Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans

Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, painting by Jean Ranc

Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans ( Spanish Luisa Isabel de Orleans , born December 11, 1709 in Versailles , † June 16, 1742 in the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris ), also called Mademoiselle de Montpensier , was a member of the French royal family from the House of Orléans . Because of her marriage she was Queen of Spain for a short time .

Origin and political power struggles

Louise Elisabeth was the daughter of Duke Philip II of Orléans and Françoise Marie de Bourbon -Blois, a legitimate illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV of France .

Since she, as one of the Duke's six daughters, could hardly hope for a good match in terms of marriage and was therefore politically insignificant, she was given little attention and her education was neglected. Her grandmother Liselotte von der Pfalz often wrote about her cheekiness and naughtiness . There were plans to marry her to Italy or the German Reich.

In 1718 the war of the Quadruple Alliance broke out, a continuation of the War of the Spanish Succession and a war of an alliance of states (including France, also from Bourbon ) to maintain the balance of power and clarify disputed territorial issues in Europe against the expansionary claims of Spain .

Children's wedding as a guarantee of peace

Due to the increasing number of defeats and diplomatic pressure, the Spanish King Philip V relented in 1720 and concluded the Treaty of The Hague . The now restored relations with France should also be sealed by marriage. Since the still underage French King Louis XV. could not yet father any princesses available for such a project, the then regent, the Duke of Orléans, resorted to his line of the House of Bourbon and married his eldest unmarried daughter, twelve-year-old Louise Elisabeth, to the fourteen-year-old Spanish heir to the throne Ludwig, Prince of Asturias . In return, the still underage French King Infanta Maria Anna of Spain was to marry. The latter marriage never materialized, however, because after the death of the Spanish heir to the throne, the plans changed and the young princess was sent back to Spain where she was in a relationship with King Joseph I of Portugal .

Louise Elisabeth had to leave the French court in 1721 and arrived in Madrid . The reception she received was rather cool, as everyone was aware of the purely political nature of her presence. Queen Elisabetta Farnese in particular , who had laid one of the essential roots for the Quadruple Alliance War through her demands, despised the princess - she also had Louise Elisabeth's entire everyday life spied on and monitored, for fear that she could become an agent for her father Philip of Orléans develop.

The marriage with Louis of Spain took place unscathed on January 20, 1722 in Lerma .

The aversion shown towards the Crown Princess led over time to more and more misrepresentations and violations of the strict Spanish court ceremony on her part.

Queen of Spain for seven months

On January 15, 1724, King Philip V abdicated and his son Ludwig ascended the Spanish throne, making Louise Elisabeth queen at the age of 14. Ludwig's reign lasted only seven months, however, after which he died of smallpox without ever having fathered children with Louise Elisabeth and Philip V took over the crown again. The young widow, now completely of no use to the Spanish court and the royal family, lost all support and was totally isolated. When Infanta Maria Anna, the former fiancé of Louis XV, was sent home from France to Spain in April 1725, Louise Elisabeth was also allowed to return discreetly to France in return, where she lived in the Palais du Luxembourg and died seventeen years later, lonely and forgotten . She was buried in the crypt in the Paris church of St-Sulpice de Paris , where her half-brother Louis Charles de Saint-Albin rests. According to her own request, no tomb was erected and the location of her grave was not marked.

literature

• Jacques Levron: Louis XV. The misunderstood king of France . Heyne, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-453-00115-X , p. 48ff.
• Comte de Pimodan: Louise-Elisabeth d'Orléans, pure d'Espagne 1709–1742 . Plon, Paris 1928.

Web links

Commons : Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	Successor
Elisabetta Farnese	Queen of Spain 1724	Elisabetta Farnese