Adélaïde of France
Marie Adélaide de Bourbon , called Madame Adélaïde (born March 23, 1732 in Versailles , † February 27, 1800 in Trieste ), was Princess of France and Navarre.
Life
Marie Adélaide was the fourth daughter and sixth child of King Louis XV. of France and his Polish wife Maria Leszczynska . She was the great-great-granddaughter of the Sun King Louis XIV. Originally known as "Madame Quatrième" until the death of her older sister Marie Louise (1728–1733). After that she was called "Madame Troisième" and later Madame Adélaide .
Adélaide proved to be very self-confident and stubborn from an early age. When Louis XV. In 1738 she and her younger sisters wanted to educate her and her younger sisters on the advice of Cardinal Fleury for financial reasons in the Abbey of Fontevrault , the six-year-old princess burst into tears, threw herself on her father's knees and begged him not to send her away. Deeply moved, she was allowed to stay with her family in Versailles, while her sisters Victoire , Sophie , Therese Felizitas and Louise Marie grew up in Fontevrault until 1748 and 1750 respectively. Adélaide had a pronounced patriotism, which was to develop more and more into a kind of nationalism. Her hatred of France's hereditary enemies England and Austria remained boundless throughout her life and she considered her homeland to be the largest and most beautiful nation in the world. So at the age of eleven she was caught trying to leave Versailles on a donkey at night with 13 Louisdors in her pocket, which she had won against her mother at a card game. When asked what she was going to do, she replied: "I'm going to England to sleep with the Lords, which they will surely take as an honor, and then I cut off their heads to bring them to Papa".
She was considered so proud and vain that she turned down all marriage proposals, even those ruling dynasties from princes, even though, according to a contemporary witness, she had all the qualities to make a man happy. But in her eyes, no prince of her rank was equal. Therefore, like her sisters, she lived unmarried in Versailles . But her vanity was also based on her great beauty. The reputation of being one of the most attractive women at court preceded her, as did her high intelligence. Not only did she speak fluent Italian and English, but she was also an excellent mathematician and made napkin rings and clocks herself. She also had a particular fondness for dogs. But her greatest passion was music. Like her other siblings, she had inherited the talent and love for it from her mother. She played almost all instruments: from the violin, the cello, the organ, the harpsichord to the jaw harp and the French horn. In order to pursue this tendency, she had her own music room set up in 1753 for this purpose only. Together with her siblings, she also maintained a chamber orchestra that gave important and famous concerts at court.
Louis XV loved his daughters more than anything. She sparked his passion for embroidery and he even made coffee for her. He also visited them daily, played cards with them or went hunting with them. His special love was Adélaide, who adored him. After the death of her older sisters Anne Henriette and Marie Louise Élisabeth in 1752 and 1759, respectively, she became his favorite daughter. So she always sat to his right at the public table and was eager to be addressed with the title “Madame, eldest daughter of the king”. Adélaide's everyday life was characterized by representation tasks and her musical interests, but she soon began to become old adolescent and melancholy because of her single condition. In order to fill this inner void, like her sisters, she began to overeat. Their cupboards were crammed with ham, cheese, sausage, bread, cake and wine. She also loathed the rigor of etiquette. The king's daughters wore neither hooped skirts nor corsets in their private apartments .
Life on the farm
Life at the court of Versailles was shaped by the king's mistresses, especially Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry . Her mother and siblings formed a conservative Christian party at the court of Versailles that opposed the power of the mistresses . Adélaide inherited from Maria Leszczyńska not only her intellectual abilities, but also the deep piety and virtuous views of a decent life. She referred to Madame Pompadour disparagingly as "Maman Putain" (mother of a prostitute). Despite the mistress's efforts to establish a friendly relationship with the king's daughters, this remained tense.
Adélaide tried to influence state affairs. So she intrigued against her greatest enemy, the Duke of Choiseul , France's foreign minister and favorite of Madame de Pompadour. But although she was the king's favorite daughter, her political role remained meaningless.
Over the years, Adélaide and her sisters became more and more grumpy and saddened. The former beauty had become an old matron and because of their arrogant and conservative demeanor the king's daughters were now very unpopular with the court society, who ridiculed them behind their backs as old maids. Even her father is said to have sometimes referred to Adélaide as an "old scrap". Her sisters Victoire and Sophie remained her only caregivers. Since these were not nearly as intelligent as Adélaide, it was easy for her to impose her will on them. She became the leading head of this clique. But despite her negative qualities, she proved to be a loving surrogate mother: after the death of her brother and his wife in 1765 and 1767, with whom she had always maintained a friendly relationship, she and her sisters devotedly took care of their orphaned nephews and nieces. They were allowed to play in their aunts' apartments like normal children, romp around and break things. Adélaide was to develop a particularly close relationship with her eldest nephew, who later became King Louis XVI. Her influence on him persisted for a long time and she tried to raise him according to her views of a morally sound life.
