Tran Le Xuan (born April 15; 1924 in Hanoi; Vietnam); popularly known as Madame Nhu but more properly Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu; was considered the First Lady of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. She was the wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu; brother and chief adviser to President Ngo Dinh Diem.

As Diem was a lifelong bachelor; and because the Nhus lived in the Independence Palace; she was considered to be the First Lady. Diem often appointed relatives to high positions; so her father became the ambassador to the United States while her mother; a former beauty queen; was South Vietnam's observer at the United Nations. Two of her uncles were cabinet ministers.

Madame Nhu was chauffeured in a black Mercedes and wore a small diamond crucifix. She also wore form-fitting apparel so tight that one French correspondent suggestively described her as; 'molded into her ... dress like a dagger in its sheath'. On formal occasions; she wore red satin pantaloons with three vertical pleats; which was the mark of the highest-ranking women of the imperial court in ancient Annam.

After the overthrow of the Diem government in 1963; Madame Nhu went into exile in France and died at Rome; Italy; in 1911. Pictures From History