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 (also Irish) died.

Daniel Murphy (variously named Morfil, Morfi or Morphy), moved to Rouen by 1699, when he married his second wife Brigitte Quoin; according to the parish records of Saint Eloi, in his marriage certificate he is designated as master shoemaker (maître cordonnier).

][3]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).

Marie-Louise's parents had well-known criminal histories: Daniel Morfi was involved in a case of espionage and blackmail, while Marguerite Iquy was accused of prostitution and theft.

Daniel Morfi was held incommunicado for seven months at the Bastille; after this, he was able to join his wife and children, but all were locked under close supervision into the Abbey of Arcis near Nogent-le-Rotrou.

About Marguerite and Madeleine (nicknamed Magdelon), he notes that they have their "campaigns in Flanders" following the French army, but before their departure would often be in the company of their sister Victorie and "the Richardot, the Duval, the Beaudouin, the Fleurance and other women of the world".

This is probably a similar account to the information written by Marquis d'Argenson in his diary on 1 April 1753 about Marie-Louise O'Murphy: The King had a new mistress ... she belonged to a family of prostitutes and thieves.

[7] In contemporary and modern historiography it is believed Marie-Louise O'Murphy was the very young model who posed for the Jeune Fille allongée (Reclining Girl), of François Boucher,[8] a painting famous for its undisguised eroticism, dating from 1752.

He did not specifically cite Boucher and seems rather, in the evening of his life, to have recorded this episode from gossip and pamphlets which circulated very freely in Europe at the end of the 18th century.

Police inspector Jean Meunier echoes in his diary another version of the facts, that circulates in the months following the meeting of Louis XV and Marie-Louise O'Murphy.

Generally recruited by the King's valets in Paris' surroundings, if their affair lasted more than a single night, they were placed in a group of houses in the district of Parc-aux-Cerfs in Versailles, or close to other royal residences.

[11] Another version supports the theory that the recruitment of Louis XV's little mistresses was done under the control of the inner circle of Madame de Pompadour: Monsieur de Vandières, Director of the King's Buildings (Bâtiments du Roi) in a letter[12] dated 19 February 1753, gave a peculiar order to the painter Charles-Joseph Natoire in Rome, who provides elements that suggests that he was in possession of the portrait of Marie-Louise O'Murphy made by Boucher, and he was able to show it to the King: I had a private room that I wanted to enrich with four pieces of the most expert painters of our school.

Thus the Marquis d'Argenson in his diary, dated on 1 April 1753,[14] recorded that "Lebel was in Paris to bring a new virgin ... then he contacted a dressmaker named Fleuret, who provides the lovers with dresses from his shop at Saint Honoré".

[19]She was hastily married on 25 November 1755, by contract signed before Mr. Patu, notary in Paris, to Jacques Pelet de Beaufranchet, Seigneur d'Ayat (born 5 March 1728).

Her mother was represented by a lawyer of the Parlement called Noël Duval, and none of her sisters was present, perhaps to spare the "mighty Seigneur d'Ayat" a painful confrontation with his humble and scandalous in-laws.

In addition, and thanks to her closeness with Abbot Ferray, the former royal mistress was able to enter into the finance world and thanks to the traffic of influences, had access to the Ferme générale, which enabled her to expand her assets and fortune.

[e] In 1779, she bought a palace in Paris at the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonière, built in 1773 in the neoclassical style by the architect Samson-Nicolas Lenoir, known as the Hôtel Benoist de Sainte Paulle, which still stands today.

[29] On 22 September 1787, she bought from the Choiseuls, for the amount 220,000 livres, a lordship in Soisy-sous-Etiolles, in the immediate vicinity of Etiolles, the former residence of the Marquise de Pompadour.

[32] Following the murder of Valdec de Lessart, Marie-Louise then retired to Le Havre, and, unable to flee the country, returned to her castle in Soisy-sous-Etiolles, where she was arrested in February 1794.

[33] After her release, Marie-Louise found a new protector in the person of Louis Philippe Dumont (17 November 1765 – 11 June 1853), a moderate MP for Calvados in the National Convention and twenty-eight years younger than her.