault and Quelpée La Borde Regnier de Jarjayes, who took turns serving for a quarter of the year or three months each each: they were all still in service when the queen's household was dissolved in 1792, at that time in supervision of six chamber maids (femme du chambre).^[2]

de Misery was pointed out as a political intriguer at court, and claimed to be an ally of Paul François de Quelen de la Vauguyon and an agent of the Jesuits and the Devots. In the 1780s, Julie de Misery was implicated in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace by Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, who claimed her to have been her contact at court. In 1788, when there was a need to cut the costs of the royal household, Henriette Campan and Julie de Misery belonged to those the protested, and were allowed to keep what was seen as much too high salaries. de Misery made huge profits on her career at court despite only serving for three months a year. She used part of her salary to pay for a hugely expensive castle in Biaches, which drained such costs that it became a public topic of provocation; the building went on from 1775 until the French revolution and the cut of her salary, which made her order it to a hault. She was eventually forced to not only interupt the building of the castle, but to torn it down.

Julie de Misery was portrayed in The Queen's Necklace by Alexandre Dumas.