Louise Françoise de Bourbon

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Louise Françoise de Bourbon, portrait by François de Troy

Louise Françoise de Bourbon (born June 1, 1673 in Tournai , † June 16, 1743 in Paris ), also called Mademoiselle de Nantes , was a natural daughter of King Louis XIV and through her marriage to Louis III. de Bourbon from 1709 to 1710 Princess of Condé .

Louise Françoise is described as beautiful, charming and intelligent, but also as selfish, extravagant and insidious. She loved to rhyme satirical or raunchy songs about her contemporaries, including her sisters, the Duke of Burgundy and his wife Maria Adelaide of Savoy , Madame de Maintenon , her husband and even the king. It has often been claimed that she inherited the beauty, wit and esprit of her mother Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise de Montespan .

Life

childhood

Louise Françoise as a child

Louise Françoise was born in Tournai on June 1, 1673 as the third child and first daughter of King Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan . The place of birth resulted from the fact that the entire court was on a journey to the Flemish front at that time , where French troops besieged the city of Maastricht in the course of the Dutch War . Like the two older brothers, the child was placed in the care of Madame Scarron, who later became Madame de Maintenon, and grew up secretly in a hotel in Paris' rue de Vaugirard, far from the court . On December 18, 1673 she was baptized in the Paris church of Saint-Sulpice . According to the official version, she received the name from her godmother Louise de La Vallière , who had been the king's mistress before her mother. However, it is evident that Louise Françoise also had the names of her two parents. The child's male godfather was her three-year-old brother Louis Auguste , who was represented by a local priest on the day of the baptism. Two days later, on December 20th of that year, Louis XIV legitimized his three children born to Madame de Montespan. The edict did not mention the mother's name, however, because Françoise-Athénaïs was married to Louis-Henri de Pardaillan de Gondrin, marquis de Montespan, and her husband would otherwise have been able to claim paternity for himself. Since the three siblings were now officially the king's children, the move from the anonymous Parisian hotel to the Saint-Germain-en-Laye castle took place at the beginning of January 1674 . The governess Madame Scarron was always there. In contrast to her eldest brother, Poupotte, as Louise Françoise's nickname, didn't like her teacher. When her younger sister Louise Marie, known as Mademoiselle de Tours , died suddenly in September 1681, it was a hard blow for the eight-year-old because the two girls had been very close. At court, Louise Françoise was considered funny and was allowed to get away with many peculiarities. Madame de Caylus described her as “a beautiful cat who, while you are playing with her, lets you feel its claws” (“… elle ressemble à une belle chatte, qui tout en jouant fait sentir ses griffes”).

Madame la Duchesse

Marriage of Louise Françoises with Louis III. de Bourbon, Engraving published in 1686

In June 1684, Louis XIV and the Duke of Enghien , Henri Jules de Bourbon , agreed to marry their two children, Louise Françoise and Louis. In view of the bride's still child age, this agreement was kept secret for the time being and was only made public in April of the following year. The official engagement took place on July 23, 1685 in the parlor of the small royal apartment at Versailles in the presence of the entire court. Then there was a trip on the Grand Canal in the castle park, a festive dinner in the Trianon and a final fireworks display. The marriage took place with great pomp on the following day in the palace chapel of Versailles. Their ceremony was presided over by Pierre IV du Cambout de Coislin , Bishop of Orléans . The bride was just twelve years old at the time, the groom five years older. The king was generous and endowed his daughter with a dowry of a million livres . In addition there was jewelry worth 100,000 livres and an equally high monthly pension for each of the bride and groom. During the official ceremony, after which the two were separated again for several months, the couple made such a comical impression that Louis-François de Bouchet, marquis de Sourches, let himself be carried away to remark that the marriage of these two puppets looked ridiculous.

Madama la Duchesse , Louise Françoise's official title since marriage, led an exuberant and dissolute life in her youth. She liked to gamble and lost large sums in the process. On one occasion, her gambling debts ranged from 100,000 to 120,000 livres that she was unable to pay. Her father had to step in for her and pay the sum. The marriage of Louise Françoise to Louis III. from bourbon was not happy. She didn't like her husband and he publicly neglected and betrayed her. Louis III's grandfather, the Great Conde , was much closer to the Duchess than her own husband. He was also the one who stayed with her and she gesundpflegte when released in December 1686 for a stay in Fontainebleau to the smallpox ill. The girl was in such bad shape that the doctors had already given up on her, but unexpectedly she recovered.

