March 23, 1732: Birth of Princess Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France

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Fanz Xavier of Saxony, French Revolution, Louis François II of Conti, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Louis XVI of France, Marie Antoinette of Austria, Marie Leszczyńska, Pope Pious VI, Princess Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France

Princess Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France (March 23, 1732 – February 27, 1800).

King Louis XV of France and Navarre

Marie Adélaïde was born on March 23, 1737 in France as the sixth child and fourth daughter of King Louis XV of France and his wife, Marie Leszczyńska. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Marie Adélaïde, Dauphine of France, and was raised at the Palace of Versailles with her older sisters, Madame Louise Elisabeth, Madame Henriette, and Madame Marie Louise, along with her brother Louis, Dauphin of France.

Marie Adélaïde was a fille de France. She was referred to as Madame Quatrième (“Madame the Fourth”) until the death of her older sister Marie Louise in 1733, and then 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.

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

Marriage prospects suggested to her were liaisons with the Louis François II, Prince of Conti and Prince Franz Xavier of Saxony, neither of whom had the status of being a monarch or an heir to a throne. In her teens, Marie Adélaïde 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 usually wed, she was reportedly suggested to marry the newly widowed King Carlos III of Spain. However, after she had seen his portrait, she refused, a rejection which was said to be the reason why King Carlos III never remarried.

Marie 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, who came to dominate her younger siblings: “Madame Adélaïde had more mind than Madame Victoire; but she was 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.

From April 1774, Madame Adélaïde and her sisters attended to their father Louis XV on his deathbed until his death from smallpox on May 10. Despite the fact that the sisters never had the disease and the male members of the royal family, as well as the Dauphine, were kept away because of the high risk of catching the illness, the Mesdames were allowed to attend to him until his death, being female and therefore of no political importance because of the Salic Law even if they died. After the death of Louis XV, he was succeeded by his grandson Louis-Auguste as Louis XVI, who referred to his aunts as Mesdames Tantes.

Their nephew the King allowed the sisters to keep their apartments in the Palace of Versailles, and they kept attending court at special occasions – such as for example at the visit of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, who reportedly charmed Marie Adélaïde. In 1777, Madame Marie Adélaïde and her sister Sophie were both created the Duchesses of Louvois in their own right by their nephew the King. However, they distanced themselves from court and often preferred to reside in their own Château de Bellevue in Meudon; they also traveled annually to Vichy, always with a retinue of at least three hundred people, and made the waters there fashionable.

Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

Marie Adélaïde and her sisters did not get along well with Queen Marie Antoinette. When the queen introduced the new custom of informal evening family suppers, as well as other habits which undermined the formal court etiquette, it resulted in an exodus of the old court nobility in opposition to the queen’s reforms, which gathered in the salon of the Mesdames.

They entertained extensively at Bellevue as well as Versailles; their salon was reportedly regularly frequented by minister Maurepas, whom Adélaïde had elevated to power, by the Prince of Condé and the Prince of Conti, both members of the anti-Austrian party, as well as Beaumarchais, who read aloud his satires of Austria and its power figures.

Marie Adélaïde and her sisters Sophie and Victoire were able to escape France during the French Revolution. They arrived in Rome on April 16, 1791, where Pope Pious VI gave them an official welcome with ringing of bells, and where they stayed for about five years. In Rome, the sisters were given the protection of Pope Pope Pius VI and housed in the palace of Cardinal de Bernis.

In the Friday receptions of Cardinal de Bernis, Cornelia Knight described them: “Madame Adélaïde still retained traces of that beauty which had distinguished her in her youth, and there was great vivacity in her manner, and in the expression of her countenance. Madame Victoire had also an agreeable face, much good sense, and great sweetness of temper.

Their dress, and that of their suite, were old-fashioned, but unostentatious. The jewels they brought with them had been sold, one by one, to afford assistance to the poor emigrées who applied to the princesses in their distress. They were highly respected by the Romans; not only by the higher orders, but by the common people, who had a horror of the French revolution, and no great partiality for that nation in general.”

When news came that Louis XVI and his family had left Paris on the Flight to Varennes in June, a misunderstanding first caused the impression that the escape had succeeded; at this news, “the whole of Rome shouted with joy; the crowd massed itself under the windows of the Princesses crying out: Long live the King!”, and the Mesdames arranged a grand banquet for the nobility of Rome in celebration, which had to be interrupted when it was clarified that the escape had in fact failed.

Upon the invasion of Italy by Revolutionary France in 1796, Adélaïde and Victoire left Rome for Naples, where Marie Antoinette’s sister, Maria Carolina, was queen, and settled at the Neapolitan royal court in the Palace of Caserta. Queen Maria Carolina found their presence in Naples difficult: “I have the awful torment of harboring the two old Princesses of France with eighty persons in their retinue and every conceivable impertinence…”

The same ceremonies are observed in the interior of their apartments here as were formerly at Versailles.” When Naples was invaded by France in 1799, they left in a Russian frigate for Corfu, and finally settled in Trieste, where Victoire died of breast cancer. Adélaïde died one year later, on February 27, 1800 at the age of sixty-seven. Their bodies were returned to France by Louis XVIII at the time of the Bourbon Restoration and buried at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

August 23, 1754: Birth of Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre

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Abolition of the Monarchy, Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Duke of Berry, French Revolution, Guillotine, King of the French, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, National Assembly

Louis-Augusté de Bourbon of France, (August 23, 1754 – January 21, 1793) who was given the title Duc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles. One of seven children, he was the second surviving son of Louis, the Dauphin of France, and the grandson of King Louis XV of France and Navarre and of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska.

