Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans

Louise Élisabeth
Duchess of Berry
Louise Élisabeth in mourning by Louis de Silvestre, Musée d'Histoire de France, Versailles
Spouse	Charles de France, Duke of Berry
Detail Issue
Charles d'Alençon Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Alençon
Full name
Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans
Father	Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans
Mother	Françoise-Marie de Bourbon
Born	20 August 1695(1695-08-20) Palace of Versailles, France
Died	21 July 1719(1719-07-21) (aged 23) Château de La Muette, France
Burial	24 July 1719 Basilica of St Denis,

Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, Duchess of Berry (duchesse de Berry), (Palace of Versailles, 20 August 1695 – Paris, 21 July 1719) was a member of the House of Orléans who married Charles, Duke of Berry.

Biography

Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans was born at the Palace of Versailles. She was the eldest of the surviving children of [[Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France, and of his wife Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, a legitimised daughter of Louis XIV of France. She was given the honorary title of Mademoiselle d'Orléans at birth. After her marriage the title would be given to her younger sister Louise Adélaïde d'Orléans. She was baptised at Saint-Cloud on 29 July 1696.^[1]

Louise Élisabeth grew up at the Palais-Royal, the Orléans residence in Paris. After recovering from a near fatal illness at the age of six, her father personally nursed her day and night in order to save her life.^[2] Her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, Madame, known since her childhood as Liselotte, 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, again caught smallpox at Saint-Cloud and her grandmother wrote in her memoirs that Mademoiselle d'Orléans was presumed dead for over six hours.^[3]

Marriage

It was decided, with the help of Marie Adélaïde, Duchess of Burgundy, her future sister-in-law, that Louise Élisabeth would marry Charles, Duke of Berry, the youngest son of Le Grand Dauphin Louis. Papal dispensation having arrived on the 5th, the marriage took place on 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.

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, the young duchess gave birth to her first child, a girl, at the Palace of Fontainebleau. The girl lived only two days and her death was blamed on the king who had made her mother travel with the Court to Fontainebleau despite the doctors advising her to stay at Versailles or at the Palais Royal because of 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.^[4] According to the doctors, the death of the baby was due to the stress of the journey and the accident. The princess however made a quick recovery.

On 26 March 1713, at Versailles, the Duchess of Berry gave birth to a son, who was given the title Duke of Alençon. After several attacks of convulsions, the child died at Versailles on 16 June. His heart was taken to the Val-de-Grâce convent in Paris by the Bishop of Sens, and his body to the Basilica of St Denis. The duchess ordered that her son's governesses continue receiving their annual salary.

In November 1713, it became public that the Duke of Berry had taken as a mistress one of her chamber maids^{[citation needed]}. In turn, Louise Élisabeth took as a lover, a certain "Monsieur La Haye", who had been preceded by Monsieur de Salvert. When her affair with La Haye became known, her husband threatened to have her sent to a convent. Saint-Simon even records on one occasion when Berry kicked his wife in public because of her indiscretions. During her romance with La Haye, she conceived a plan for the two of them to flee to the Netherlands^{[citation needed]}.

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, at Versailles, to a daughter who died the following day.

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

On Friday 21 May 1717, the duchess received at the Luxembourg Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, on a semi-official visit to France. In March 1718, she nursed her mother who was ill.

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.

Her health deteriorated after the still-birth, in March 1719, of a daughter fathered by Sicaire Antonin Armand Auguste Nicolas d'Aydie, the Chevalier de Rion, whom she had secretly married. At Meudon, she gave a reception in honour of her father who did not approve of her marriage to Rion.

She took up residence at La Muette, where she died on 21 July 1719, at the age of twenty-three. On Saturday 22 July 1719, her heart was taken to the Val-de-Grâce church in Paris, and on 24 July 1719, she was buried in the Basilica of Saint-Denis.^[5] Her funeral arrangements were made by Saint-Simon himself.^[6]

Concerning her last visit to her granddaughter, Madame wrote:

28th March, 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 of Naples and Sicily, 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. Since their father was Duke of Berry only by courtesy, their surname was not "de Berry" but "d'Alençon", taken from his first substantial duchy.^[7]

• N... (not baptized) d'Alençon (Palace of Fontainebleau, 21 July 1711 - same day, Palace of Fontainebleau)
• Charles d'Alençon, Duke of Alençon^[8] (as a courtesy title) (Palace of Versailles, 26 March 1713 – 16 April 1713, Palace of Versailles)
• Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Alençon (Palace of Versailles, 16 June 1714 – 17 June 1714, Palace of Versailles)

Sicaire Antonin Armand Auguste Nicolas d'Aydie, Chevalier de Rion, became her lover and she married him in secret in 1718. The couple had one child:

• N..., Mademoiselle d'Aydie de Rion (Luxembourg Palace, 28 March 1719) stillborn, but, according to Duclos, subsequently became a nun at the Abbey of Pontoise.^[9]

Ancestors

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Royal styles of Louise Élisabeth, Duchess of Berry
Reference style	Her Royal Highness
Spoken style	Your Royal Highness
Alternative style	Madame de Berry

Titles and styles

• 20 August, 1695 – 6 July, 1710 Her Serene Highness Mademoiselle d'Orléans
• 6 July, 1710 – 5 May, 1714 Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Berry (Madame la duchesse de Berry)
• 5 May, 1714 – 21 July, 1719 Her Royal Highness the Dowager Duchess of Berry (Madame la duchesse de Berry douairière)

References

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	Europe portal

1. ^ Boudet. Antoine, Dictionnaire de la noblesse, seconde édition, [French], Paris, 1776, p.107
2. ^ Dufresne, Claude, les d'Orléans, CRITERION, Paris, 1991, p. 94 (French)
3. ^ The Orléans Daughter Accessed 20 May 2009
4. ^ Lady Antonia Fraser, Love and Louis XIV^{[page needed]}
5. ^ The Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon p. 219.
6. ^ The Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon.^{[page needed]}
7. ^ Journal du Marquis de Dangeau (on 3 January 1712): J'appris que les enfants de monseigneur le duc de Berry ne porteront point le nom de Berry, mais celui d'Alençon; comme les enfants de Monsieur portoient le nom d'Orléans, ceux-là porteront celui d'Alençon. Je ne sais si j'ai su cela dans le temps que cela fut fait, mais je l'écris en cas que je l'aie oublié.^{[page needed]}
8. ^ Journal du marquis de Dangeau (on 26 March 1711): Le roi, avant la messe, alla voir M. le duc d'Alençon ; c'est le nom du prince dont madame la duchesse de Berry est accouchée cette nuit à quatre heures.^{[page needed]}
9. ^ On the last few months of the life of the Duchess of Berry, and her secret marriage to the Chevalier de Rion in April 1719: The Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon on the reign of Louis XIV and the Regency, chapter XXIII, pp. 206-220.

See also

Persondata
Name	Marie Louise Elisabeth D'orleans
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	20 August 1695
Place of birth	Palace of Versailles, France
Date of death	21 July 1719
Place of death	Château de La Muette, France