The daughters of Philippe, Regent of France

The daughters of Philippe, Regent of France certainly  were interesting women. so I feel they deserve there own thread.

Here they are (they were all dreadful, especially the eldest one!):


Marie-Louise-Élisabeth (1695-1719), Mademoiselle d'Orléans,  duchesse de Berry
Louise-Adélaïde (1698-1743), Mademoiselle de Chartres, abbesse de Chelles
Charlotte-Aglaé (1700-1761), Mademoiselle de Valois, duchess of Modena
Louise-Élisabeth (1703-1742), Mademoiselle de Montpensier, queen of Spain
Philippe-Élisabeth (1714-1734), Mademoiselle de Beaujolais
Louise-Diane (1716-1736), Mademoiselle de Chartres, princesse de Bourbon-Conti

Marie-Louise-Élisabeth


Louise-Adélaïde

Charlotte-Aglaé


Louise-Élisabeth

Louise-Diane

MARIE LOUISE ELISABETH'S BIOGRAPHY
As a little girl when seriously ill, it was her father who nursed her and as a result she became and remained his most beloved child. In 1709, when she was only fourteen, the Duchess of Bourbon started the rumour that Marie Louise was having an incestuous relationship with her father.

However, her prospects of marrying Louis XIV's grandson, the Duc de Berry, were used to force her father to give up his mistress, Madame d'Argenton. The Duchess of Bourbon offered her daugther who was of the same age and equally attractive. However, Louis XIV ignored the wishes of the people concerned and decided that precedence should prevail and, as the Duke of Orléans was closer to the throne than the Duke of Bourbon, Marie Louise married the Duke of Berry.

Having been placed in prominence too young, her behaviour became embarrassing. Her grandmother recorded how: 'all of a sudden the duchesse de Berry fainted dead away; we thought it was a stroke, but after Madame la duchesse de Bourgogne poured vinegar into her face she came to again. Then she had a horrendous fit of vomitting; nor is this surprising, for in the theatre she had continually stuffed herself for two hours with all kinds of filth, caramel peaches, chestnuts, a paste of gooseberries and currants, dried cherries, and lots of lemonade with it, then at supper she ate fish and drank on top of that. So she felt sick, and when she wanted to hold it in, she fainted. Today she is hale and hearty again, but one of these days she will make herself really ill with gluttony, for she will not listen to any admonitions.'

In July 1711 she was three months pregnant and, even though her doctor advised against it, the king demanded she make the annual journey to Fontainebleau. He allowed her to make the journey by boat but then disaster struck. The boat almost hit the bridge at Melun and her party barely escaped drowning. Exhausted, she arrived at two in the morning; four days later she miscarried. No-one felt sorry for her, least of all her grand-mother who wrote: 'The misfortune of Madame de Berry has not upset me after all she is all right---and the child was only a girl.'

She was the black sheep of the family and Madame de Maintenon, with malicious pleasure, asked Marie Louise's grandmother to lecture her on her behaviour. Madame d'Orléans did so with enthusiasm. In 1713 she gave birth prematurely to a son which died in infancy; in the same year she also grew away from her father.

In 1714, when again pregnant, her husband fell ill at Marly with a violent fever. He was bled and given an emetic but the next day he had difficulty breathing. His condition worsened quickly and he died at four in the morning of 4 May 1714, in his twenty-eight year. It was thought that he had probably ruptured his stomach muscles on the pommel of his saddle, when falling from a horse. In June she miscarried.

When her father became Regent of France, she started to draw attention to herself and even in the Comédie demanded that the actors salute her before the performance. There was such an outcry that she stopped going to the Comédie. More disturbing than any of her follies was her preoccupation with a new lover, Armand de Rions. The Duke de Saint-Simon described him as 'a short chubby young man covered in pimples who, with his green and yellow complexion, looked rather like a walking abscess.'

When she bought a pretty house, Château de La Muette, in the Bois de Boulogne, the Parisians were delighted to see her go. Madame de Clermont, her lady-in-waiting, became so frustrated by her antics that she resigned her post. Some time later Marie Louise, seeing Madame de Clermont at the Opéra, demanded that she leave immediately. Madame de Clermont did so with dignity: 'I shall leave; I am delighted once again to have an opportunity to show Madame de Berry my submission and my obedience.' There was an uproar and six weeks later the duchesse was compelled to apologise to Madame de Clermont.