His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of August 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.

Louis-Augusté was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis-Joseph, duc de Bourgogne, who was regarded as bright and handsome but who died at the age of nine in 1761.

Louis-Augusté, a strong and healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English. He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence, and Charles-Philippe, comte d’Artois. From an early age, Louis-Augusté was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child.

Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre

When his father died of tuberculosis on December 20, 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Augusté became the new Dauphin.

On May 16, 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis-Augusté married the fourteen-year-old Habsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia (better known by the French form of her name, Marie Antoinette), his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Franz I and his wife, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia.

This marriage was met with hostility from the French public. France’s alliance with Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years’ War, in which it was defeated by the British and the Prussians, both in Europe and in North America.

By the time that Louis-Augusté and Marie-Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked the Austrian alliance, and Marie-Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner. For the young couple, the marriage was initially amiable but distant.

Louis-Augusté’s shyness and, among other factors, the young age and inexperience of the newlyweds (who were near total strangers to each other: they had met only two days before their wedding) meant that the 15-year-old bridegroom failed to consummate the union with his 14-year-old bride.

His fear of being manipulated by her for imperial purposes caused him to behave coldly towards her in public. Over time, the couple became closer, though while their marriage was reportedly consummated in July 1773, it did not actually happen until 1777.

Upon his grandfather’s death on May 10, 1774, Louis-Augusté became King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, he was nineteen years old. He had an enormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment of despotic monarchy was on the rise. He himself felt woefully unqualified to resolve the situation.

The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille (land tax) and the corvée (labour tax), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters.

The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices.

In periods of bad harvests, it led to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime.

Queen Marie Antoinette of France and Navarre

This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. Discontent among the members of France’s middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis XVI and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette were viewed as representatives. Increasing tensions and violence were marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille, during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly.

Louis’s indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularity deteriorated progressively. On September 4, 1791, Louis XVI received the title of King of the French.

His unsuccessful flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign intervention.

The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax) and several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France.

In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of the Insurrection of August 10, 1792. One month later, the monarchy was abolished and the First French Republic was proclaimed on September 21, 1792.

Louis was then tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason and executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793, as a desacralized French citizen under the name of Citizen Louis Capét, in reference to Hugh Capét, the founder of the Capetian dynasty – which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis’s surname.

Louis XVI was the only king of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Thérèse, was given over to the Austrians in exchange for French prisoners of war. In 1799 she married her cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, the eldest son of Charles, Comte d’Artois, future King Charles X of France and Navarre. She eventually died childless in 1851.

August 16, 1682: Birth of Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Burgundy & Dauphin of France

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Dauphin of France, Duke of Burgundy, House of Bourbon, Louis de Bourbon, Louis the Grand Dauphin, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Philippe II Duke of Orleans

Louis, Duke of Burgundy (August 16, 1682 – February 18, 1712), was the eldest son of Louis, Grand Dauphin, and Dauphine Maria Anna and grandson of the reigning King Louis XIV of France. He was known as the “Petit Dauphin” to distinguish him from his father, who died in April 1711, when the former became the official Dauphin of France. He never reigned, as he died in 1712 while his grandfather was still on the throne. Upon the death of Louis XIV in 1715, the Duke of Burgundy’s son became Louis XV.

Louis was born in the Palace of Versailles in 1682, the eldest son of the French Dauphin, Louis, who would later be called le Grand Dauphin, and his wife, Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria and his wife Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy.

Her maternal grandparents were Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy and Christine Marie de Bourbon of France, the second daughter of Henri IV of France and Marie de’ Medici, thus her husband the dauphin was her second cousin.

His father was the eldest son of the reigning king, Louis XIV and his wife Queen Maria Theresa of Spain born an Infanta of Spain and Portugal at the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, she was the daughter of Felipe IV-III of Spain and Portugal and his wife Elisabeth de Bourbon of France daughter of Henri IV of France and Marie de’ Medici.

Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Burgundy & Dauphin of France

At birth, Prince Louis received the title of Duke of Burgundy (duc de Bourgogne). In addition, as the son of the Dauphin and grandson to the king, he was a fils de France and also second in the line of succession to his grandfather, Louis XIV, after his father.

Louis grew up with his younger brothers: Philippe, Duke of Anjou, who became King Felipe V of Spain; and Charles, Duke of Berry, under the supervision of the royal governess Louise de Prie. He lost his mother when he was eight. His father, viewed as lazy and dull, never played a major role in politics.

