Marie Anne de Bourbon

This article is about the daughter of Louis XIV of France. For the Duchess of Vendôme, see Marie Anne de Bourbon (1678–1718).

Marie Anne
Légitimée de France Princess of Conti; Duchess of La Vallière
Marie Anne by Hyacinthe Rigaud, c. 1706
Spouse	Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti
Full name
Marie Anne de Bourbon, Légitimée de France
Father	Louis XIV of France
Mother	Louise de La Vallière
Born	1 October 1666(1666-10-01) Château de Vincennes, Vincennes, France
Died	3 May 1739(1739-05-03) (aged 72) Paris, France
Burial	Église Saint-Roch, Paris, France

Marie Anne de Bourbon, Légitimée de France (1 October 1666 – 3 May 1739) was the eldest legitimised daughter (fille légitimée de France) of King Louis XIV of France and Louise de La Vallière. At the age of thirteen, she was married to Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti and as such was the Princess of Conti by marriage. A great beauty and her father's favourite daughter, Marie Anne was widowed in 1685 aged 19. She never married again and had no children. She was Duchess of La Vallière in her own right.

Biography

Born secretly at the Château de Vincennes outside Paris on 2 October 1666 while the court was in residence, Marie Anne was the eldest illegitimate child of King Louis XIV. Considered the king's most beautiful daughter, she would become his favourite female child. His favourite child, however, was her younger half-brother, Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine.

She and her younger brother Louis de Bourbon (later Count of Vermandois) were put in the care of Madame Colbert, the wife of Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. They were raised by Mme Colbert away from the intrigues of the Court.

Marie Anne was legitimised by her father on 14 May 1667. On the same day, her mother was given the titles of Duchess of La Vallière and of Vaujours with letters patent. Marie Anne would succeed to her mother's La Vallière title. During her youth, she was known as Mademoiselle de Blois, a style that was later granted to her younger half-sister, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon.

Marriage

On 16 January 1680, Marie Anne married her cousin, Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, in the chapel of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He had fallen in love with her at first sight.^{[citation needed]} Her dowry was one million livres. The marriage was the first between a Prince of the Blood and one of Louis XIV's legitimised daughters. After a disastrous wedding night, the marriage remained sterile.

In 1683, she lost her beloved brother the Count of Vermandois, who had been born on the same day a year after her. The young man had been exiled from court after being involved in a homosexual scandal involving their uncle's lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine. From all sources, Marie Anne was quite upset by her brother's death, while, according to contemporary accounts, the young man's parents did not even shed a tear.

In 1685, her husband contracted smallpox from Marie Anne. Although she recovered, he succumbed after five days. After his death, she was called Madame la Princesse Douairière, and also la Grande Princesse de Conti. She never remarried and even refused an offer of marriage from the Sultan of Morocco, Ismail Ibn Sharif.

During the five years of her marriage to the Prince of Conti, a Prince of the Blood, she was one of the most important ladies at her father's court. Her younger half sister Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, a legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, however, made a more important marriage in 1685 to Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Bourbon, who was the eldest son of the Prince of Condé and heir to the title. As the Conti line descended from the House of Condé, the Condé family took precedence over that of the Conti, and, upon her marriage to Louis de Bourbon, the young Louise-Françoise took precedence over Marie Anne. This led to friction between the two.

In 1698, there might have been a proposal from her nephew, Philippe de France, Duke of Anjou. He later became the King of Spain and married Elisabeth of Parma.

The situation of rank at Versailles grew more irritating to Marie Anne in 1692. In that year, Louise-Françoise's full sister, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon married the Duke of Chartres, Philippe Charles d'Orléans, a petit-fils de France (grandson of France) by birth and heir to the House of Orléans. On her marriage, Françoise-Marie assumed the rank of petite-fille de France, giving her precedence over both Marie Anne and her older sister, Louise-Françoise. In addition, she was given a dowry of 2 million livres, a much higher amount than what either of her sisters had received on her marriage. These developments greatly irritated both Marie Anne and Louise-Françoise.

Princesse Douairière

In order to differentiate between them at court after the death of the various Princes of Conti, their widows were given the name of Douairière (dowager) and a number corresponding to the time of their widowhood, their full style thus being Madame la Princesse de Conti 'number' Douairière. Between 1727 and 1732, there were three widowed Princesses de Conti:

• Marie Anne de Bourbon (1666–1739), the illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV and Louise de La Vallière; the wife of Louis Armand I de Bourbon, prince de Conti, became Madame la Princesse de Conti Première Douairière as she was the first to be widowed in 1685. The title went to husband's younger brother, François Louis, Prince of Conti.
• Marie Thérèse de Bourbon (1666–1732), the wife of François Louis de Bourbon, prince de Conti; she became ''Madame la Princesse de Conti Seconde Douairière after losing her husband in 1709.
• Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon (1693–1775), the wife of Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, the son and successor of François Louis, Prince of Conti. She was the daughter of Monsieur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse. After her husband died in 1727, she became known as Madame la Princesse de Conti Troisième/Dernière Douairière.

