Louise Diane d'Orléans

Louise Diane d'Orléans, portrait by Pierre Gobert

Louise Diane d'Orléans (born June 27, 1716 in the Palais Royal in Paris , † September 26, 1736 in Issy ) was Princess of Conti from 1732 by marrying Louis François I. de Bourbon .

Life

Childhood and youth

Louise Diane was born as the seventh and thus youngest daughter of the regent Philippe II. De Bourbon, duc d'Orléans and his wife in the Paris Palais Royal. The birth of another daughter was received with little enthusiasm in the regent's family, as only one son had been born to him and a further male descendant was desired. Her mother Françoise Marie de Bourbon , a legitimate daughter of King Louis XIV of France and his mistress Madame de Montespan , was always very indifferent to her - as to her older siblings - while the children were always pampered and pampered by their father .

Little else is known about her childhood and youth. In February 1719 she fell ill with her older sister Philippine Élisabeth to the measles but survived the disease without prejudice. In that year she was also given the nickname Mademoiselle de Chartres , which her sister Louise Adélaïde had previously carried before she went to the monastery and became abbess of Chelles . In contemporary writings she was called that until she married the Prince of Conti. Louise Diane's grandmother Liselotte von der Pfalz , the widowed Duchess of Orléans , described her granddaughter in one of her numerous letters as not ugly, but a disgusting child. As soon as you look at them, they start to yell. Nevertheless, she is said to have grown into a good-looking and lovable person.

Thereafter, there is no further news about her childhood until, in December 1731, her planned marriage to the son of her cousin Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé was announced. Louis François I de Bourbon had been Prince of Conti since his father's death in 1727 and was 14 months younger than his bride. The connection had been arranged by Louis François' mother to end the existing rivalry between the House of Orléans and the House of Condé , both branches of the Bourbon family , and the disputes that went with it.

Princess of Conti

Marriage of Louise Dianes with the Prince of Conti, engraving from the Almanac Royal of 1733

Louise Diane married at the age of 15 on January 22, 1732 in the chapel of the Palace of Versailles , after the marriage contract had been signed and the engagement had been celebrated the day before in the king's apartments . An event on the occasion of the young couple's wedding fair exemplifies the double standards of the French court nobility at the time and led to a scandal : It should actually be considered an honor as an unmarried princess of the blood to be allowed to wear her train at the wedding of a close relative . On the other hand, this service was physically very strenuous, because the lugging of the elaborately made cloaks was very difficult. Louise Diane's cousin, Louise Anne de Bourbon-Condé , had been assigned to haul the mass, but shortly before that she refused to actually take it over. Pointing out that this is actually the job of Louise Diane's sister Philippine Élisabeth as the next unmarried relative, and that she has reason to believe that she just wants to avoid the drudgery, she would not be willing to take on this labor service. Since Louise Anne's sister Marie Anne also refused to carry her cousin's train, Louis François' mother, the widowed Princess Conti, wanted to make herself available as a train-bearer for the discredited etiquette of her family and the course of the court ceremony to rescue. Ultimately, however, another cousin Louise Diane took on the unloved task.

Louise Diane's husband was known at the time for going overboard on a number of occasions. This changed after his marriage, which is attributed to the gentle influence of his wife. Now and then he fell back into old habits. For example, when he came home one night very drunk and, in a fit of jealousy, stormed into Louise Diane's bedroom to search it - gun in hand and insulting his wife - for any hidden lovers. Louise Diane was seven months pregnant at the time and was able to calm her husband down so that he eventually went to sleep. However, after treating her so badly, the young woman showed a healthy dose of self-confidence and that she had her own head. That same night she got into her carriage to seek refuge with her great-aunt Anna Henriette von Pfalz-Simmern , the widowed Princess of Condé. Despite requests and demands from her husband, she refused - supported by her great-aunt - to return to her husband in the marital household. She is said to have even applied for an official separation of “table and bed” (“de corps et de biens”) in the parliament . How the dispute between the two ended is not recorded. Louise Diane gave birth to their son and only heir Louis François II on September 1, 1734 in the Hôtel de Conti in Paris . With his death in 1814, the Conti house went out.

Louise Diane died at the age of 20 giving birth to her second (stillborn) child in childbed at Issy Castle and was buried in the Saint-André-des-Arcs church in L'Isle-Adam .

literature

• Édouard de Barthélemy: Les filles du régent. La duchesse de Berry, l'abbesse de Chelles, la Princesse de Modène, la Reine d'Espagne, la Princesse de Conti, Mademoiselle de Beaujolais . Firmin-Didot, Paris 1874, pp. 377–383 ( digitized version )
• Guy Raoul Jean Eugène Charles Emmanuel de Savoie-Carignan: Six great princesses . Holden & Hardingham, London 1913, pp. 310-318 ( digitized version )
• Hugh Noel Williams: Unruly Daughters. A Romance of the House of Orléans . GP Putnam's sons, New York 1913, pp. 360-362 ( digitized version ).

Web links

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

References and comments

1. ↑ Information according to Jirí Louda, Michael MacLagan: Lines of Succession. Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe . 2nd Edition. Little, Brown and Company, London 1999, ISBN 0316848204 , plate 69. Other publications give June 26th as the date of birth, while Louise's grandmother, Liselotte von der Pfalz, names June 28th in her letters.
2. ↑ See Wilhelm Ludwig Holland (Ed.): Letters from Duchess Elisabeth Charlotte von Orléans from the years 1716 to 1718 . Literarischer Verein Stuttgart, Tübingen 1874, p. 30 ( digitized version ).
3. ↑ É. de Barthélemy: Les filles du régent , p. 380.
4. ↑ Her grandmother Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz stated in her letters that her granddaughter was sick with the water leaves. See Wilhelm Ludwig Holland (ed.): Letters from Duchess Elisabeth Charlotte von Orléans from 1719 . Literarischer Verein Stuttgart, Tübingen 1877, p. 37 ( digitized version ).
5. ^ Wilhelm Ludwig Holland (ed.): Letters from Duchess Elisabeth Charlotte von Orléans from the years 1716 to 1718 . Literarischer Verein Stuttgart, Tübingen 1874, p. 222 ( digitized version ).
6. ^ HN Williams: Unruly Daughters , p. 361.
7. ↑ É. de Barthélemy: Les filles du régent , p. 379.
8. ^ Warren Hamilton Lewis: The scandalous regent. A life of Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, 1674-1723 and of his family . Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961, p. 209.
9. ↑ GRJECE de Savoie-Carignan: Six great princesses , p. 317.
10. ↑ royaltyguide.nl , accessed on February 23, 2010.