Marriage

At the age of 15, he was married to his second cousin, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, the daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy and Anne Marie d’Orléans. She was 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, who was the daughter of Henri IV of France and his wife Maria de Medici.

This match had been decided as part of the Treaty of Turin, which ended Franco-Savoyard conflicts during the Nine Years’ War. The wedding took place on December 7, 1697 at the Palace of Versailles.

Military career and politics

In 1702, at the age of 20, Louis was admitted by his grandfather King Louis XIV to the Conseil d’en haut (High Council), which was in charge of state secrets regarding religion, diplomacy and war. His father had been admitted only at the age of 30.

In 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Louis was given command of the army in Flanders, with the experienced soldier Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme, serving under him. The uncertainty as to which of the two should truly command the army led to delays and the need to refer decisions to Louis XIV.

Continued indecision led to French inactivity as messages travelled between the front and Versailles; the Allies were then able to take the initiative. The culmination of this was the Battle of Oudenarde, where Louis’s mistaken choices and reluctance to support Vendôme led to a decisive defeat for the French.

In the aftermath of the defeat, his hesitation to relieve the Siege of Lille led to the loss of the city and thereby allowed the Allies to make their first incursions onto French soil.

Louis was influenced by the dévots and was surrounded by a circle of people known as the faction de Bourgogne, notably including his old tutor François Fénelon, his old governor Paul de Beauvilliers, Duke of Saint-Aignan and his brother-in-law Charles Honoré d’Albert, Duke of Chevreuse, as well as the renowned memorialist, Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of Saint-Simon.

These high-ranking aristocrats sought a return to a monarchy less absolute and less centralised, with more powers granted to the individual provinces. Their view was that government should work through councils and intermediary organs between the king and the people.

These intermediary councils were to be made up not by commoners from the bourgeoisie (like the ministers appointed by Louis XIV) but by aristocrats who perceived themselves as the representatives of the people and would assist the king in governance and the exercise of power. Had Louis succeeded to the throne, he might have applied this concept of monarchy.

Death and legacy

Louis became Dauphin of France upon the death of his father in 1711. In February 1712, his wife contracted measles and died on February 12. Louis himself, who dearly loved his wife and who had stayed by her side throughout the fatal illness, caught the disease and died six days after her at the Château de Marly on February 18 aged 29. Both of his sons also became infected.

The elder son of Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Louis, Duke of Brittany, the latest in a series of Dauphins, succumbed on March 8, leaving his brother, the two-year-old Duke of Anjou, who was later to succeed to the throne as Louis XV.

As it was thought that the chances of survival of this frail child, now heir apparent to his seventy-three-year-old great grandfather, were minimal, a potential succession crisis loomed.

Moreover, overnight the broad hopes and squabbling of the aristocrats caused this system to fail, and it was soon abandoned in 1718 in favour of a return to absolute monarchy.

Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France

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Count of Toulouse, Duke of Maine, Duke of Orleans, Felipe V of Spain, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Philippe II, Regency Council, Regent

The Regency

Louis XIV’s Will

On July 29, 1714, upon the insistence of his morganatic wife, the Marquise de Maintenon, Louis XIV elevated his legitimised children to the rank of Princes of the Blood, which “entitled them to inherit the crown if the legitimate lines became extinct”.

Thus, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duke of Maine and Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse were officially inserted into the line of hereditary succession following all of the legitimate, acknowledged princes du sang.

Madame de Maintenon would have preferred Felipe V, King of Spain to be Regent and Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duke of Maine to be Lieutenant Général and consequently in control.

Fearing a revival of the war, Louis XIV named Philippe II, Duke of Orléans joint President of a Regency Council, but one that would be packed with his enemies, reaching its decisions by a majority vote that was bound to go against him. The real power would be in the hands of Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duke of Maine, who was also appointed guardian of the young sovereign.

Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France

On August 25, 1715, a few days before his death, Louis XIV added a codicil to his will:

He sent for the Chancellor and wrote a last codicil to his will, in the presence of Mme de Maintenon. He was yielding, out of sheer fatigue, to his wife and confessor, probably with the reservation that his extraordinary action would be set aside after his death, like the will itself.

Otherwise he would have been deliberately condemning his kingdom to perpetual strife, for the codicil appointed the Duke of Maine commander of the civil and military Household, with Villeroy as his second-in-command. By this arrangement they became the sole masters of the person and residence of the King; of Paris … and all the internal and external guard; of the entire service … so much so that the Regent did not have even the shadow of the slightest authority and found himself at their mercy.

The evening of August 25, Louis XIV had a private audience with Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, his nephew and son-in-law, re-assuring him:

You will find nothing in my will that should displease you. I commend the Dauphin to you, serve him as loyally as you have served me. Do your utmost to preserve his realm. If he were to die, you would be the master. […] I have made what I believed to be the wisest and fairest arrangements for the well-being of the realm, but, since one cannot anticipate everything, if there is something to change or to reform, you will do whatever you see fit…

Louis XIV died at Versailles on September 1, 1715, and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. On September 2, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans went to meet the parlementaires in the Grand-Chambre du Parlement in Paris in order to have Louis XIV’s will annulled and his previous right to the regency restored.

