Louise Françoise De Bourbon - Legalized Daughter Of Louis XIV

Louise Françoise de Bourbon was born in Tournai, a city in the southern Netherlands, on June 1st 1673. She was the first daughter of King Louis XIV of France and his mistress Françoise Athénaïs de Montespan. Louise Françoise's unusual birthplace resulted from the fact that the entire court was on a journey to the Flanders front, where French troops were besieging the city of Maastricht during the Dutch war. When her parents returned from Tournai, Louise Françoise and her siblings were left in the care of Françoise d'Aubigné, who would later become known as Madame de Maintenon, and who would go on to become the second wife of Louis XIV. Louise Françoise grew up in secrecy, far away from the court, in a hotel in the rue de Vaux-Guirard in Paris. On December 18th 1673, she was baptized in the church Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Louise Françoise was named after her godmother, Louise de la Vallière, who had been the king's mistress before her mother took over the title of maîtresse en titre. However, it is obvious that Louise Françoise also bore the names of both her parents. Two days after Louise Françoise's baptism, on December 20th of that year, Louis XIV legitimized his three children born from Madame de Montespan. The legitimization documents did not mention the name of the children's mother, because Françoise Athénaïs was married to Louis-Henri de Pardaillon de Gondrin, Marquis de Montespan, and her husband could otherwise have claimed paternity. Since the three siblings were now officially children of the king, they moved from their anonymous location to the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye at the beginning of January 1674. When her younger sister Louise Marie died suddenly in September 1681, it was a hard blow for the eight-year-old Louise Françoise, because the two girls had been very close. At court, Louise Françoise was considered amusing, and she was allowed to get away with quite a bit of mischief. A courtier described her as a beautiful cat who, while you play with her, makes you feel her claws. In June of 1864, Louis XIV arranged a marriage between Louise Françoise and Louis, the son of Henri-Jules de Bourbon-Condy. Due to the bride's young age, the arrangement was kept secret for the time being and not made public until April of the following year. The official engagement took place on July 23, 1685, in the salon of the small royal apartment at Versailles, in the presence of the entire court. The actual marriage took place with great pomp the following day in the royal chapel at Versailles. Louise Françoise was just 12 years old at the time, the groom was 5 years older. After the marriage, Louise Françoise became known at court as Madame la Duchesse. She started to lead an extravagant lifestyle and liked to gamble, losing large sums of money in the process. On one occasion, her gambling debts rose to an amount she could not pay, obligating her father to settle her debts. Louise Françoise's marriage to Louis III of Bourbon was not a happy one. She did not like her husband, and he neglected and cheated on her. Louise Françoise was closer to her grandfather, Le Grand Condé, than she was to her father or her father-in-law. When she was hit with smallpox, Le Grand Condé took it upon himself to take care of her. Louise Françoise was in such bad shape that the doctors had already given up on her, but she recovered against all odds. Although the marriage of Louise Françoise and Louis III of Bourbon was unhappy, it did produce nine children who all lived to adulthood. Those nine children are Maria Gabrielle Eleonore, who was born in 1690 and died in 1760, Louis Henry, who was born in 1692 and died in 1740, Louise Elisabeth, who was born in 1693 and died in 1775, Louise Anne, who was born in 1695 and died in 1758, Anne-Marie, who was born in 1697 and died in 1741, Charles, who was born in 1700 and died in 1760, Henriette Louise, who was born in 1703 and died in 1772, Elisabeth Alexandrine, who was born in 1705 and died in 1765, and finally Louis, who was born in 1709 and died in 1771. In 1696, Louise Françoise began a brief affair with her husband's handsome brother-in-law, François-Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conti. The liaison was supported by her half-brother, the Dauphin Louis, who allowed the two to meet secretly at his château in Meudon. It is quite possible François-Louis de Bourbon was the biological father of Louise Françoise's daughter Marie-Anne, who was born in 1697. The affair ended when Louise Françoise's lover left France in 1697 after he was proclaimed King of Poland. When Louis III learned of his wife's affair, he was quite angry, but he didn't dare to make a fuss out of fear of his father-in-law, the King. The Duc de Saint-Simon wrote in his memoirs about Louise Françoise and her lover that the Prince of Conti had been the only person with whom the Duchess had been honest. In return, she had been the only person to whom the Prince of Conti had been loyal. So it comes as no surprise that Louise Françoise was hit exceptionally hard when she learned of the death of her ex-lover in 1709. Two years earlier, in May, she had already had to cope with the death of her beloved mother, whose death she was not allowed to mourn in public upon order of Louis XIV. In March of 1710, Louise Françoise's husband died. In the years that followed, she became the center of social life at her father's court in Versailles. As she got older, her relationship with her younger sister, Françoise Marie, deteriorated. Françoise Marie had married the son of Philippe d'Orléans and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, Philippe II d'Orléans, in 1692. The marriage between Françoise Marie and Philippe placed Françoise Marie at a higher position at court, especially after the death of Louis XIV when Philippe became regent of France during the minority of Louis XV and the two sisters became caught up in a constant battle for supremacy at court. The rivalry between the two women often manifested itself in scenes of jealousy and scheming against each other was almost the order of the day. Since 1711, the widow duchess had a love affair with Léon de Madaillon de l'Espart, the Marquis de Lassay. The Marquis had his own residence, l'Hôtel de Lassay, built directly next to Louise Françoise's Palais Bourbon, which she had constructed between 1722 and 1728. Later, the couple had the two buildings connected by having a gallery constructed. Louise de Françoise had a friendly relationship with Louis XV, the grandson of her half-brother and successor to her father, even though she played no political role in his reign. In 1737, she even became the godmother of Louis XI's son, Louis Ferdinand. Louise Françoise de Bourbon died on June 16, 1743, at the age of 70, in her Palais Bourbon. She was buried at the Carmel du Fort Bourg-Saint-Jacques in Paris. Thank you for watching.