Elisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans
Elisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans , known as Mademoiselle de Chartres (born September 13, 1676 in Saint-Cloud , † December 23, 1744 in Commercy ) was Duchess of Lorraine from 1698 to 1729 and from 1737 Princess of Commercy through marriage to Duke Leopold .
Life
Lineage and Early Life
Elisabeth Charlotte was the only daughter of Duke Philip I of Orléans and his second wife Princess Elisabeth Charlotte (Liselotte) , daughter of Elector Karl I Ludwig of the Palatinate . So she was a niece of Louis XIV. She grew up at the court in Versailles . At her birth, she was given the honorary title Mademoiselle de Chartres , which was derived from the name of one of her father's apanages . After the marriage of her two older half-sisters, Marie Louise and Anne Marie , she was named Mademoiselle from 1684, according to her status as the highest-ranking unmarried French princess . She was very lively as a child and, much to her father's displeasure, shared her mother's frank opinions.
Marriage projects; Marriage to Duke Leopold of Lorraine
Many marriage candidates were considered for Elisabeth Charlotte. When the Dauphine Maria Anna suggested her younger brother Joseph Clemens of Bavaria as a husband, Elisabeth Charlotte replied that she was not intended for a younger son. (“Je ne suis pas faite, madame, pour un cadet.”) Her mother Liselotte wanted her to marry off as prestigiously as possible and first thought of King Wilhelm III. of England, whose wife Maria II died at the end of 1694. Among other things because of religious differences - Wilhelm III. was a Protestant - this marriage project did not materialize. Pope Innocent XII. brought the future Emperor Joseph I into play as a high-profile marriage candidate. Such a marriage might have reconciled the Bourbons with their traditional rivals, the Habsburgs . The Sun King, in turn, tried to marry his eldest son Louis Auguste I de Bourbon, duc du Maine , whom he had from Madame de Montespan , to Elisabeth Charlotte, as he had already done to her brother Philippe , who was one of his Bastard daughters had to marry. But since the mother Liselotte despised the illegitimate children of the king as much as his mistresses, and defended herself with all her might against another forced marriage of this kind, this Bourbon marriage project fell out just like the Habsburg one.
Finally, Elisabeth Charlotte, who had dedicated Les Contes de ma mère l'Oye to Charles Perrault in 1696, married Duke Leopold (1679–1729), son of Charles V of Lorraine and his wife Archduchess Eleonore , on October 13, 1698 in Fontainebleau Castle by procuration Maria Josepha , daughter of the German-Roman emperor Ferdinand III. During this distance wedding, Duke Henri d'Elbeuf acted as the bridegroom's deputy.
The marriage, which was an excellent match for the House of Lorraine, was the result of the Peace of Rijswijk , which included the return of the Duchy of Lorraine, which had long been owned by France, to Leopold. His marriage to Elisabeth Charlotte should confirm the peace treaty. Louis XIV provided the bride with a dowry of 900,000 livres . Her parents promised her another 200,000 livres, which she would receive after her death, as well as 300,000 livres expensive jewels, for which she waived all claims to her parental inheritance in favor of her brother Philippe II. De Bourbon, duc d'Orléans . Elisabeth Charlotte met her husband Leopold in Vitry-le-François and celebrated her splendid actual wedding with him on October 25, 1698 in Bar-le-Duc in the presence of Abbé Riguet, the Grand Almosier of Lorraine. The newlyweds then went to Nancy , where they received a triumphant welcome and held court until 1702.
Duchess of Lorraine
.jpg)
To everyone's surprise, Elisabeth Charlotte's marriage initially turned out to be quite happy, although it was only for political reasons. In 1699 the ducal couple visited Versailles, where Leopold paid homage to the French king for Lorraine. After returning to Lorraine, Elisabeth Charlotte's marital happiness lasted for the time being. She soon became pregnant and her mother wanted to visit her, but the trip could not be made due to problems with court etiquette. In 1700, Elisabeth Charlotte, like many other personalities at the French court, attended the wedding of Pierre de Montesquiou d'Artagnan in Plessis-Piquet . Her father died in June 1701 and her brother Philippe became the new Duke of Orléans and head of the House of Orléans . Her mother now wanted to move in with her, which the Sun King did not allow. Elisabeth Charlotte was only able to meet her mother on visits to Versailles and otherwise stayed in contact with her by letter; however, this correspondence was burned in a raging conflagration on January 4, 1719 in Castle Lunéville , the country seat of the Lorraine dukes. When the War of the Spanish Succession broke out, Elisabeth Charlotte's husband fell out with the Sun King and had to flee to Lunéville with his wife when he invaded Lorraine in December 1702 .
Elisabeth Charlotte soon became obese and her husband, after ten years of marriage, turned to Princess Anne-Marguerite-Gabrielle de Beauveau-Craon in 1708 , who was ten years younger than Elisabeth Charlotte and remained his favorite until his death in 1729. The Duchess of Lorraine suffered from her husband's liaison, but kept quiet on her mother's advice. Despite his extramarital affair, Duke Leopold still went to his wife's bedroom and produced more offspring with her. Elisabeth Charlotte had a total of fourteen children (see chapter Descendants), most of whom died early, three within a week of May 1711 in Castle Lunéville as a result of the then rampant smallpox epidemic . Only four children reached adulthood, including Franz Stephan , who later became Empress Maria Theresa's consort .