After a break that followed a much-heated session, the Parlement abrogated the recent codicil to Louis XIV’s will and confirmed the Duke of Orléans as regent of France.

On December 30, 1715, the regent decided to bring the young Louis XV from the Château de Vincennes to the Tuileries Palace in Paris where he lived until his return to Versailles in June 1722. The regent governed from his Parisian residence, the Palais-Royal.

Philippe disapproved of the hypocrisy of Louis XIV’s reign and opposed censorship, ordering the reprinting of books banned during the reign of his uncle. Reversing his uncle’s policies again, Philippe formed an alliance with Great Britain, Austria, and the Netherlands, and fought a successful war against Spain that established the conditions of a European peace. During this time he opened up diplomatic channels with Russia which resulted in a state visit by Tsar Peter I the Great.

He acted in plays of Molière and Racine, composed an opera, and was a gifted painter and engraver. Philippe favoured Jansenism which, despite papal condemnation, was accepted by the French bishops, and he revoked Louis XIV’s compliance with the bull Unigenitus.

At first, he decreased taxation and dismissed 25,000 soldiers. But the inquisitorial measures which he had begun against the financiers led to disturbances, notably in the province of Brittany where a rebellion known as the Pontcallec Conspiracy unfolded. He countenanced the risky operations of the banker John Law, whose bankruptcy led to the Mississippi bubble, a disastrous crisis for the public and private affairs of France. It was an early example of the bursting of an economic bubble.

On June 6, 1717, under the influence of Law and the duc de Saint-Simon, the Regent persuaded the Regency Council to purchase from Thomas Pitt for £135,000 the world’s largest known diamond, a 141 carat (28.2 g) cushion brilliant, for the crown jewels of France. The diamond was known from then on as Le Régent.

From the beginning of 1721, Felipe V of Spain, and Philippe II, Duke of Orléans had been negotiating the project of three Franco-Spanish marriages in order to cement tense relations between Spain and France.

Louis XV, King of France and Navarre

The young Louis XV of France would marry the three-year-old Infanta Mariana Victoria who would thus become Queen of France; the Infante Luis would marry the fourth surviving daughter of Philippe, Louise Élisabeth d’Orléans; and the Infante Charles would be engaged to the pretty Philippine Élisabeth d’Orléans who was the fifth surviving daughter of Philippe. Only one of these marriages actually ever occurred.

In March 1721, the Infanta Mariana Victoria arrived in Paris amid much joy. Known as l’infante Reine (Queen-Infanta) while in France, she was placed in the care of the old Dowager Princess of Conti, Philippe’s sister in law, and lived in the Tuileries Palace.

In November 1721, at the age of twelve, Louise Élisabeth d’Orléans was married by proxy in Paris, Louise Élisabeth and her younger sister left for Madrid. Despite a cold reception from the Spanish royal family, especially by Elisabeth of Parma, the stepmother of her husband, she married Luis of Spain on January 20, 1722 at Lerma.

Her dowry was of 4 million livres. The last of this triple alliance was Philippine Élisabeth who never married Charles; the marriage, though never officially carried out was annulled; the French sent back Mariana Victoria and in retaliation, Louise Élisabeth and Philippine Élisabeth were sent back to France. Franco-Spanish relations only recovered in 1743 when Louis XV’s son Louis de France married Mariana Victoria’s sister Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain.

On June 15, 1722, Louis XV and the court left the Tuileries Palace for the Palace of Versailles where the young king wanted to reside. The decision had been taken by the Duke of Orléans who, after the fall of Law’s System, was feeling the loss of his personal popularity in Paris. Philippe took the apartments of his cousin the late Dauphin on the first floor of the Palace; the King’s apartments were above his.

On October 25 of that year, the twelve-year-old Louis XV was anointed King of France in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims. At the end of the ceremony, he threw himself in the arms of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans.

In December 1722, the Regent lost his mother to whom he had always been close; the Dowager Duchess of Orléans died at Saint-Cloud at the age of seventy, with her son at her side, but he did not attend her funeral service because he had been called away on official business. Philippe was greatly affected by his mother’s death.

On the majority of the king, which was declared on 15 February 15, 1723, the Duke stepped down as regent. At the death of Cardinal Dubois on August 10 of that year, the young king offered the Duke the position of prime minister, and he remained in that office until his death a few months later.

The regent died in Versailles on December 2, 1723 in the arms of his mistress the duchesse de Falari. Louis XV mourned him greatly. The Duke of Bourbon took on the role of Prime Minister of France.

August 2, 1674: Birth of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France.

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Duchess of Berry, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, Philippe II of Orleans, Regent of France

Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (Philippe Charles; August 2, 1674 – December 2, 1723), was a French royal, soldier, and statesman who served as Regent of the Kingdom of France from 1715 to 1723. He is also referred to as le Régent.

Philippe Charles was the son of Monsieur Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, (September 21, 1640 – June 9, 1701), was the younger son of King Louis XIII of France and Navarre and his wife, Infanta Anne of Austria.

