September 1, 1715: Death of King Louis XIV of France and Navarre.

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Duke of Burgundy, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Kingdom of France, Louis the Dauphin, Louis XIV of France, Louis XV, Maria Theresa of Spain, Philip IV of France

Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; September 5, 1638 – September 1, 1715), known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi Soleil), was King of France and Navarre from May 14, 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history. Louis XIV’s France was emblematic of the age of absolutism in Europe.

Louis XIV was born on September 5, 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII of France and Navarre and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given) and bore the traditional title of French heirs apparent: Dauphin. At the time of his birth, his parents had been married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631. Leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God.

Louis XIV began his personal rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin. An adherent of the concept of the divine right of kings, Louis continued his predecessors’ work of creating a centralised state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France and, by compelling many members of the nobility to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde rebellion during his minority.

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King Louis XIV of France and Navarre

By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchy in France that endured until the French Revolution. He also enforced uniformity of religion under the Gallican Catholic Church. His revocation of the Edict of Nantes abolished the rights of the Huguenot Protestant minority and subjected them to a wave of dragonnades, effectively forcing Huguenots to emigrate or convert, and virtually destroying the French Protestant community.

Louis XIV surrounded himself with a variety of significant political, military, and cultural figures, such as Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, the Grand Condé, Turenne, Vauban, Boulle, Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Charpentier, Marais, Le Brun, Rigaud, Bossuet, Le Vau, Mansart, Charles, Claude Perrault, and Le Nôtre.

During Louis’s long reign, France emerged as the leading European power and regularly asserted its military strength. A conflict with Spain marked his entire childhood, while during his reign, the kingdom took part in three major continental conflicts, each against powerful foreign alliances: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession.

In addition, France also contested shorter wars, such as the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. Warfare defined Louis’s foreign policy and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by “a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique”, he sensed that war was the ideal way to enhance his glory. In peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military.

In 1658, as war with France began to wind down, a union between the royal families of Spain and France was proposed as a means to secure peace. Infanta Maria Theresa and Louis XIV were double first cousins: Louis XIV’s father was Louis XIII of France, who was the brother of Infanta Maria Theresa’s mother, while her father was brother to Anne of Austria, Louis XIV’s mother.

Spanish procrastination led to a scheme in which France’s prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, pretended to seek a marriage for his master with Margaret Yolande of Savoy. When Felipe IV of Spain heard of a meeting at Lyon between the Houses of France and Savoy in November 1658, he reputedly exclaimed of the Franco-Savoyard union that “it cannot be, and will not be”. Felipe then sent a special envoy to the French court to open negotiations for peace and a royal marriage.

A marriage by proxy to the French king was held in Fuenterrabia. Her father and the entire Spanish court accompanied the bride to the Isle of Pheasants on the border in the Bidassoa river, where Louis and his court met her in the meeting on the Isle of Pheasants on June 7, 1660, and she entered France. On June 9, the marriage took place in Saint-Jean-de-Luz at the recently rebuilt church of Saint Jean the Baptist. After the wedding, Louis wanted to consummate the marriage as quickly as possible. The new queen’s mother-in-law (and aunt) arranged a private consummation instead of the public one that was the custom.

Louis XIV and his wife Maria Theresa of Spain had six children from the marriage contracted for them in 1660. However, only one child, the eldest, survived to adulthood: Louis, le Grand Dauphin, known as Monseigneur. Maria Theresa died in 1683, whereupon Louis remarked that she had never caused him unease on any other occasion.

Despite evidence of affection early on in their marriage, Louis was never faithful to Maria Theresa. He took a series of mistresses, both official and unofficial. Among the better documented are Louise de La Vallière (with whom he had five children; 1661–67), Bonne de Pons d’Heudicourt (1665), Catherine Charlotte de Gramont (1665), Françoise-Athénaïs, Marquise de Montespan (with whom he had seven children; 1667–80), Anne de Rohan-Chabot (1669–75), Claude de Vin des Œillets (one child born in 1676), Isabelle de Ludres (1675–78), and Marie Angélique de Scorailles (1679–81), who died at age 19 in childbirth. Through these liaisons, he produced numerous illegitimate children, most of whom he married to members of cadet branches of the royal family.

Louis proved relatively more faithful to his second wife, Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon. He first met her through her work caring for his children by Madame de Montespan, noting the care she gave to his favorite, Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine. The king was, at first, put off by her strict religious practice, but he warmed to her through her care for his children.

