Agnes Le Louchier
Agnes Françoise Le Louchier (also Anna Franziska ; * approx. 1660 ; † February 1717 in Paris ) was the long-time mistress of the Bavarian Elector Maximilian Emanuel .
Life
Agnès-Françoise Le Louchier was born to Jean François Le Louchier, Seigneur de Popuelles and Charlotte d'Aubermont. She came from the Walloon aristocracy and was the first of fourteen children.
Le Louchier was set by the French authorities on the Bavarian Elector Maximilian Emanuel when he was governor of the Spanish Netherlands . She later followed him to Munich and in 1694, shortly before Max Emanuel's wedding, he and his second wife Therese Kunigunde entered into a pro forma marriage with the Bavarian officer Count Ferdinand von Arco , which made her Countess von Arco. Shortly after the marriage, she went to Amsterdam in the Netherlands , where she gave birth to Emanuel-François-Joseph (1695–1747), the elector's later legitimized favorite son. This made a career as Comte de Bavière at the French court. She returned to Brussels shortly after the birth .
In 1700, the Electress wanted to separate from her husband because the Elector devoted himself to erotic escapades, but both were reconciled. Due to changed political power relations, Max Emanuel and Therese Kunigunde came back to Munich. The Countess Arco traveled to Paris on behalf of the Elector in order to establish political relations in his favor. The success of this task earned her an income of 10,000 thalers for life.
As early as the 1790s, Le Louchier had close ties to Parisian artistic circles. She recommended the Lebrun student Joseph Vivien (1657–1735), who was one of the most famous pastel painters of his time and who later worked continuously for the elector and his family. She also contributed to the interior design of the pavilion extensions at Nymphenburg Palace . For this purpose, she traveled to Turin specifically to select fabrics for the wall coverings.
During the exile of Max Emanuel (1704–1715) he lived undisturbed with Le Louchier. He only met with Therese Kunigunde on April 8, 1715.
literature
- Ludwig Hüttl : Max Emanuel - the Blue Elector, 1679–1726. A political biography . Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-7991-5863-4 .
- Karl Eduard Vehse : Bavarian court stories . Edited, introduced and edited with notes by Joachim Delbrück . Munich 1922.
- Werner Sombart : love, luxury and capitalism. On the emergence of the modern world from the spirit of waste , Heidelberg 1913
- Peter Claus Hartmann : The Chevalier De Baviére. In: ZBLB 31, 1968 pp. 286-297.
- Richard Paulus : Max Emanuel and French Art . In: Altbayerische Monatsschrift 11, 1912, pp. 130–145.
Web links
- Report on her espionage activities for France ( Memento of March 7, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
- Munich Residence: Ma trés chère amie… - Max Emanuel's great love , February 24, 2015
- Bavarian National Museum: Painting of Agnès Françoise Le Louchier by Joseph Vivien (around 1705) , 2017
- The life of Emmanuel Francois Joseph
Remarks
- ↑ Count Arco was mistakenly shot from ambush on July 24th, 1703 instead of the less splendidly dressed elector when he marched into Tyrol at Martinsbühel.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Le Louchier, Agnes |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Arco, Anna Franziska Countess of; Le Louchier, Agnes Françoise (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French dancer and mistress of the Bavarian Elector Maximilian Emanuel |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1660 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 1717 |
| Place of death | Paris |