Philippe Charles’ mother, Infanta Anne of Austria, she was the eldest daughter of King Felipe III of Spain and his wife (his first-cousin, once-removed) Archduchess Margaret of Austria. Anne of Austria held the titles of Infanta of Spain and of Portugal (since her father was king of Portugal as well as Spain) and Archduchess of Austria.

Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France

Despite her Spanish birth, she was referred to as Anne of Austria because the rulers of Spain belonged to the senior branch of the House of Austria, known later as the House of Habsburg, a designation relatively uncommon before the 19th century.

Philippe Charles’ father Philippe I Duke of Orléans, who’s older brother was the “Sun King”, Louis XIV of France and Navarre. Philippe I was styled Duke of Anjou from birth, Philippe became Duke of Orléans upon the death of his uncle Gaston in 1660.

In March 1661, Monsieur Philippe I, Duke of Orleans, married his first cousin Princess Henrietta of England, known as Madame at court; she was the sister of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland.

The marriage was stormy; Henrietta was a famed beauty, sometimes depicted as flirtatious by those at the court of Versailles. Nonetheless, the marriage produced three children: Marie Louise, later Queen of Spain; Philippe Charles, Duke of Valois, who died in infancy; and Anne Marie, who became Queen of Sardinia.

Madame Henriette died at Saint-Cloud in 1670; rumors abounded that she had been poisoned by her husband or his long-term lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine; the two would remain together till the death of the Duke of Orléans in 1701.

In the following year, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans wed Princess Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, only daughter of Charles I Ludwig, Elector Palatine, and Landgravine Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel.

The new Duchess of Orléans, who had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism just before entering France, was popular at court upon her arrival in 1671.

In 1673 the Duke Philippe and Duchess Elisabeth Charlotte had a son named Alexandre Louis, another short-lived Duke of Valois. The next year, the Duchess gave birth to Philippe Charles d’Orléans, the future Regent, at the Château de Saint-Cloud, some ten kilometers west of Paris.

As the grandson of King Louis XIII of France, Philippe Charles was a petit-fils de France. This entitled him to the style of Royal Highness from birth, as well as the right to be seated in an armchair in the king’s presence.

At his birth, he was titled Duke of Chartres and was formally addressed as Monseigneur le Duc de Chartres. As the second living son of his parents, his birth was not greeted with the enthusiasm the Duke of Valois had received in 1673.

In 1676, his three year old, older brother, Alexandre Louis d’Orléans, Duke of Valois died at the Palais-Royal in Paris, making Philippe Charles the new heir to the House of Orléans; the future heirs of the Duke of Orléans would be known as the Duke of Chartres (Duc de Chartres) for the next century.

His distraught mother was pregnant at the time with Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans (1676–1744), future Duchess and regent of Lorraine. Élisabeth Charlotte and Philippe would always remain close.

The Duke of Chartres grew up at his father’s “private” court held at Saint-Cloud, and in Paris at the Palais-Royal, the Parisian residence of the Orléans family until the arrest of (his grandson) Philippe Égalité in April 1793 during the French Revolution. The Palais-Royal was frequented by, among others, Marie Anne Mancini, Duchess of Bouillon, part of Philippe’s father’s libertine circle.

On February 18, 1692, the 18 year old Philippe Charles married his 14 year old first cousin Françoise Marie de Bourbon, the youngest legitimised daughter (légitimée de France) of King Louis XIV and his maîtresse-en-titre, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan.

Françoise Marie de Bourbon

King Louis XIV offered a dowry of two million livres with his daughter’s hand (not to be paid until the Nine Years’ War was over), as well as the Palais-Royal for the bridegroom’s parents. Upon hearing that her son had agreed to the marriage, Philippe Charles’s mother slapped his face in full view of the court and turned her back on the king as he bowed to her.

The young couple, mismatched from the start, never grew to like each other, and soon the young Philippe Charles gave his wife the nickname of Madame Lucifer. In spite of this, they had eight children.

There were contemporary rumors of an incestuous relationship between the Philippe Charles and his daughter, Marie Louise Élisabeth d’Orléans, Duchess of Berry. These rumors were never confirmed, although Philippe Charles reacted to them by demonstrating affectionate behavior towards her at court. The rumors were also used by the opposition during his period as regent, and were the inspiration of libelous songs and poems

Court life

On the death of his father in June 1701, Philippe Charles inherited the Dukedoms of Orléans, Anjou, Montpensier and Nemours, as well as the princedom of Joinville. Philippe I, Duke of Orléans had died at Saint-Cloud after an argument with Louis XIV at Marly about Chartres’ flaunting his pregnant mistress, Marie-Louise de Séry, before Françoise Marie. It has also been claimed that Philippe became so infuriated with Louis for not paying his daughter’s dowry that he suffered a stroke.

After inheriting his father’s titles Philippe Charles became known as Philippe II, Duke of Orléans.

