Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans

Life

Marie Louise Élisabeth was born at the Palace of Versailles as the eldest surviving child to Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and his wife Françoise Marie de Bourbon, a legitimised daughter of King Louis XIV. She was given the honorary title of Mademoiselle d'Orléans at birth, and was baptised at Saint-Cloud on 29 July 1696.

Known as Louise Élisabeth, she grew up at the Palais-Royal, the Orléans residence in Paris. She recovered from a near fatal illness at the age of six; her father personally nursed her day and night in order to save her life. Her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, wrote in her memoirs that from a very early age, Louise Élisabeth:

... had entirely her own way, so that it is not surprising she should be like a headstrong horse.

At the age of ten, Louise Élisabeth caught smallpox at Saint-Cloud and her grandmother wrote in her memoirs that Mademoiselle d'Orléans was presumed dead for over six hours.

Marriage

It was decided, with the help of Marie Adélaïde, Duchess of Burgundy, that Louise Élisabeth would marry Charles, Duke of Berry, the youngest son of the Grand Dauphin. Papal dispensation having arrived on 5 July 1710, the marriage took place 6 July 1710 at the Palace of Versailles. The presiding bishop was the Cardinal de Janson. The King ordered his other Orléans granddaughters, Mademoiselle de Chartres and Mademoiselle de Valois, back from their convent at Chelles.

The position of dame d'honneur was given to Marie Gabrielle de Durfort de Lorges, the wife of the Duke of Saint-Simon, while her first cousin Marie Anne de Bourbon became her lady-in-waiting, a post Marie Anne later resigned because of her cousin's wayward nature. She stated:

I shall pass lightly over an event which, engrafted upon some others, made some noise, notwithstanding the care taken to hush it up. The Duchess of Burgundy supped at Saint-Cloud one evening with the Duchess of Berry and others, Madame de Saint-Simon absenting herself from the party. The Duchess of Berry and the Duke of Orléans, but she more than he, got so drunk that the Duchess of Burgundy, the Duchess of Orléans, and the rest of the company knew not what to do. The Duke of Berry was there, and him they talked over as well as they could, and the numerous company was amused by the Grand Duchess, to the best of her ability. The effect of the wine in more ways than one was such that people were troubled, and, since she could not be sobered, it became necessary to carry her back, drunk as she was, to Versailles. All the servants waiting with the carriages saw the condition she was in, and did not keep it to themselves; nevertheless, they succeeded in concealing it from the King, from Monseigneur, and from Madame de Maintenon.

In July 1711, Louise Élisabeth gave birth to her first child, a stillborn girl, at the Palace of Fontainebleau. The child's death was blamed on the King, who had made her travel with the royal court to Fontainebleau despite the doctors advising her to stay at Versailles or at the Palais Royal due to her advanced pregnancy. The King did not give in and made Louise Élisabeth travel by barge instead of carriage. During this journey, the barge hit a pier of a bridge at Melun and nearly sank. Louise Élisabeth almost lost her life. According to the doctors, the death of the baby was caused by stress of the journey and the accident. The Princess, however, made a quick recovery.

Dowager Duchess

On 5 May 1714, her husband died from internal injuries sustained in a hunting accident, whereupon Louise Élisabeth became the Dowager Duchess of Berry. On 16 June 1714, seven weeks after the death of her husband, she gave birth to a daughter who died the following day.

In September 1715, Louise Élisabeth was given the Luxembourg Palace as her Parisian residence, where she hosted lavish banquets. The closing of the Luxembourg Garden to the public made her unpopular with the Parisian population.

King Louis XIV had died on 1 September and Louise Élisabeth, officially in mourning, promised she would not attend any shows for six months, but she soon openly turned into a "merry widow". On 23 September 1715, she established her residence in the Luxembourg Palace and obtained from her father a whole company of guards. Despite the mourning, the Duchess of Berry allowed gambling in her new palace, in particular the Lansquenet game. She even entertained herself in public. Dangeau noted in his diary dated Saturday, 4 January 1716: "There was ball in the evening in the hall of the Opera, the Duchess of Berry and many other princesses were there masked." Radiantly beautiful, the Duchess paraded in a splendid dress at this carnival ball that her father had just installed at the Opera.

Three weeks later, Louise Élisabeth shut herself up in the Luxembourg Palace, officially "bothered with a bad cold". The Duchess had been hiding her pregnancy until she reached her term in which she would be suffering the pains of labour. This clandestine confinement is reported in the Gazette de la Régence on 6 February 1716: "They say the Duchess of Berry gave birth to a daughter who lived only three days. This conduct reminds of Messalina and of Queen Margot". This secret childbirth soon became public knowledge and excited the verve of satirists. A song dated 1716 ("Les couches de la Duchesse de Berry") and later satirical verses from the Collection Clairambault-Maurepas lampoon the unbridled lust of the young widow, poking fun at her "countless" lovers and her pregnancies.

During the Regency, Louise Élisabeth was given an annual income of 600,000 livres. In addition to the Orléans residences, she was also given the use of the Château de Meudon after giving back to the Crown the Château d'Amboise, which had been the official country residence of the Duke of Berry. On 21 May 1717, the Duchess received a visit at the Luxembourg from Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, on a semi-official visit to France. In March 1718 she nursed her mother who was ill.

Final moments and legacy

Concerning her last visit to her granddaughter, Madame wrote:

28th May, 1719. I went to see her last Sunday, the 23rd May, and found her in a sad state, suffering from pains in her toes and the soles of her feet until the tears came into her eyes. I went away because I saw that she refrained from crying out on my account. I thought she was in a bad way. A consultation was held by her three physicians, the result of which was that they determined to bleed her in the feet. They had some difficulty in persuading her to submit to it, because the pain in her feet was so great that she uttered the most piercing screams if the bedclothes only rubbed against them. The bleeding, however, succeeded, and she was in some degree relieved. It was the gout in both feet

During her lifetime, Louise Élisabeth gained a reputation for scandal. In an irony of history, the next Duchesse de Berry, Princess Caroline Ferdinande, was also known for her scandalous behaviour.

Issue

The Duke and the Duchess of Berry had three children who never reached one month of age:

Daughter* (21 July 1711 – 23 July 1711); Mademoiselle de Berry.

Charles, Duke of Alençon (26 March 1713 – 16 April 1713).

Marie Louise Élisabeth (16 June 1714 – 17 June 1714).

It is known that the young Duchess had several lovers while her husband was alive, so the real fatherhood of her first three unhappy maternities is open to debate. Having become a widow, the Duchess secretly brought forth three children of uncertain parentage:

Daughter* (27/28 January 1716); this child of an unknown father only lived 3 days.

Daughter* (July 1717); the Duchess had retired at the Château de la Muette to hide the term of her pregnancy. The putative father Sicaire Antonin Armand Auguste Nicolas d'Aydie, Chevalier de Rion, became the Duchess's lover sometime in 1716 or 1717. In his additions to the diary of Dangeau on 21 July 1719, Saint-Simon mentions that the Duchess had managed to hide a first pregnancy by Rion, bringing forth a girl. She was not so fortunate the second time when she almost died in labour at the Luxembourg and provoked a public scandal. This was underscored by Saint-Simon, who then wrote a short description of the Duchess's 1719 childbirth which has become the most-well known episode of her scandalous biography. According to Duclos, this child subsequently became a nun at the Abbey of Pontoise.

Stillborn daughter* (2 April 1719); her father was probably the Chevalier de Rion, also.