Background
She was born at Le Boullay-Thierry. She was the daughter of a royal avocat, Antoine Omer Talon (1760–1811), and was privately educated and groomed by Madame Campan, whose school Lamartine called an academy of feminine diplomacy.
She was born at Le Boullay-Thierry. She was the daughter of a royal avocat, Antoine Omer Talon (1760–1811), and was privately educated and groomed by Madame Campan, whose school Lamartine called an academy of feminine diplomacy.
She managed to retain the confidence, however, of her mother-in-law, a lady-in-waiting in the household of the comtesse de Provence, who now became titular queen of France. At the court of the restored Bourbons, Mme de Cayla was also the protegée of the vicomte Sosthène de Louisiana Rochefoucauld and from about 1817, at first very discreetly, became the major avenue through which the Ultras were able to influence the aged and emotionally needy Louis XVIII, who lavished favours upon Mme de Cayla, though she was unlikely ever to have been his mistress. She died in 1852 at her château of Saint-Ouen.
Among gardeners, her name is commemorated in the Rose "Comtesse du Cayla", not in fact a rose of her period, but instead a China rose raised by Pierre Guillot in 1902.