Marie Louise Élisabeth d’Orléans, Duchess of Berry

In 1715 with the death of Louis XIV and the accession of his grandson as King Louis XV, Philippe II was named regent of France during the minority of Louis XV, his great-nephew and first cousin twice removed, the period of his de facto rule was known as the Regency (French: la Régence) (1715–23).

Philippe II, Duke of Orléans had a difficult time gaining the regency. I have written about that before and will repost that information tomorrow.

Throughout his life Philippe II had many mistresses; his wife came to prefer living quietly at Saint-Cloud, the Palais-Royal, or her house at Bagnolet. His most famous mistress was arguably Marie-Thérèse de Parabère, who was his main mistress during almost the entire regency, with other high profile affairs being those with Madame de Sabran, Madame d’Averne and Marie-Thérèse Blonel de Phalaris.

Upon the death of the Henri Jules, prince de Condé in 1709, the rank of Premier Prince du Sang passed from the House of Condé to the House of Orléans. Philippe was thus entitled to the style of Monsieur le Prince. But the rank of petit-fils de France being higher than that of premier prince, Philippe did not change his style; nor did his son or other heirs make use of the Monsieur le Prince style, which had been so long associated with the cadet branch of the Princes de Condé that the heads of the House of Orléans preferred to be known at court by their ducal title.

Philippe II, The Duke of Orléans died at Versailles in 1723.

August 2, 1830: Abdication of Charles X, King of France and Navarre. Part I.

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August III of Poland, Charles Philippe de Bourbon of France, Charles X of France and Navarre, Count of Artois, Felipe V of Spain, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Madame de Pompadour, Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy

Charles X (Charles Philippe; October 9, 1757 – November 6, 1836) was King of France and Navarre from September 16, 1824 until August 2, 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile.

Charles Philippe of France was born in 1757, at the Palace of Versailles, the youngest son of the Dauphin Louis of France and his second wife, Princess Marie Josèpha of Saxony, a daughter of August III, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, the daughter of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Princess Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

August III of Poland as Elector of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire was known as Friedrich August II.

Prince Charles Philippe de Bourbon of France, Count of Artois

Dauphin Louis was eldest son of King Louis XV of France and Navarre, was widowed on July 22, 1746 when his wife, Infanta Maria Teresa of Spain, died giving birth to their only child, a daughter named after herself. Infanta Maria Teresa of Spain was the daughter of King Felipe V of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese. King Felipe V of Spain was a member of the House of Bourbon and a grandson of King Louis XIV.

King Fernando VI of Spain, Maria Teresa’s half-brother, had offered the Dauphin another sister, Infanta Maria Antonia. Instead, the King Louis XV of France and his mistress Madame de Pompadour wanted to open up diplomatic channels.

On January 10, 1747, Louis was married by proxy at Dresden to Maria Josepha of Saxony, the 15-year-old younger daughter of Augustus III, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and his wife Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria. A second marriage ceremony took place in person at Versailles on 9 February 1747.

Charles Philippe was created Count of Artois at birth by his grandfather, the reigning King Louis XV.

As the youngest male in the family, Charles Philippe seemed unlikely ever to become king. His eldest brother, Louis Joseph, Duke of Burgundy, died unexpectedly in 1761, which moved Charles Philippe up one place in the line of succession.

At the death of his father in 1765, Charles’s oldest surviving brother, Louis Auguste, became the new Dauphin (the heir apparent to the French throne). Their mother Marie Josèphe, who never recovered from the loss of her husband, died in March 1767 from tuberculosis. This left Charles Philippe an orphan at the age of nine, along with his siblings Louis Auguste, Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence, Clotilde (“Madame Clotilde”), and Élisabeth (“Madame Élisabeth”).

1773, Charles Philippe married Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy (1756 – 1805). Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy was born at the Royal Palace in Turin during the reign of her grandfather King Carlo Emmanuel III of Sardinia. She was the daughter of the heir apparent , Victor Amadeus and his wife Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain, the youngest daughter of Felipe V of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese.

Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy

Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy was the couple’s third daughter and fifth child of twelve children. She was raised with her sister Princess Maria Giuseppina who was three years her senior and whom she would join later as a member of the Royal House of France, when her sister married Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence (and later King Louis XVIII of France and Navarre).

The future King Charles X, as the Count of Artois had previously been intended to marry Louise Adélaïde de Bourbon, the third and last child of Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé and his wife, Charlotte de Rohan (1737–1760),

However, the union never took place as her rank was much lower than Artois who, as a male-line descendant of a French monarch, was a grandson of France, thus he was entitled to the style His Royal Highness. Louise Adélaïde de Bourbon, despite being born a princesse du sang; was from a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon and this only entitled her to the style of Her Serene Highness.

As her husband was the grandson of a king, the newly named Marie Thérèse of Savoy held the rank of granddaughter of France, and was commonly referred to by the simple style Madame la comtesse d’Artois.

Accession to the Throne

Charles’ brother King Louis XVIII’s health had been worsening since the beginning of 1824. Suffering from both dry and wet gangrene in his legs and spine, he died on September 16, of that year, aged almost 69. Charles, by now in his 67th year, succeeded him to the throne as King Charles X of France and Navarre.

