Louise-Jeanne was born in Mortagne on 26 December 1746, as the daughter of Jeanne-Jacqueline Vautorte and a guardsman named Pierre Tiercelin de La Colleterie.
At the age of 11, she was recruited by Dominique Guillaume Lebel to be trained with the purpose of becoming a petite maîtresse (unofficial mistress) of King Louis XV of France in Parc-aux-Cerfs,[2] and was finally installed as such at the age of 16 in 1762.
[1][3] When she arrived, Marguerite-Catherine Haynault and Lucie Madeleine d'Estaing were already staying at the Parc-aux-Cerfs.
When the abbé de Lustrac encouraged her to plot to have her son legitimised, the king discontinued the affair and had her confined to the Bastille on 25 July 1765; she was released with a pension of 30.000 livres on 18 August.
She did not marry but lived as a boarder in several convents and had several love affairs, notably with the Comte de Langeac and the American adventurer Paul Jones.