Louise Adélaïde d'Orléans
.jpg)
Marie Louise Adélaïde d'Orléans (13 August 1698 – 10 February 1743) was the third daughter of Philippe II d'Orléans, duc de Chartres, heir to the House of Orléans and Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, an illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV and his mistress, Madame de Montespan.
Life
She was born at the Palace of Versailles on August 13, 1698. In her youth, she was known at court as Mademoiselle de Chartres. After her older sister married Charles de France, duc de Berry in 1710, she assumed the style of Mademoiselle d'Orléans.
Character
Very close to Élisabeth and her youger sister Charlotte Aglaé she was thought to have been one of the more beautiful of the Orléans daughters. Liselotte said she was:
well made, and is the handsomest of my granddaughters. She has a fine skin, a superb complexion, very white teeth, good eyes, and a faultless shape. Her hands are extremely delicate, the red and white are beautifully and naturally mingled in her skin. I never saw finer teeth; they are like a row of pearls[1]
According to her grand-mother,she was very passionate about music, she also was interested in theology and the sciences[2]. In particular, she was intrigued with the science of surgery which was then going through an era of change and improvement.
On her entrance into a convent, Louis Racine composed a verse about her:
- Plaisir, beauté, jeunesse, honneurs, gloire, puissance,
- Ambitieux espoir que permet la naissance,
- Tout au pied de l'Agneau fut par elle [3]
Abbesse de Chelles
Her family, especially her parents and grand mother, were very much against the idea of her interest with becoming a nun which she had begun to show an interest in the subject around the time of the disgrace of the duchesse de Berry her older sister.
As a nun, she took the name of Sœur Sainte-Bathilde (Sister Saint Bathilde in English) in 1717 and held it until the next year 1718.
In 1719, she became the Abbesse of Chelles until her death. She was also the abbesse de Val-de-Grâce, a church that had been built by her maternal great-grandmother, Anne of Austria, the wife of King Louis XIII. She was known as Madame d'Orléans while at Chelles from 1719 till 1734.[4] She died at the age of forty-four as a result of smallpox at the Convent de la Madeleine de Traisnel in Paris.[5]
Ancestors
References
- ^ Letters from Liselotte: Elizabeth-Charlotte, Princess Palatine and Duchess of Orleans
- ^ The Memoirs of Reign of Louis XIV:Elizabeth-Charlotte of The Palatinate
- ^ Pleasure, beauty, youth, grace, power; Ambitious hope that allow birth; All the feet of the lamb being sacrificed by her
- ^ thePeerage.com - Person Page 4471
- ^ thePeerage.com - Person Page 4471
Sources
- Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh. Burke's Royal Families of the World, Volume 1: Europe & Latin America. London, U.K.: Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1977.
Titles