In his first act as king, Charles attempted to unify the House of Bourbon by granting the style of Royal Highness to his cousins of the House of Orléans, who had been deprived of this by Louis XVIII because of the former Duke of Orléans’ role in the death of Louis XVI.

On May 29, 1825, King Charles X was anointed at the cathedral of Reims, the traditional site of consecration of French kings; it had been unused since 1775, as Louis XVIII had forgone the ceremony to avoid controversy. It was in the venerable cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris that Napoleon had consecrated his revolutionary empire; but in ascending the throne of his ancestors, Charles reverted to the old place of coronation used by the kings of France from the early ages of the monarchy.

December 20, 1765: Death of Louis de Bourbon, Dauphin of France

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Dauphin of France, Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain, Louis de Bourbon, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Louis-Auguste, Maria Josepha of Saxony, Marie Leszczyńska of Poland, War of the Austrian Succession

Louis, Dauphin of France (Louis Ferdinand; September 4, 1729 – December 20, 1765) was the elder and only surviving son of King Louis XV of France and Navarre and his wife, Queen Marie Leszczyńska. Queen Marie Leszczyńska was was the second daughter of King Stanislaus I Leszczyński of Poland and his wife, Catherine Opalińska.

As a son of the king, Louis was a fils de France. As heir apparent, he became Dauphin of France. However, he died before he could ascend the throne. Three of his sons became kings of France: Louis XVI (reign in 1774–1792), Louis XVIII (1814–1815, again in 1815–1824) and Charles X (1824–1830).

Louis, Dauphin of France is also the grandfather of Princess Marie-Thérèse de Bourbon who is another French royal I am featuring on the blog.

Louis’s birth secured the throne and his mother’s position at court, which previously had been precarious due to her giving birth to three daughters in a row before the birth of the Dauphin. He had a younger brother, Philippe, who died as a toddler.

Louis was baptised privately and without a name by Cardinal Armand de Rohan. On April 27, 1737 when he was seven years old the public ceremony of the other baptismal rites took place. It was at this point that he was given the names Louis Ferdinand. His godparents were his cousin Louis, Duke of Orléans and his great-grandaunt the Dowager Duchess of Bourbon.

From an early age Louis took a great interest in the military arts. He was bitterly disappointed when his father would not permit him to join the 1744 campaign in the War of the Austrian Succession. When his father became deathly ill with fever at Metz, Louis disobeyed orders and went to his bedside. This rash action, which could have resulted in the deaths of both Louis and his father, resulted in a permanent change in the relations between father and son. Until then, Louis XV had doted on his son, but now the relationship was more distant. He was very close to his three older sisters.

First marriage

In 1744 Louis XV negotiated a marriage between his fifteen-year-old son and the nineteen-year-old Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain, daughter of King Felipe V and his Italian wife, Elisabeth Farnese, and first cousin of Louis XV. The marriage contract was signed December 13, 1744; the marriage was celebrated by proxy at Madrid December 18, 1744 and in person at Versailles February 23, 1745.

Louis and Maria Teresa Rafaela were well-matched and had a real affection for each other. They had one daughter, Princess Marie Thérèse of France (July 19, 1746 – April 27, 1748). Three days after the birth of their daughter, Louis’s wife, Maria Teresa Rafaela, died on July 22, 1746. Louis was only 16 years old. He grieved intensely at the loss of his wife, but his responsibility to provide for the succession to the French crown required he marry again quickly.

In 1746, Louis received the Order of the Golden Fleece from his father-in-law, King Felipe V of Spain.

Second marriage

On January 10, 1747, Louis was married by proxy at Dresden to Maria Josepha of Saxony, the 15-year-old younger daughter of Friedrich August II, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and his wife Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, the eldest child of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Princess Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

A second marriage ceremony took place in person at Versailles on February 9, 1747.

Personality

Louis was well-educated: a studious man, cultivated, and a lover of music, he preferred the pleasures of conversation to those of hunting, balls, or spectacles. With a keen sense of morality, he was very much committed to his wife, Marie-Josèphe, as she was to him.

Very devout, he was a fervent supporter of the Jesuits, like his mother and sisters, and was led by them to have a devotion to the Sacred Heart. He appeared in the eyes of his sisters as the ideal of the Christian prince, in sharp contrast with their father, who was a notorious womanizer.

Later life and death

Kept away from government affairs by his father, Louis was at the center of the Dévots, a group of religiously-minded men who hoped to gain power when he succeeded to the throne.

Louis died of tuberculosis at Fontainebleau in 1765 at the age of 36, while his father was still alive, so he never became king of France. His mother, Queen Marie Leszczyńska, and his maternal grandfather, the former king of Poland, Stanislaus I Leszczyński, Duke of Lorraine, also survived him. His eldest surviving son, Louis-Auguste, duc de Berry, became the new dauphin, ascending the throne as Louis XVI at the death of Louis XV, in May 1774.

