[FRENCH REVOLUTION]. -- [COUNTESS DU BARRY, Jeanne Bécu (1743-1793)]. Partially printed document, for the death sentence of Countess du Barry, the royal mistress of Louis XV of France. [Ca. 8 December 1793]. One-page, 8vo (248 x 189 mm), on Tribunal letterhead, accomplished in manuscript, small corner tear with loss, old centerfold with discrete verso repairs at margins, some light toning; housed in a folding cloth chemise. VIVE LA RÉVOLUTION! Born Jeanne Bécu, the illegitimate child of a lower-middle-class woman, on 19 August 1743, in Valcouleurs. After a convent education she served a brief apprenticeship to a milliner. At 17, under the name of Mlle. Vaubernier, she became the mistress of Jean du Barry, who earned his living by providing pretty women for young nobles. He brought Jeanne, a girl of fabulous beauty, to Louis XV’s attention and arranged, at the King’s insistence, to procure for Jeanne the social credentials necessary to be presented at court as Louis’ official mistress. Legitimate birth and a husband who issued from an unbroken line of nobility since 1400 were required; du Barry therefore obligingly invented a deceased legal father for Jeanne and in 1768 married her to his brother Guillaume, Count du Barry. In the eight months between Jeanne’s marriage and her presentation at court in 1769, there was intrigue at Versailles for and against the presentation of a woman of humble birth in such a position. During her six years of extraordinarily generous and good-natured tenure as royal mistress, du Barry took little part in politics but wielded significant influence and was granted the title of Countess. However, her influence waned after the death of Louis XV in 1774, and the new Queen Marie Antoinette had her exiled to the Abbey du Pont-aux-Dames. In 1793 at the height of the French Revolution, she was arrested, tried, and eventually executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.