When he legitimized his children by Madame de Montespan on December 20, 1673, Françoise d’Aubigné became the royal governess at Saint-Germain. As governess, she was one of very few people permitted to speak to him as an equal, without limits. It is believed that they were married secretly at Versailles on or around October 10, 1683 or January 1684. This marriage, though never announced or publicly discussed, was an open secret and lasted until his death.

Despite the image of a healthy and virile king that Louis sought to project, evidence exists to suggest that his health was not very good. He had many ailments: for example, symptoms of diabetes, as confirmed in reports of suppurating periostitis in 1678, dental abscesses in 1696, along with recurring boils, fainting spells, gout, dizziness, hot flushes, and headaches.

From 1647 to 1711, the three chief physicians to the king (Antoine Vallot, Antoine d’Aquin, and Guy-Crescent Fagon) recorded all of his health problems in the Journal de Santé du Roi (Journal of the King’s Health), a daily report of his health. On November 18, 1686, Louis underwent a painful operation for an anal fistula that was performed by the surgeon Charles Felix de Tassy, who prepared a specially shaped curved scalpel for the occasion. The wound took more than two months to heal.

Louis died of gangrene at Versailles on September 1, 1715, four days before his 77th birthday, after 72 years on the throne. Enduring much pain in his last days, he finally “yielded up his soul without any effort, like a candle going out”, while reciting the psalm Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina (O Lord, make haste to help me). His body was laid to rest in Saint-Denis Basilica outside Paris. It remained there undisturbed for about 80 years, until revolutionaries exhumed and destroyed all of the remains found in the Basilica.

Succession

Louis outlived most of his immediate legitimate family. His last surviving in-wedlock son, Louis. the Grand Dauphin, died in 1711. Barely a year later, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the eldest of the Dauphin’s three sons and then heir to Louis XIV, followed his father to the grave. Burgundy’s elder son, Louis, Duke of Brittany, joined them a few weeks later. Thus, on his deathbed, Louis’ heir was his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis, Duke of Anjou, Burgundy’s younger son, who became King Louis XV.

May 10, 1774: Death of Louis XV, King of France and Navarre. Part II.

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Duchess of Bourbon, Duke of Bourbon, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, King Louis XV of France, Louis Henri de Bourbon, Louis the Dauphin, Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Marie Leszczyńska, Prince of Conde, Queen Marie Leszczyńska, Stanislaus I Leszczyńska of Poland

Marriage and children

One of the first priorities of Louis Henri de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, (who preferred being and was known as the Duke of Bourbon, rather than Prince of Condé) was to find a bride for King Louis XV to assure the continuity of the monarchy, and especially to prevent the succession to the throne passing to the Orleans branch of the House of Bourbon, the rivals of his branch. A list of 99 princesses was prepared, among them being Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, Barbara of Portugal, Princess Charlotte-Amalie of Denmark, Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine, Enrichetta d’Este and the Duke’s own sisters Henriette Louise de Bourbon and Élisabeth Alexandrine de Bourbon.

Marie Leszczyńska of Poland

Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczyńska was the second daughter of Stanislaus I Leszczyński and his wife, Catherine Opalińska. She had an elder sister, Anna Leszczyńska, who died of pneumonia in 1717.

Marie was not described as a beauty; instead her characteristics in the marriage market were stated as those of being pleasant, well-educated, and graceful in manner and movement. In 1720, she was initially suggested as a bride for Louis-Henri Duke of Bourbon but her intended mother-in-law, Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, Duchess of Bourbon (1673-1743) was the eldest surviving legitimised daughter of Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Madame de Montespan.
Louise François refused to give her consent.

Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Duchess of Bourbon

The cavalry regiment provided by the Regent for the protection of the family included the officer, Marquis de Courtanvaux, who fell in love with Marie and asked the Regent to be created a duke in order to ask for her hand; but when the Regent refused, the marriage became impossible because of his lack of rank.

Ludwig-Georg, Margrave of Baden-Baden as well as the third Prince of Baden were suggested, but these negotiations fell through because of her insufficient dowry. Stanislaus unsuccessfully tried to arrange a marriage for her with Charles de Bourbon-Condé, Count of Charolais, brother of the Duke of Bourbon.