Louis was buried in the Cathedral of Saint-Étienne in Sens at the Monument to the Dauphin of France & Marie-Josephe of Saxony, designed and executed by Guillaume Coustou, the Younger. His heart was buried at Saint Denis Basilica.

August 30, 1727, Princess Anne of Great Britain and Hanover is created Princess Royal.

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Anne of Great Britain and Hanover, Charles I of England, George II of Great Britain and Ireland, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Princess Royal, Queen Anne of Great Britain, Stadtholder of the United Netherlands, Willem IV of Orange

Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (November 2, [O.S. 22 October] 1709 – January 12, 1759) was the second child and eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain and his consort Caroline of Brandenburgh-Ansbach. She was the wife of Willem IV, Prince of Orange, the first hereditary stadtholder of all seven provinces of the Northern Netherlands.

Anne was born at Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover, five years before her paternal grandfather, Elector Georg Ludwig, succeeded to the thrones of Great Britain and Ireland as King George I. She was christened shortly after her birth at Herrenhausen Palace. She was named after her paternal grandfather’s second cousin Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.

On August 30, 1727, George II created his eldest daughter Princess Royal, a title which had fallen from use since its creation by Charles I for his daughter Mary, Princess of Orange in 1642. Princess Anne was the second daughter of a British sovereign to hold the title Princess Royal.

Princess Royal is a style customarily (but not automatically) awarded by a British monarch to their eldest daughter. Although purely honorary, it is the highest honour that may be given to a female member of the Royal Family. There have been seven Princesses Royal. Princess Anne is the current Princess Royal.

The style Princess Royal came into existence when Queen Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), daughter of Henri IV, King of France, and wife of King Charles I (1600–1649), wanted to imitate the way the eldest daughter of the King of France was styled “Madame Royale”. Thus Princess Mary (born 1631), the daughter of Henrietta Maria and Charles, became the first Princess Royal in 1642.

It has become established that the style belongs to no one by right, but is given entirely at the Sovereign’s discretion. Princess Mary (later Queen Mary II) (1662–1694), eldest daughter of King James II-VII, and Princess Sophia Dorothea (1687–1757), only daughter of King George I, were eligible for this honour but did not receive it. At the time they respectively became eligible for the style, Princess Mary was already Princess of Orange, while Sophia Dorothea was already Queen in Prussia.

Marriage

In 1725, a potential marriage contract between Anne and King Louis XV of France and Navarre was considered. From a French viewpoint, such a marriage could give France valuable neutrality from The Netherlands and Prussia, as well as protection against Spain. However, the religious issues caused problems.

While it was taken for granted that Anne would have to convert to Catholicism, there were concerns that this would still not be enough for the Pope, whose support was needed, particularly regarding the broken betrothal between Louis XV and a Spanish princess, and the prospect of Anne becoming Regent of France in case of a minor regency was feared because of her presumed religious inclinations toward the Huguenots in France. The plans was eventually discarded when the French insisted that Anne must convert to Roman Catholicism.

Willem IV of Orange was the next candidate for Anne’s hand in marriage.

Willem was born in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, the son of Jan Willem Friso, Prince of Orange, head of the Frisian branch of the House of Orange-Nassau, and of his wife Landgravine Marie Louise of Hesse-Cassel. He was born six weeks after the death of his father.

Willem succeeded his father as Stadtholder of Friesland and also, under the regency of his mother until 1731, as Stadtholder of Groningen. In 1722 he was elected Stadtholder of Guelders. The four other provinces of the Dutch Republic:, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Overijssel had in 1702 decided not to appoint a stadtholder after the death of the previous stadtholder Willem III, (also William III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland) issuing the history of the Republic into a period that is known as the Second Stadtholderless Period. In 1747 those four provinces also accepted Willem as their stadtholder.

Willem suffered from a spinal deformity, which affected his appearance, but Anne said she would marry him even “if he were a baboon”. Her reason for being so insistent upon this marriage was reported to be simply that she wished to be married, to avoid a life as a spinster at the court of her father and her brother, with whom she did not get along; and as the only match considered suitable for her was with a monarch or heir to a throne, Willem was essentially her only remaining Protestant choice, and when questioned by her father, she stated that it was not a matter of whether she should marry Willem, the question was rather whether she should marry at all. She quarreled with her brother, the Frederick Louis,, Prince of Wales, about her choice.

On March 25, 1734 in the Chapel Royal at St. James’s Palace, she married Willem IV, Prince of Orange. She then ceased to use her British title in favour of the new one she gained by marriage. The music played at her wedding, This is the day was set by Handel to the princess’s own words based on Psalms 45 and 118. Handel also composed an operatic entertainment, Parnasso in Festa, in honour of her wedding which was performed for the first time at the King’s Theatre, London, on March 13, 1734, with great success.

Anne was Regent of the Netherlands from 1751 until her death in 1759, exercising extensive powers on behalf of her son Willem V. She was known as an Anglophile, due to her English upbringing and family connections, but was unable to convince the Dutch Republic to enter the Seven Years’ War on the side of the British. In the Netherlands she was styled Anna van Hannover.