Elisabeth Charlotte exerted a certain influence on the cultural policy of the Lorraine court and drew numerous artists to Lunéville. She loved the theater as well as the ballet and in 1733 had a theater built in an extension to the ducal apartments in the southeast of the palace. It was there in 1735 that part of the decoration of the Nancy Opera was moved. The Duchess often attended artistic performances in person.
Regent of Lorraine
Duke Leopold of Lorraine died on March 27, 1729. In his will he had provided for a Regency Council to administer the duchies he had left, to which his wife should not belong. This testamentary disposition was soon overturned by the highest court and Elisabeth Charlotte was declared the sole regent. She initially held this position for eight months and first and foremost tried to rebalance the financial budget, since Leopold had taken out large loans. She had the prince of Craon removed from his position as head stable master because he was the husband of the former mistress of her late husband; various other court officials were taken into custody or sidelined.
Franz Stephan, Elisabeth Charlotte's eldest son still alive, remained at the Austrian court in Vienna , where he had been since 1724. He came to Lunéville at the end of November 1729 and was named Franz III. Successor to his father as Duke of Lorraine and Bar. On April 25, 1731, he left Lunéville again, handed over the reign to his mother and never returned. On the occasion of the War of the Polish Succession , the French re-occupied Lorraine in 1733, which Franz Stephan definitely renounced in April 1736.
Princess of Commercy and Death
In 1737 Stanislaus I. Leszczyński received the duchies of Lorraine and Bar. For this, Elisabeth Charlotte was given by her cousin, King Louis XV. of France , appointed sovereign Princess of Commercy. She left Lunéville on March 6, 1737 and from now on resided in Castle Commercy , where she held a small court. As a result, she sought to maintain strict neutrality between France and the Holy Roman Empire . She suffered a first stroke in July 1743 and died of the consequences of a second on December 23, 1744 at the age of 68 in Commercy. She was buried in the burial chapel of the dukes of Lorraine in the church of Saint-François-des-Cordeliers in Nancy.
As the mother of Emperor Franz Stephan, Elisabeth Charlotte became the common ancestor of all future Habsburgs up to the present day, as all Habsburg lines descended from Franz Stephan and his wife. This also includes the French monarchs Marie Antoinette and Marie-Louise of Austria .
progeny
Elisabeth Charlotte and Duke Leopold of Lorraine had 14 children:
- Léopold (born August 26, 1699 - † April 2, 1700)
- Elisabeth Charlotte (October 21, 1700 - May 4, 1711)
- Louise Christine (November 13, 1701 - November 18, 1701)
- Marie Gabrièle Charlotte (December 30, 1702 - May 11, 1711)
- Louis (January 28, 1704 - May 10, 1711), Hereditary Prince of Lorraine
- Joséphine Gabrièle (February 16, 1705 - March 25, 1708)
- Gabrièle Louise (March 4, 1706 - June 13, 1710)
- Léopold Clément Charles (April 25, 1707 - June 4, 1723), Hereditary Prince of Lorraine
- Franz Stephan (December 8, 1708 - August 18, 1765), later Emperor
- ⚭ 1736 Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria , later Empress and Queen
- Éléonore (July 4, 1710 - July 28, 1710)
- Elisabeth Therese (born October 15, 1711; † July 3, 1741)
- ⚭ 1737 King Karl Emanuel III. from Sardinia-Piedmont
- Karl Alexander Emanuel (born December 12, 1712 - July 4, 1780), from 1744 governor and captain general of the Austrian Netherlands
- ⚭ 1744 Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria
- Anne Charlotte (* May 17, 1714; † November 7, 1773), abbess of Remiremont and Sainte-Waudru in Mons , coadjutor in the Essen monastery and the Thorn monastery (Limburg)
- stillborn daughter (* and † November 28, 1715)
literature
- Guy Cabourdin (ed.): Les Temps Modernes (= Encyclopédie illustrée de la Lorraine. Histoire de la Lorraine. Volume 3, part 2). Serpenoise [u. a.], Metz 1991, ISBN 2-86480-539-1 .
- Sarah Lebasch: Elisabeth-Charlotte d'Orléans (1676-1744). Une femme à la mode? In: Dix-huitième siècle. Vol. 44, No. 1, 2012, pp. 399-423 ( online ).
- T. de Morembert: Elisabeth-Charlotte d'Orléans . In: Dictionnaire de Biographie française . Vol. 12 (1970), Col. 1206 f.
- Francine Roz: Madame Léopold. Elisabeth – Charlotte d'Orléans, duchesse de Lorraine (1676–1744) (= Les cahiers du château. No. 3). Conseil général de Meurthe-et-Moselle, Nanca 2007, pp. 24-29.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Orléans, Elisabeth Charlotte d ' |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Orléans, Elisabeth Charlotte von; Mademoiselle de Chartres |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | by marriage, Duchess of Lorraine and Princess of Commercy |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 13, 1676 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Saint-Cloud |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 23, 1744 |
| Place of death | Commercy |