Ancestral Trails 2016 » Francoise Marie de BOURBON (1677-1749)

Personal data Francoise Marie de BOURBON 

• She was born on May 4, 1677 in Château de Maintenon, Maintenon, Eure-et-Loire, France.

  Attention: Age at marriage (February 18, 1692) below 16 years (14).

• She died on February 1, 1749 in Palais Royal, Paris, Île-de-France, France, she was 71 years old.
• She is buried on February 6, 1749 in Église de la Madeleine de Trainel, Paris, France.
• A child of Louis de FRANCE and Françoise-Athénaïs de MONTESPAN

Household of Francoise Marie de BOURBON

She is married to Philippe d'ORLEANS.

They got married on February 18, 1692 at Palais de Versailles, Versailles, Yvelines, Île-de-France, France, she was 14 years old.

Child(ren):

1. Philippine Elizabeth d'ORLEANS  1714-1734
2. Louise Diane d'ORLEANS  1716-1736
3. Marie Louise Elizabeth d'ORLEANS  1695-1719
4. Louis d'ORLEANS  1703-1752 
5. Louise Elizabeth d'ORLEANS  1709-1742
6. Charlotte Aglaé d'ORLEANS  1700-1761 

Notes about Francoise Marie de BOURBON

Françoise Marie de Bourbon, légitimée de France (4 May 1677 - 1 February 1749) was the youngest illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan. At the age of 14 she was wed to her first cousin Philippe d'Orléans, future regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. Through four of the eight children she bore him in an unhappy marriage she became the ancestress of several of Europe's Roman Catholic monarchs of the 19th and 20th centuries, notably those of Belgium, Italy, Spain and France.

Françoise Marie was born in 1677, at the château de Maintenon, owned since 1674 by Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon, the governess of Madame de Montespan's illegitimate children by Louis XIV. She and her younger brother, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse were cared for by Mmes de Monchevreuil, de Colbert and de Jussac under Mme. de Maintenon's' supervision, their mother being eventually ostracized from court. As a child, she was brought occasionally to Versailles to visit her parents.

On 22 November 1681, at the age of four and a half, Françoise Marie was legitimised by Louis XIV and given the courtesy title of Mademoiselle de Blois, a style held previously by her older half-sister, Marie Anne de Bourbon, a legitimised daughter of the king by Louise de La Vallière. The name of her mother was not mentioned in the act of legitimisation because Madame de Montespan was still married to the Marquis de Montespan, who might have counter-claimed paternity and custody of his wife's children. By the time of her birth, her parents' relationship was coming to an end because of Madame de Montespan's possible involvement in the Affaire des poisons.

Françoise and Philippe d'Orléans were married on 18 February 1692 in the chapel of the Palace of Versailles. The service was conducted by the Cardinal de Bouillon - a member of the House of La Tour d'Auvergne. In 1685, the Cardinal de Bouillon had refused to take part in the marriage of the Duke of Bourbon and Françoise's sister, Mademoiselle de Nantes, and, as a result, had been sent into exile, but he was recalled for the wedding of Françoise and the Duke of Chartres. After the ceremony, a banquet was given in the Hall of Mirrors with all the princes and princesses of the blood in attendance. Other guests included the exiled James II of England and his consort, Mary of Modena. At the newlyweds' bedding ceremony later that evening, Queen Mary handed the new Duchess of Chartres her night shirt. Madame de Montespan had not been invited to the wedding of her daughter.

As her new husband was a legitimate grandson of a king, Françoise assumed the rank of petite-fille de France ("Grand-Daughter of France"), and was addressed as Royal Highness. Furthermore, the newlyweds traveled and lodged wherever the king did, dined with him, and were entitled to armchairs in his presence. As the new duchesse de Chartres, Françoise Marie was next in precedence behind only the Duchess of Burgundy, and her own mother-in-law, the Duchess of Orléans.