However, she enjoyed herself and at her father's supper parties she laughed and drank as the men did; they called her 'Princess chubby'. She lost her self-control and, besotted by her lover, became pregnant. However, when giving birth to a still-born daughter, her health was fatally undermined. Disgraced by her father, she was unable to prevent her father from ordering Rion to report to his regiment immediately. When she threatened to marry Rions, the scenes with her father grew violent and in the end Rions was sent away to fight in the war against Spain.

The Duchess, trying to make amends and very frightened, gave her father a supper party on the terrace at Meudon. However, it was not a success and she caught a chill from the night air. Wrapped in blankets, she was taken to La Muette. Almost twenty-four years old, she died at midnight on 21 July 1719.

From this site: http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00002204&tree=LEO

CHARLOTTE AGLAE'S BIOGRAPHY
At age eighteen she was described as 'very pretty, if rather plump, a lively brunette with sparkling eyes.' Her grandmother, impossible to please, deplored 'her huge hawk's nose which has spoiled everything. I can guess what happened---she must have been allowed to take snuff, and that made her nose grow.'

Her grandmother, the widowed Duchess of Orléans, regarded most of her grandchildren with a jaundiced eye, but took a particular dislike to this girl: 'she does not have a kind character, cares nothing for her mother and little for her father, except that she wants to rule him. Me she hates like the Devil and also hates all of her sisters. She is deceitful in all things, often contemptuous of the truth, and dreadfully coquettish withal. In short, this girl is sure to bring us unhappiness. I wish she were already married and living in a faraway country, so that we would not to have to hear more about her.'

At the time her grandmother wrote this, Charlotte was in the throes of a wild infatuation with the dashing young Duc de Richelieu who, at age twenty-two, was already an experienced seducer, and who all his life enjoyed ruining the lives of the women he seduced.

Aged nineteen, on 21 June 1720 in Modena, she married Francesco III, Duke of Modena. However, in 1728 with her husband she fled to Genoa and, in 1733, returned to France. There, however, she found herself unwelcome; her mother, who had never liked her, was cold; her closest friend in the family was her illegitimate half-brother, the Chevalier d'Orléans.

In 1739 she reluctantly returned to Modena which for a few years she made rather fashionable. But in 1743 she returned to Paris with her daughter. She was now a stout, red-faced woman, looking rather like her father. She lived on the Rue de Grenelle in the Faubourg Saint-Germain and was a friend of the King's mistress, Madame de Châteauroux.

She intrigued successfully to marry her daughter of the richest man in France, the Duke of Penthièvre. But her influence at court ended with the arrival of Madame de Pompadour in 1745. She then returned to Italy, and led a wandering life, dying in 1761.

From this site: http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00002200&tree=LEO

LUISE'S BIOGRAPHY
One of the unruly daughters of Philippe, Duke of Orléans and Regent of France, her grandmother described her as 'the most disagreeable person that I have ever seen'.

Nevertheless, when only thirteen years old, she married the fourteen-year-old Prince of Asturias and heir to the King of Spain. After the wedding ceremony festivities were over and the Duke of Saint-Simon was ready to return to France, he said his goodbye to the new Princess of Asturias. When he asked her if she wanted him to take a message back to her family in France, she merely looked at him and belched loudly into his face.

Later she scandalised the Spanish court by hoisting her petticoats up to her knees and walking about in the rain. She was also seen running about the gardens of La Granja clad only in a thin dressing-gown which, blowing up in the wind, revealed her to be quite naked. She was peevish and sulky with her husband, refusing to speak to him, and it was commonly believed that she had refused to consummate their marriage. Become immensely stout, she indulged her gluttonous appetite at all hours, forcing her ladies-in-waiting to do the same, and pinching and slapping them if they refused.