In 1724, she was suggested by Count d’Argensson as a bride for Louis d’Orléans new Duke of Orléans, but her intended mother-in-law, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, légitimée de France (1677-1749) the youngest illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan, wished for a dynastic match with political advantage.

Marie Leszczyńska

In the end, the 21-year-old Marie Leszczyńska, was finally chosen. Ironically, the hopeless political career of King Stanislaus was eventually the reason why his daughter Maria was chosen as the bride of King Louis XV of France. Devoid of political connections, his daughter was viewed by the French as being free from the burden of international alliances.

The formal proposal was made on April 2, 1725. The announcement of the wedding was not received well at the royal court. Marie’s father Stanislaus had been a monarch for only a short time and she was thought to be a poor choice of inferior status not worthy of being queen of France.

The Dowager Duchess of Lorraine, sister of the former Duke of Orléans, was also insulted that her own daughter Elisabeth-Therese had not been chosen. The nobility and the court looked upon the future queen as an upstart intruder, the ministers as a cause to diplomatic trouble with Spain and Russia, whose princesses had been refused in favor of Marie, and the general public was also reportedly initially dissatisfied with the fact that France would gain “from this marriage neither glory nor honor, riches nor alliances.”

There were rumors before the wedding that the bride was ugly, epileptic and sterile. On May 6, 1725, Marie was forced to undergo a medical examination, which ruled out epilepsy and also gave reassuring reports about her menstruation and ability to procreate.

In the marriage contract, the same terms were given to her as was previously to the Spanish Infanta, and she was thus guaranteed fifty thousand crowns for rings and jewelry, two hundred and fifty thousand crowns upon her wedding, and the further guarantee of an annual widow allowance of twenty thousand crowns.

Private relationship to Louis XV

The marriage by proxy took place on August 15, 1725 in the Cathedral of Strasbourg, Louis XV represented by his cousin the Louis, Duke of Orléans. Upon her marriage, Maria’s Polish name was modified into French as Marie. Furthermore, despite her surname being difficult to spell or to pronounce for the French, it was still commonly used by commoners.

She was escorted on her way by Mademoiselle de Clermont, seven ladies-in-waiting, two maids-of-honour and numerous equerries and pages in a long train of coaches; however, she was not welcomed by triumphal entries, diplomatic greetings or the other official celebrations, as was normally the custom upon the arrival of a foreign princess upon a royal marriage. Marie made a good impression upon the public from the beginning, such as when she handed out largesse on her way to her wedding in Fontainebleau.

Queen Marie Leszczyńska with Louis, the Dauphin

Louis XV and Marie first met on the eve of their wedding, which took place on September 5, 1725, at the Château de Fontainebleau. Marie was twenty-two years old and Louis fifteen. The young couple was reported to have fallen in love at first sight. The relationship between Marie and Louis was initially described as a happy one, and for the first eight years of the marriage, Louis XV was faithful to her. Louis XV had been very impatient to marry her, was reportedly flattered to have a twenty two-year old wife at his age, and refused to allow any criticism of her appearance.

The queen was pious and timid, and spent most of her time secluded with her own courtiers. She was a musician, read extensively, and played social games with her courtiers.

In August 1727, Marie gave birth to her first children, twins named Louise-Élisabeth and Anne-Henriette, at the Palace of Versailles. The king was reportedly delighted, stating that after it had been said that he could not be a father, he had suddenly become the father of two. Cardinal Fleury, however, was much more displeased, and decided that until the queen had given birth to a son, she would not be allowed to accompany the king on his trips but stay at Versailles.

A year later, another daughter, Marie Louise was born, much to the disappointment of the King. The long-awaited Dauphin, Louis, was born on September 4, 1729 to the immense relief of the country, whose royal family had a history of failing to establish a secure male line of succession. In all, Marie had 10 live children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Her children all regarded her as a role model of virtue, particularly the daughters, though Marie herself reportedly was not noted to show much affection toward them, being phlegmatic in her nature.

Queen Marie Leszczyńska of France

In her behavior she was described as incurably shy and timid of her husband; she considered it her duty to show him grateful reverence and was not able to relax enough to entertain him or flirt with him. Once, for example, she could find no other way to entertain him than to suggest him to kill the flies in the window panes. Louis XV, who suffered from restlessness and needed to be entertained, eventually became more inclined to listen when Marie was unfavorably compared to other women, and Cardinal Fleury, who wished to prevent Marie from eventually getting any influence over the king, favored the idea of the king taking a mistress as long as she was apolitical.