In 1696, Louise Françoise began a brief affair with her husband's handsome brother-in-law, François Louis de Bourbon , Prince of Conti. The connection was supported by her half-brother, the Dauphin Louis , who made it possible for the two to meet secretly in his castle in Meudon . The affair ended when Conti left France in 1697 after being elected King of Poland. However, it is quite possible that he was the biological father of Louise Françoise's daughter Marie Anne de Bourbon . When her husband found out about the love affair, he was furious inside, but did not dare to make a public scene for fear of his royal father-in-law. Saint-Simon wrote in his memoirs about Louise Françoise and her lover that Conti was the only person with whom the Duchess was honest. In return, she was the only person to whom Conti was loyal. Madame la Duchesse was hit hard when she heard of Conti's death in 1709. Two years earlier, in May, she had had to cope with the death of her beloved mother, for whom, by order of Louis XIV, she had not been allowed to mourn publicly.

Madame la Duchesse Douairière

Louise Françoise de Bourbon as a widow, painting by Pierre Gobert from 1734

The death of Louis III. widowed Louise Françoise in March 1710. In the following years she was the center of social life at her father's court in Versailles and was one of the Dauphin's closest friends. She constantly fought with her younger sister Françoise Marie for supremacy at court, because she had married Philippe II de Bourbon , the Duke of Orléans , in 1692 and thus outstripped her older sister in the ranking. The rivalry between the two women often made itself felt in scenes of jealousy, intrigues against each other were almost the order of the day. Madame la Duchesse Douairière , as she was now called, planned to marry off her daughter Louise Elisabeth to the Dauphin's younger son, Charles de Berry , so that, after the king's death, through his likely successor, her half-brother, who was easily influenced, To get power and get involved in government. As a welcome side effect, the Orléans family, whom they hated, would have been excluded from government. But her sister, the Duchess of Orléans, duchess Maria Adelaide of Burgundy, wife of the Dauphin's eldest son, got the king through that not Louise Elisabeth, but Marie Louise Élisabeth , daughter of the hated younger sister, the son of the heir to the throne got married. Instead, on July 9, 1713, Louise Elisabeth married Louis Armand II. De Bourbon , Prince of Conti, son of Louise Françoise's former lover, François Louis de Bourbon. At the same time, Louise Elisabeth's older brother Louis Henri Louis Armand's sister Marie Anne married . Louise Françoise had previously tried in vain to prevent this double wedding, but finally had to bow to the will of her royal father.

The Palais Bourbon (around 1730)

From 1711 the widowed duchess had a love affair with Léon de Madaillant de Lesparre , the Marquis de Lassay. He built her own palace , the Hôtel de Lassay , right next to Louise Françoises Palais Bourbon , which she had built between 1722 and 1728 . The couple later had the two buildings connected by a gallery . With Louis XV. Louise Françoise, the grandson of her half-brother and successor to her father, was on friendly terms, even if she had no part in his government. In 1737 she even became the godmother of Ludwig's eldest son, Louis Ferdinand . She died in her Palais Bourbon in 1743 at the age of 70.

progeny

Although the marriage of Louise Françoise and Louis III. de Bourbon was not happy, she had nine children:

  1. Marie Gabrielle Éléonore (December 22, 1690 - August 28, 1760), called Mademoiselle de Bourbon , entered the Fontevrault Abbey on May 20, 1706 and died as abbess of the Saint-Antoine-des-Champs Abbey in Paris
  2. Louis Henri (August 18, 1692; † 1740), Grand Chamberlain of the Royal House, President of the Regency Council during the minority of Louis XV. and later its Prime Minister; ∞ on July 9, 1713 Marie Anne de Bourbon-Conti
  3. Louise Elisabeth (* November 22, 1693; † May 28, 1775), Mademoiselle de Charolais , later called Mademoiselle de Bourbon , ∞ on July 9, 1713 Louis Armand II. De Bourbon , Prince of Conti
  4. Louise Anne (* June 23, 1695, † April 8, 1758), Mademoiselle de Sens , later Mademoiselle de Charolais called
  5. Marie Anne (* October 16, 1697; † August 11, 1741), known as Mademoiselle de Clermont , became Chief Chamberlain in 1725, ∞ secretly in 1719 Louis II. De Melun , Duke of Joyeuse
  6. Charles (June 19, 1700 - July 23, 1760), governor of Touraine and member of the Regency Council when Louis XV was a minor.
  7. Henriette Louise (January 15, 1703 - September 19, 1772), Mademoiselle de Vermandois , Abbess of Beaumont-les-Tours
  8. Elisabeth Alexandrine , (April 13, 1765 born September 15, 1705) Mademoiselle de Gex , later Mademoiselle de Sens called
  9. Louis (June 15, 1709; † June 16, 1771), churchman, general and libertine ; Commander in Chief of the Rhine Army in the Seven Years War