Things eventually became so scandalous that her father-in-law confined her in the Alcazar of Madrid for six days until she promised to mend her ways. In 1724 her father-in-law abdicated and her husband became King Luis I of Spain. However, he died of smallpox a little over seven months later and at fourteen she was Dowager-Queen of Spain.

Sent back to France, she held a little court at Vincennes where there were odd goings-on. 'She was fat, gluttonous, ate with both hands; she never reads or works, seldom plays cards, and cuts her hair like an English schoolboy.' She died in Paris in 1742 aged thirty-three.

From this site: http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00002203&tree=LEO

Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Blois, their mother


Philippe II d'Orléans, their father


To me, their job as parents was very badly done!

Daniela

Whew! Thanks for those posts Daniela!

I like the name Aglaé - it refers to a spring flower, Aglaia, which I think is called columbine in English. We have it in the garden (in Germany its called "Akelei").It's a delicate pretty plant, unlike Charlotte!

Anyone know anything about the other three?

I once heard Francoise, Duchess of Orleans being described as "Lucifer"...

I once heard Francoise, Duchess of Orleans being described as "Lucifer"...

Yes, she was nicknamed 'Lucifer' and was described as the incarnation of pride and laziness.

The Regent's daughters were the seventeenth century equivalent of poor little rich girls.  They were raised by servants, and their mother took little interest in them, preferring to spend her time lying on a sofa and eating.  Their father, Philippe, was the black sheep of the French royal family; Louis XIV would never give him anything to do, so Philippe drifted into alcoholism and ostentatiously took mistresses.  Although Philippe was very fond of his children, he wasn't an active parent, and tended to spoil them.  His marriage to Francoise was very unhappy; it was he who dubbed her Madame Lucifer.

The Duchess of Berri was an alcoholic.  The Duc de Saint-Simon's wife was part of her household, and he records some ugly tales about her in his Memoirs.  

The slanderous allegations of incest between the Duchess of Berri and Philippe were started and spread because some of the noblemen in France, including the Duc de Maine, did not want Philippe to be the Regent, and were trying to discredit him in any way they could.   The rumors were believed by some because Philippe was such a notorious womanizer and because his daughter had a bad reputation as well.

All of this is just my opinion and feel free to disagree.

The slanderous allegations of incest between the Duchess of Berri and Philippe were started and spread because some of the noblemen in France, including the Duc de Maine, did not want Philippe to be the Regent, and were trying to discredit him in any way they could.   The rumors were believed by some because Philippe was such a notorious womanizer and because his daughter had a bad reputation as well.

Well, yes, you are probably right.

On link posted below, it is said that it's possible that Marie Louise suffered from the eating disorder bulimia nervosa.
And also, that her sister Louise-Adelaide who became nun, was not "a woman of virtue", meaning that her abbey was described as "a palace of delight".

Well, what a family!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvenjb/madmonarchs/marielouise/marielouise_bio.htm

Philippine-Elizabeth, Mlle de Beaujolais, was actually very nice.  Madame, who did not pull her punches with any of her sisters, said "She is a charming child, beautiful, lively and amusing; I lover her dearly; she will not be deficient in esprit."  She had smallpox as a child and afterwards Madame said "The little Beaujolais is prettier and nicer than ever."  

She was sent to Spain in 1722, aged 8, betrothed to the Infant Don Carlos, the second son of Philip V, and was a hit with both her fiance and her in-laws.  Her elder sister Louise-Elizabeth was jealous of her, according to their half-brother the Chevalier d'Orleans who said "she has already shown that the arrival of the little princess here is disagreeable to her."  Sadly for Mlle de Beaujolais, when the Duc de Bourbon broke off the intended marriage of the Infanta Maria Ana Victoria to Louis XV and sent her back to Spain, Louise-Elizabeth who was by then a widow, and Philippine-Elizabeth, were bundled back to France in retaliation.  Both Philippine-Elizabeth and Don Carlos retained fond memories of one another, and the Duchesse d'Orleans and Don Carlos later tried to renew the betrothal later when Spanish-French relations grew warmer, but Elizabeth Farnese remained cold and the two courts then fell out with one another again.  Mlle de Beaujolais then caught measles and died, aged 20, in 1734.