For Mercier, the role of Angélique was both lucky and cursed. When she was cast for the role, she was still an aspiring actress, despite the fact that she already had more than 20 movies in her filmography, but she was popular mainly in Italy. The movie about the French beauty instantly brought her international fame, but her fee was quite small. She was paid only 50,000 francs per movie, although millions of people around the world came to movie theatres to see Mercier.

Such a low fee became one of the reasons why the actress refused to participate in further parts of the franchise. But finding new roles became even more difficult because people thought of her only as Angélique. In 1999, Mercier even had to sell her personal belongings and all the heroine’s dresses, which she had once bought from the studio, due to her financial problems.