Though not regarded as ugly, Marie was seen as plain with not much more than her fresh and healthy complexion in her favor; this faded due to her many pregnancies, but her piety prevented her from consenting to indulge in vanity in order make herself attractive. After 1737, she did not share her bed with the King. She was deeply upset by the death of her son Prince Louis, the Dauphin in 1765, and Queen Marie Leszczyńska died on June 24, 1768 aged 65.

May 10, 1794: Execution of HRH Madame Élisabeth de Bourbon, Princess of France and Navarre. Part I.

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Élisabeth de Bourbon, Clothilde de Bourbon, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, King Carlo-Emanuele IV of Sardinia, Louis the Dauphin, Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, Princess of France and Navarre, Queen Maria Leszczyńska

Élisabeth of France (Élisabeth Philippe Marie Hélène de France; May 3, 1764 – May 10, 1794), known as Madame Élisabeth, was a French princess and the youngest sibling of King Louis XVI. She remained beside the king and his family during the French Revolution and was executed at Place de la Révolution in Paris during the Terror. She is regarded by the Roman Catholic Church as a martyr and is venerated as a Servant of God.

HRH Madame Élisabeth de Bourbon, Princess of France and Navarre

Élisabeth was born in the Palace of Versailles, the youngest child of Louis, Dauphin of France and Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, daughter of Augustus III, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, the eldest child of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Princess Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

Élisabeth’s paternal grandparents were King Louis XV of France and and Queen Maria Leszczyńska. As the granddaughter of the king, she was a Petite-Fille de France.

Louis, Dauphin of France (son of Louis XV), Father of Élisabeth de Bourbon.

Maria Josepha of Saxony, Dauphine of France, Mother of Élisabeth de Bourbon.

At the sudden death of her father in 1765, Élisabeth’s oldest surviving brother, Louis-Auguste (later to be Louis XVI) became the new Dauphin (the heir apparent to the French throne). Their mother, Marie Josèphe died in March 1767 from tuberculosis. This left Élisabeth an orphan at just two years old, along with her older siblings: Louis-Auguste, Louis-Stanislas, Count of Provence, Charles-Philippe, Count of Artois and Clotilde, (“Madame Clotilde”).

Élisabeth and her elder sister Clothilde were raised by Madame de Marsan, Governess to the Children of France. The sisters were considered very dissimilar in personality. While Elisabeth was described as “proud, inflexible, and passionate”, Clothilde was in contrast estimated to be “endowed with the most happy disposition, which only needed guiding and developing”.

They were given the usual education of contemporary royal princesses, focusing upon accomplishments, religion and virtue, an education to which Clothilde reportedly willingly subjected herself. They were tutored in botany by M. Lemonnier, in history and geography by M. Leblond, and in religion by Abbé de Montigat, Canon of Chartres, and they followed the court among the royal palaces, with their days divided between studies, walks in the Park, and drives in the forest.

Young Princess Élisabeth playing the harp.

While Clothilde was described as a docile pupil “who made herself loved by all who approached her”, Élisabeth long refused to study, saying that “there were always people at hand whose duty it was to think for Princes”, and treated her staff with impatience. Madame de Marsan, who was unable to handle Élisabeth, preferred Clothilde, which made Elisabeth jealous and created a rift between the sisters.

Their relationship improved when Élisabeth fell ill and Clothilde insisted upon nursing her, during which time she also taught Élisabeth the alphabet and gave her an interest in religion, which prompted a great change in the girl’s personality; Clothilde soon came to be her sister’s friend, tutor, and councillor.

In 1770, her eldest brother, the Dauphin, married Archduchess Marie-Antoinette of Austria, youngest daughter of Archduchess Maria-Theresa and Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor. Marie-Antoinette found Élisabeth delightful, and reportedly demonstrated too openly that she preferred her to her sister Clothilde, which caused some offence at court.

On May 10, 1774, her grandfather Louis XV died, and her elder brother Louis Auguste ascended the throne as Louis XVI.

HRH Madame Clothilde de Bourbon, Princess of France and Navarre.