From her father, Françoise Marie received a dowry of more than two million livres, twice the sum bestowed on her older sister, Louise, who had married Louis, Duke of Bourbon, first prince of the blood royal, whose rank was deemed substantially lower than that of the king's nephew. This difference led to animosity between the sisters. The dowry was not to be paid until the Nine Years' War was over.

Her many daughters were rumoured to be promiscuous. Having become a widow, the Duchess of Berry accumulated lovers and hid several pregnancies. She almost died in labor early in 1719, having been denied the sacraments by the church and when she died on 21 July 1719, she was again pregnant. After the liaison of her favourite daughter, Charlotte Aglaé, with the libertine Louis François Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu was discovered, Françoise and her husband swiftly married her abroad. At the same time, the Cellamare Conspiracy was uncovered. The Duke and Duchess of Maine, as well as the duc de Richelieu, were arrested for participating in the plot and temporarily imprisoned.

Earlier, Françoise had tried to get either Louise Adélaïde or Charlotte Aglaé to marry the Duke of Maine's son, Louis Auguste, Prince of Dombes, but both refused their cousin. In 1721, marriage arrangements into the royal family of Spain were also agreed upon for two of her other daughters, Louise Élisabeth, and Philippine Élisabeth. Louise Élisabeth was to marry the Infante Luis Felipe of Spain, heir to the throne, while Philippine Élisabeth was to marry Luis Felipe's younger half-brother, the Infante Carlos. Both marriages took place but that of Philippine Élisabeth was annulled and she returned to France. She died at the château de Bagnolet in 1734.

After the death of her husband in December 1723, Françoise retired to Saint-Cloud.

In 1725, Françoise Marie saw the marriage of her cousin, the young King Louis XV, to the Polish princess Marie Leszczyńska, diminishing her precedence at court, as did the birth of their daughters. As it turned out, the second of the king's eight daughters, Madame Henriette, fell in love with Françoise Marie's grandson, Louis Philippe, then the duc de Chartres. Louis XV would not, however, allow the marriage because he did not want the House of Orléans to come too close to the throne of France. Afterwards, it fell upon the dowager duchess to find her unwed grandson a suitable bride. At the direction of her son, Françoise Marie negotiated with her niece, Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon, for her grandson to marry Louise Élisabeth's attractive daughter, Louise Henriette de Bourbon. This marriage united a grandchild of Françoise Marie with a grandchild of her sister and enemy, the Duchess of Bourbon. Françoise Marie lived to see, in 1747, the birth of their son, the future Philippe Égalité.

The next of her daughters to marry was the youngest. Louise Diane, the favourite of Madame, was engaged to the young Louis François de Bourbon, Prince of Conti whom she married at Versailles. Louise died in childbirth at the Château d'Issy. Louise Diane's only surviving child was the last Prince of Conti, who would later marry Princess Maria Fortunata of Modena. Maria Fortunata was one of the daughters of the wayward Charlotte Aglaé, who was Françoise Marie's most difficult daughter. [clarification needed] She returned from Modena in a self-imposed exile many a time and Françoise Marie and her son Louis chose to ignore her when she did. She returned to Modena in 1737 as the Sovereign Duchess Consort.

Death
Françoise died on 1 February 1749 at the Palais Royal after a long illness, aged 71. She was the last surviving child of Louis XIV. She had outlived her husband by twenty-six years. She was survived by two children, Charlotte Aglaé and Louis, Duke of Orléans. She was buried in the Church of Madeleine de Trainel (Église de la Madeleine de Tresnel) in Paris, an old Benedictine church on Rue de Charonne in Paris on 6 February. Her heart was taken to the Val-de-Grâce.

At present, in the Royal Collection owned by the British Royal Family, there exists a miniature portrait by the Venetian painter Rosalba Carriera of Françoise. She poses as Amphitrite.
SOURCE: Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise_Marie_de_Bourbon

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Timeline Francoise Marie de BOURBON

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