From her staff at Versailles, Marie Anne introduced her older half brother, the Dauphin, to his second wife, Émilie de Choin. He married her morganatically after the death of his first wife, the unattractive Dauphine Victoire (1660–1690). One day, coming upon Victoire's sleeping form, Marie Anne commented that she was as ugly asleep as she was awake; whereupon the dauphine awoke and retorted that she did not "have the advantage of being a love child."

The Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, Nicolas de Largillière.

In 1710, Marie Anne's mother died in Paris at the Carmelite convent she had entered in 1674 under the name of Sister Louise of Mercy. Marie Anne thus acquired the title duchesse de La Vallière and inherited her mother's substantial fortune which had been accumulated over the past thirty-six years.

In 1713, the Princess of Conti bought the Hôtel de Lorges on the rue Saint-Augustin^[1] in Paris, but did not start living there until 1715, and in 1716, the Château de Choisy. Both properties remained in her possession until her death. In 1718, she was presented by the Crown the Château de Champs-sur-Marne, which she later gave to her first cousin, the duc de La Vallière in order to settle some debts. Years later, it was leased for several years by Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour.

Also in 1713, Marie Anne helped secure the marriage of her nephew, Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, with her niece, Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon, the daughter of her younger half-sister, Louise-Françoise.

Marie Anne was renowned for her beauty, even at an older age. She was very close to her father, and got on very well with her older brother, Monseigneur, the Grand Dauphin, whom she often visited at his country estate, the château de Meudon. His death in 1711 left her quite distressed. It was at Meudon that Marie Anne met and fell in love with the young but very poor Count of Clermont-Chaste. He joined the court and benefited from his intimacy with Marie Anne. The couple exchanged love letters, but a swift exile was ordered for Clermont-Chaste when Louis XIV discovered the liaison (possibly from his daughter-in-law, Émilie de Choin).

Upon the death of Louis XIV on 1 September 1715, a regency was established and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Orléans was named as regent (1715–1723). In 1721, Marie Anne was made responsible for the education of Louis XV's future bride, the Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, who arrived in France at the age of three. The young Infanta was nicknamed l'Infante-reine ('the Queen-Infanta').

However, because of the infanta's age, the marriage did not take place and the little girl was sent back to Spain four years later, in 1725, an event which caused friction between her father King Philip V of Spain and the youthful Louis XV.^{[citation needed]} After the departure of the seven-year old Infante-reine, Marie Anne retired from court and spent her remaining years residing on her various estates.

Marie Anne was a first cousin one generation removed of the famous bibliophile, Louis César de La Baume Le Blanc, duc de La Vallière.

The Princesse Douairière died of a brain tumor, in Paris, on 3 May 1739. She was buried in the chapel of Our Lady in the Saint-Roch church in Paris.^[2]

• 

  Her husband.

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  Painting of Marie Anne and Louis while children

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  Marie Anne while princesse de Conti

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  Marie Anne, with her brother Louis and their mother, Louise de La Vallière

Ancestry

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 2 October 1666 - 14 May 1667 Marie Anne de Bourbon;
• 14 May 1667 - 16 January 1680 Her Highness Marie Anne de Bourbon, Légitimée de France, "Mademoiselle de Blois"
• 16 January 1680 - 9 November 1685 Her Serene Highness the Princess of Conti^[3]
• 9 November 1685 - 3 May 1739 Her Serene Highness the Dowager Princess of Conti, Duchess of La Vallière (Madame la princesse de Conti Douairière or Madame la Princesse de Conti Première Douairière)

References

	Biography portal
	Europe portal
	Kingdom of France portal

1. ^ Rue Saint Augustin
2. ^ tours.com/churchofsaintroch.html#top Church of Saint Roch
3. ^ http://www.heraldica.org/topics/france/frroyal.htm#sang Style of HSH and further information on Princes of the Blood - Other princes of the blood were only entitled to Most Serene Highness (Altesse Sérénissime) from 1651 to 1824, when they received the style of Royal Highness

Sources

• fr:Marie Anne de Bourbon (1666-1739) - French
• The Sun King by The Hon. Nancy Freeman-Mitford

Titles and Succession

Marie Anne de Bourbon House of Bourbon Cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty Born: 2 October 1666 Died: 3 May 1739 French nobility Preceded by N/A Mademoiselle de Blois 1681–1692 Succeeded by Françoise-Marie de Bourbon Preceded by Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme Duchess of Penthièvre 1696–1697 Succeeded by Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse Preceded by Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme Duchess of Étampes 1712–1718 Succeeded by Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon Preceded by Louise de La Vallière Duchess of La Vallière 1680–1698 Succeeded by Charles François de La Baume Le Blanc firstly AS marquis de La Vallière Preceded by Anne Marie Martinozzi Princess of Conti 1680–1739 Succeeded by Marie Thérèse de Bourbon Persondata Name Bourbon, Marie Anne Of Alternative names Short description Date of birth 2 October 1666 Place of birth Château de Vincennes, Vincennes, France Date of death 3 May 1739 Place of death Paris, France