In August 1775, her sister Clothilde left France for her marriage to her cousin the Crown Prince of Sardinia, the future King Carlo-Emanuele IV of Sardinia, the eldest son of Vittorio-Amadeo III, King of Sardinia and of his wife Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain. Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda was the youngest daughter of King Felipe V of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese. Felipe V of Spain was born Philippe de Bourbon of France, Duke of Anjou, son of Louis, le Grand Dauphin of France.

The farewell between the sisters was described as emotionally intense, with Élisabeth hardly able to tear herself from Clothilde’s arms.

On May 17, 1778, after the visit of the court to Marly, Madame Élisabeth formally left the children’s chamber and became an adult when she, upon the wish of the king her brother, was turned over to the king by her governess and given her own household, with Diane de Polignac as maid of honour and the Bonne Marie Félicité de Sérent as lady-in-waiting.

Several attempts were made to arrange a marriage for her. The first suggested partner was Jose, Prince of Brazil. She made no objections to the match, but was reportedly relieved when the negotiations were discontinued.

HRH Madame Élisabeth de Bourbon, Princess of France and Navarre

Next, she was offered a proposal by the Duke of Aosta (future Vittorio-Emmanuele I of Sardinia), brother of the Crown Prince Carlo-Emanuele of Savoy and brother-in-law of her sister Clothilde. The court of France, however, did not consider it proper for a French princess to be married to a prince of lower status than that of a monarch or an heir to a throne, (although Vittorio-Emmanuele later became King of Sardinia he was not expected to at the time). The marriage was refused on her behalf.

Finally, a marriage was suggested between her and her brother-in-law Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, who had a good impression of her from his visit to France the previous year, and commented that he was attracted by the “vivacity of her intellect and her amiable character.”

However, the anti-Austrian party at court viewed another alliance between France and Austria as contrary to the interests of France, and by 1783 the plans were finally discontinued and no further suggestions of marriage were made.

Élisabeth herself was content not to marry, as it would have been to a foreign prince, which would force her to leave France: “I can only marry a King’s son, and a King’s son must reign over his father’s kingdom. I should no longer be a Frenchwoman. I do not wish to cease to be one. It is far better to stay here at the foot of my brother’s throne than to ascend another.”

March 23, 1732: Birth of Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France. Part I.

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Augustus III of Poland, fille de France, King Charles X of France, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, King Louis XV of France, King Louis XVI of France, King Louis XVIII of France, Louis the Dauphin, Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France, Palace of Versailles

Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France, (March 23, 1732 – February 27, 1800) was a French princess, the fourth daughter and sixth child of King Louis XV of France and his consort, Marie Leszczyńska.

As the legitimate daughter of the king, she was a fille de France (Daughter of France) and was referred to as Madame Quatrième (“Madame the Fourth”), until the death of her older sister Marie Louise in 1733, as Madame Troisième, (“Madame the Third”); as Madame Adélaïde from 1737 to 1755; as Madame from 1755 to 1759; and then as Madame Adélaïde again from 1759 until her death.

She was named after her paternal grandmother, Marie Adelaide, Dauphine of France, (born Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (1685 – 1712) the eldest daughter of Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy (later King of Sardinia) and Anne Marie d’Orléans, herself the daughter of the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV, and Henrietta of England, the youngest daughter of Charles I of England). Marie Adélaïde of Savoy was the wife of Louis, Dauphin of France and Duke of Burgundy.

Marie Adélaïde de France was raised at the Palace of Versailles, where she was born, with her older sisters, Madame Louise Elisabeth, Madame Henriette and Madame Marie Louise, along with her brother Louis. Her brother Louis, as heir apparent, he became Dauphin of France but died before ascending to the throne. Three of his sons became kings of France: Louis XVI (reign: 1774–1792), Louis XVIII (reign: 1814–1815; 1815–1824) and Charles X (reign: 1824–1830).

Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France’s younger sisters were raised at the Abbaye de Fontevraud from 1738 onward, because the cost of raising them in Versailles with all the status to which they were entitled was deemed too expensive by Cardinal Fleury, Louis XV’s chief minister. Adélaïde was originally expected to join her younger sisters to Fontevraud, but she was allowed to stay with her brother and her three elder siblings in Versailles after a personal plea to her father.

One of the reasons as to why the expense of her younger sisters at Versailles were regarded as too high, was that the royal children were allowed to participate in court life at a very young age, and attend as well as arrange their own festivities already as children. Adelaide and her sister Henriette, who never went to Fontevrault, accompanied their father to the Opera in Paris at least since 1744, and hunted with him five days a week from the beginning of 1746.

