Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conti

Infobox Person
name = "Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conti, duchesse d'Orléans"

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image_size = 280px
caption = The duchesse d'Orléans by Nattier, 1744.
birth_date = birth date|1726|6|20|mf=y
birth_place = Paris, France
death_date = death date and age|1759|2|9|1726|6|20|mf=y
death_place = Palais-Royal, Paris
occupation =
nationality =
spouse = Louis Philippe I d'Orléans
parents = Louis Armand II de Bourbon-Conti, prince de Conti, Louise-Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé
children = 1 Daughter; 2 Louis Philippe II d'Orléans; 3 Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans.

Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conti, duchesse d'Orléans (June 20 1726 – February 9 1759) was a French princess who, by marriage, was first "duchesse de Chartres" (1743-1752) and later "duchesse d'Orléans" (1752-1759). As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, Louise Henriette was a Princess of the blood, "princesse du sang". In her youth she was known at court as "Mademoiselle de Conti".

Life

Louise Henriette was the only daughter of Louis Armand II de Bourbon, prince de Conti and Louise-Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé. Her paternal grandmother and her maternal grandfather being siblings, her parents were first cousins. Her mother was the oldest and favorite daughter of Louise-Françoise de BourbonFact|date=September 2008, herself the oldest surviving illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.

Marriage

One of Louise Henriette's cousins, Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, "duc de Penthièvre", son of Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse and heir to the House of Bourbon-Penthièvre, had proposed marrying her, but her mother's choice fell upon the more prestigious heir to the House of Orléans.

Louise Henriette married her second cousin, Louis Philippe d'Orléans, "duc de Chartres", in the Chapel of the Palace of Versailles on December 17, 1743, at the age of seventeen,

Her mother, Louise-Élisabeth, hoped that the marriage would put an end to a family rivalry between the House of Bourbon-Condé and the House of Orléans. The source of conflict was animosity between Louise-Élisabeth's mother, the Princess of Condé, and her aunt, the Duchess of Orléans, both illegitimate daughters of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.

In 1731, a marriage between the two families had already taken place, that of Henriette's elder brother Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti to Louise Diane d'Orléans had been arranged in 1731.

The duc de Chartres' father, Louis d'Orléans, duc d'Orléans, known as the "Pious", accepted his wife's choice because of the princess's upbringing in a convent; but Louise Henriette's scandalous behaviour caused the break up of the couple, although their marriage had known a much passionate beginning [Dufresne, Claude, "Les Orléans", CRITERION, Paris, 1991, chapter: "Un bon gros prince", pp. 190-194.] .

Children

The couple had three children:

*A daughter (12 or 13 July 1745 – December 14, 1745);
*Louis Philippe II d'Orléans (1747–1793), who succeeded his father as duc d'Orléans in 1785,
**titled "duc de Montpensier" at birth,
**titled "duc de Chartres" at the death of his grandfather in 1752,
**titled "duc d'Orléans" at the death of his father in 1785,
**known as Philippe-Égalité during the French Revolution;
**married Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon and was the father of Louis-Philippe of France
*Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans (1750–1822), the last "princesse de Condé",
**married Louis Henry II, Prince of Condé,
**known as Citoyenne Vérité during the French Revolution.

During the Revolution of 1789, Philippe-Égalité, publicly claimed that his real father was not his mother's husband at all but instead a coachman at the Palais Royal. [ib. Dufresne, p. 194.] This is not very probable, considering the striking resemblance between father and son.

Death

Louise Henriette died on February 9, 1759 at the age of thirty-two, with her husband and children at her side, at the Orléans residence in Paris, the Palais-Royal. Her premature death was a consequence, it was said, of her debaucheries [ib. Dufresne, p. 196.] . Her son and daughter were, respectively, eleven and eight years old.

Following her death, her husband had several mistresses, ultimately finding the love of his life, the witty but married marquise de Montesson, whom he married after she became a widow.

Like her mother, Louise-Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé, who had inherited the title through her Condé's ancestry, Louise Henriette was the "duchesse d'Étampes" in her own right, having inherited the title on the occasion of her husband's rise to the head of the House of Orléans in 1752. At her death, her son inherited the ducal title, which he held until it became extinct in 1792, during the French Revolution. [(French) http://www.corpusetampois.com/index-seigneurs.html]

Ancestry

References

Titles