Her mother died in 1768 and Adélaïde rose to the rank of first lady in France. In 1768 he also made a portrait bust of Jean Antoine Houdon . With this she reached the peak of her power, as she now had important representational tasks to perform. But it was pushed back into the second row as early as 1770, because Louis XVI. was married to the Austrian Archduchess Marie Antoinette on May 16 of this year to guarantee peace between the former enemies France and Austria. Adélaide initially detested the young and innocent Dauphine because of her Habsburg descent. She just called them contemptuously "l'Autrichienne", "the Austrian". But she immediately recognized the childish naivety of the 14-year-olds and tried to use them for their purposes. She and her sisters appeared to be friends with her and became their only caregivers at the cold court of Versailles. They isolated the completely unsuspecting Dauphine from the rest of the court society and skilfully threaded her into their intrigue network against Madame du Barry , her father's mistress. Adélaide hated them because of their origins in the Parisian red light district and tried to remove them from court. Therefore she transferred this hatred to Marie Antoinette, who with her aunts constantly made fun of the king's mistress and steadfastly refused to heed her. The resulting rivalry between the Dauphine and Madame du Barry would now rule life at court for four years.
At the end of April 1774, Louis XV fell ill. of smallpox. Because of the high risk of infection, members of the royal family were not allowed to approach the king's sickroom. Only Adélaide and her youngest sister, the Carmelite Marie Louise , were allowed to look after their dying father. She tried lovingly to ease the pain she loved, but he died on May 10, 1774. Adélaide and her sisters now retreated into the private atmosphere of their apartments after their influence on Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had slacked off.
Revolution and escape
After the outbreak of the French Revolution and the transfer of the royal family to Paris in 1789, Adélaide had to leave the Palace of Versailles , together with her sister Victoire, she took up residence in the Château de Bellevue, the former summer residence of Madame de Pompadour. For security reasons, the two were forced to flee to Italy on February 20, 1791 . There they visited their niece Marie Clothilde in Turin and settled in Trieste in 1799, where they lived in poor financial circumstances. In the same year Victoire died and Adélaide found her only mate deprived. A year later, she too died as the last child of Louis XV. It was later under the government of the French King Louis XVIII. buried in the basilica of Saint-Denis .
Pedigree
| Pedigree of Madame Adélaïde | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great grandparents |
Louis de Bourbon, duc de Bourgogne (1661–1711) Maria Anna of Bavaria (1660–1690) |
Viktor Amadeus II. (1666-1732) Anne Marie d'Orléans (1669–1728) |
Jan Karol Opaliński (1642–1695) Zofia Czarnkowska Opalińska (1660–1701) |
Rafał Leszczyński (1650–1703) Anna Leszczyńska (1660-1727) |
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| Grandparents |
Maria Adelaide of Savoy (1685-1712) |
Stanislaus Leszczyński (1677–1766) Katharina Opalińska (1680–1747) |
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| parents |
Louis XV (1710–1774) Maria Leszczynska (1703–1768) |
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Madame Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon (1732-1800) |
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literature
Non-fiction
- Nicholas d'Archimbaud: Versailles . Edition Stiebner, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-8307-0172-1 .
- Olivier Bernier: Louis XV. A biography ("Louis the beloved"). Benziger, Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-545-36409-7 .
- Bruno Cortequisse: Mesdames de France. Les filles de Louis XV. Perrin, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-262-01764-6 .
- Vincent Cronin: Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. A biography ("Louis and Antoinette"). List, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-548-60591-5 .
- Robert Widl: Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution. Stieglitz Verlag, Mühlacker 2001, ISBN 3-7987-0358-2 .
Fiction
- Edmond de Goncourt , Jules de Goncourt : Madame Pompadour. A picture of life ("Mme de Pompadour"). Piper, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-492-23008-3 .
- Frédéric Lenormand: Les Princesses vagabondes. Novel. Lattès, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-7096-1902-4 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Adélaïde of France |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bourbon, Marie Adélaïde de; France, Marie Adélaïde de; Madame Adélaïde |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Princess of France and Navarre |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 23, 1732 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Versailles |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 27, 1800 |
| Place of death | Trieste |