literature

  • Jacques Bernot: Mademoiselle de Nantes, fille préférée de Louis XIV. Nouvelles Éditions Latines , Paris 2004, ISBN 2-7233-2042-1 ( reading sample ).
  • Simone Bertière: Les Femmes du Roi-Soleil (= Les Reines de France au temps des Bourbons. Volume 2). 1st edition. Fallois, Paris 1998, ISBN 978-2-253-14712-1 , pp. 228, 264, 449, 457-458, 497-498, 503.
  • Antonia Fraser: Love and Louis XIV. The Women in the Life of The Sun King. Phoenix, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-7538-2293-7 , pp. 167, 169-170, 223-224, 350.
  • Sylvia Jurewitz-Freischmidt: Galant Versailles. The mistresses at the court of the Bourbons. Piper, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-492-24494-7 , pp. 163, 227-228, 232, 254, 267-269.

Web links

Commons : Louise Françoise de Bourbon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hugh Noel Willimas: The Love Affairs of the Condé (1530-1740). Methuen & Co, London 1912, p. 275 ( digitized version ).
  2. ^ S. Jurewitz-Freischmidt: Galantes Versailles. The mistresses at the court of the Bourbons. 2006, p. 254.
  3. ↑ Hugh Noel Willimas: The Love Affairs of the Condé (1530-1740). Methuen & Co, London 1912, p. 276, note 1 ( digitized version ).
  4. ↑ a b c d A. Fraser: Love and Louis XIV. 2007, p. 169.
  5. ↑ S. Bertiere: Les Femmes du Roi-Soleil. 1998, p. 264.
  6. ^ S. Jurewitz-Freischmidt: Galantes Versailles. The mistresses at the court of the Bourbons. 2006, p. 228.
  7. ↑ altesses.eu , accessed April 9, 2015.
  8. ^ J. Bernot: Mademoiselle de Nantes, fille préférée de Louis XIV. 2004, p. 18.
  9. ↑ Hugh Noel Willimas: The Love Affairs of the Condé (1530-1740). Methuen & Co, London 1912, p. 263 ( digitized version ).
  10. ↑ S. Bertiere: Les Femmes du Roi-Soleil. 1998, p. 449.
  11. ↑ a b c J. Bernot: Mademoiselle de Nantes, fille préférée de Louis XIV. 2004, p. 21.
  12. ↑ Hugh Noel Willimas: The Love Affairs of the Condé (1530-1740). Methuen & Co, London 1912, pp. 275-276, note 3 ( digitized ).
  13. ^ S. Jurewitz-Freischmidt: Galantes Versailles. The mistresses at the court of the Bourbons. 2006, p. 232.
  14. ^ Anais Geeraert: Les enfants illégitimes de Louis XIV - Louise-Françoise, Mademoiselle de Nantes , accessed April 9, 2015.
  15. ↑ Hugh Noel Willimas: The Love Affairs of the Condé (1530-1740). Methuen & Co, London 1912, p. 278 ( digitized version ).
  16. ↑ a b Information on Louise Françoise de Bourbon on France's Bourbons , accessed April 9
  17. ↑ S. Bertiere: Les Femmes du Roi-Soleil. 1998, p. 503.
  18. ↑ Hugh Noel Willimas: The Love Affairs of the Condé (1530-1740). Methuen & Co, London 1912, pp. 284-285 ( digitized version ).
  19. ↑ Hugh Noel Willimas: The Love Affairs of the Condé (1530-1740). Methuen & Co, London 1912, p. 281 ( digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Bourbon, Louise Françoise de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mademoiselle de Nantes; Madame la Duchesse; Madame la Duchesse Douairière
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Daughter of King Louis XIV.
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1673
PLACE OF BIRTH Tournai
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1743
Place of death Paris