Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, her painting-tutor and friend, called her "the most beautiful lady in Paris", and she had her portrait produced by the pastellist Rosalie Filleul,[4] the painter Alexander Roslin (who portrayed her in "African" costume), the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne[5] and many other artists.

To finance new bribery within the princely household by her husband, Michelle de Bonneuil joined her sisters Marie-Catherine and Augustine-Françoise, Mmme Thilorier[8] - the future Mme Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil[9] - as mistress to the rich financier Nicolas Beaujon, residing for some time at the hôtel d'Évreux.

It was without doubt during this era of extreme dissipation that she met the Swiss banker Jean-Frédéric Perrégaux who she returned to at intervals until some time during the First Empire[10] On his death, Nicolas Beaujon left her 100,000 livres that he had advanced her during his life.

[15] A free and adventurous spirit, Mme de Bonneuil was also initiated into the mysteries of Cagliostro and the rites of Egyptian Freemasonry, of which her brother-in-law Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil was one of the masters.

In dispatches she wrote from Spain, she alluded to the Jacobins, who she held responsible for the horrors of the Terror, having not only narrowly escaped the guillotine herself but also lost her sister, brother-in-law and many of her friends (including the poet André Chénier who celebrated her in his Élégies under the names Camille (anagram of "Micaëlle" or Michelle) or "d.z.n" (of "Sentuary d’Azan") to it.