Eléonore Dillon became a lady in waiting to Louis XV's daughter Marie Adélaide, and Adèle was born and brought up at Versailles.

[2] De Boigne had served for several years under the Mahadji Scindhia, Maratha ruler of western India, and had made his fortune there.

She first followed his father, appointed ambassador to Turin and then to London, before finally settling in Paris, where an invitation to her salon became prized by the elite.

[9] In Paris, Adèle d'Osmond ruled over a brilliant and very mixed salon, where the aristocracy mingled with the world of politics, diplomacy and literature.

In summer she would sometimes stay at her father's Château de la Petite Roseraie in Châtenay-Malabry and his house in Trouville.

Marcel Proust was an enthusiastic reader, and was inspired by it to create the character of Madame de Villeparisis in À la recherche du temps perdu.

[10] Her novel Une Passion dans le grand monde, published in 1867 after her death, described the artificiality and corruption of the life led by high society.