Madame Adélaïde was described as an intelligent beauty; her appearance an ephemeral, “striking and disturbing beauty of the Bourbon type characterized by elegance”, with “large dark eyes at once passionate and soft”, and her personality as extremely haughty, with a dominant and ambitious character with a strong will. However, she was described as altogether deficient in that kindness which alone creates affection for the great, abrupt manners, a harsh voice, and a short way of speaking, rendering her more than imposing. She carried the idea of the prerogative of rank to a high pitch.”

Adélaïde never married. In the late 1740s, when she had reached the age when princesses were normally married, there were no potential Catholic consorts of desired status available, and she preferred to remain unmarried rather to marry someone below the status of a monarch or an heir to a throne.

Marriage prospects suggested to her were liaisons with Louis François II, Prince of Conti and Prince Franz Xavier of Saxony (the fourth but second surviving son of Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and Maria Josepha of Austria). Franz Xavier’s older brother, Friedrich Christian, was successor to his father as Elector of Saxony, while Stanisław Poniatowski (1676–1762) was elected King of Poland. This meant that neither candidate for the hand of Madame Adélaïde had the status of being a monarch or an heir to a throne, and were therefore of not an equal status to marry a Daughter of France.

In her teens, Adelaide fell in love with a member of the Lifeguard after having observed him perform his duties; she sent him her snuffbox with the message, “You will treasure this, soon you shall be informed from whose hand it comes.” The guardsman informed his captain Duc d’Ayen, who in turn informed the king, who recognized the handwriting as his daughter’s, and granted the guard an annual pension of four thousand under the express condition that he should “at once remove to some place far from the Court and remain there for a very long time”.

In 1761, long after she passed the age when 18th-century princesses normally wed, she was reportedly suggested to marry the newly widowed Carlos III of Spain; but after she had seen his portrait, she refused, a rejection which was said to be the main reason to why Carlos III never remarried.

Between the death of Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, in 1764 and before the rise of Madame Dubarry in 1768, Louis XV did have a certain confidence in Madame Adélaïde, and was supported by her “firm and rapid resolutions.” However, after the death of her mother, the Queen in 1768, circles at court imagined that as soon as the King recovered from his grief, the choice would be between either providing him with a new Queen, or a new official royal mistress.

Madame Adélaïde, who detested the idea of a new royal mistress, encouraged the solution of her father marrying again to prevent it. She reportedly preferred a Queen who was young, beautiful and lacked ambition, as she could distract her father from state affairs, leaving them to Madame Adélaïde who had political ambitions. Madame Adélaïde supported the Dowager Princess de Lamballe as a suitable candidate for that purpose, and was supported in this plan by the powerful Noailles family. However, the Princesse de Lamballe was not willing to encourage the match herself, her former father-in-law, the Duke of Penthievré, was not willing to consent, and the marriage plan never materialized.

The King was then suggested to marry Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria. The archduchess was a famed beauty, but when she suffered from smallpox which badly scarred her face, marriage negotiations were discontinued. Maria Elisabeth of Austria (1743 – 1808) was the sixth child and the third surviving daughter of Maria Theresa I, Holy Roman Empress and Holy Roman Emperor Franz of Lorraine. Maria Elisabeth of Austria was the elder sister of Archduchess Marie Antoinette the future wife of Madame Adélaïde’s nephew Louis XVI of France. Instead, Louis XV introduced his last official maîtresse-en-titre, Madame du Barry, to court in 1769, whom Madame Adélaïde came to despise.

In the last years of their father’s reign, Madame Adélaïde and her sisters were described as bitter old hags, who spent their days gossiping and knitting in their rooms. Madame Adélaïde and her sisters attended to their father Louis XV on his deathbed until his death from smallpox on May 10. After the death of her father he was succeeded by his grandson Louis Auguste as Louis XVI, who referred to his aunts as Mesdames Tantes.

Madame Adélaïde came to play a political role after the succession of her nephew. Her sisters had in fact been infected by their father and fell ill with smallpox (from which they recovered), and were kept in quarantine on a little house near the Palace of Choisy. Despite this, however, Madame Adelaide had the time to intervene in the establishment of the new government: Louis XVI had been advised by his father to ask the advice of Adelaide should he become King, and after his succession, he sent her a letter and asked her advice on whom he should entrust his kingdom.