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Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Blois

Françoise Marie
Légitimée de France
Duchess of Orléans
Françoise-Marie de Bourbon in 1700; Duchess of Chartres.jpg
Françoise Marie by Pierre Gobert Pierre Gobert (1700)
Born 4 May 1677
Château de Maintenon, Maintenon, France
Died 1 February 1749 (aged 71)
Palais-Royal, Paris, France
Burial 6 February 1749
Église de la Madeleine de Trainel, Paris, France
Spouse Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Issue
Detail
Marie Louise Élisabeth, Duchess of Berry
Adélaïde, Abbess of Chelles
Charlotte Aglaé, Duchess of Modena
Louis, Duke of Orléans
Louise Élisabeth, Queen of Spain
Philippine Élisabeth, Mademoiselle de Beaujolais
Louise, Princess of Conti
Full name
Françoise Marie de Bourbon, légitimée de France
House Bourbon
Father Louis XIV of France
Mother Madame de Montespan
Religion Roman Catholicism
Signature Françoise Marie's signature
Full name
Françoise Marie de Bourbon, légitimée de France
Royal styles of
Françoise Marie, Duchess of Orléans
France moderne.svg
Reference style Her Royal Highness
Spoken style Your Royal Highness
Alternative style Madame d'Orléans

Françoise Marie de Bourbon, légitimée de France (4 May 1677 – 1 February 1749) was the youngest illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan. At the age of 14 she was wed to her first cousin Philippe d'Orléans, future regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. Through four of the eight children she bore him in an unhappy marriage she became the ancestress of several of Europe's Roman Catholic monarchs of the 19th and 20th centuries, notably those of Belgium, Italy, Spain and France.

Françoise Marie was born in 1677, at the château de Maintenon, owned since 1674 by Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon, the governess of Madame de Montespan's illegitimate children by Louis XIV. She and her younger brother, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse were cared for by Mmes de Monchevreuil, de Colbert and de Jussac under Mme. de Maintenon's' supervision, their mother being eventually ostracized from court. As a child, she was brought occasionally to Versailles to visit her parents.

On 22 November 1681, at the age of four and a half, Françoise Marie was legitimised by Louis XIV and given the courtesy title of Mademoiselle de Blois, a style held previously by her older half-sister, Marie Anne de Bourbon, a legitimised daughter of the king by Louise de La Vallière. The name of her mother was not mentioned in the act of legitimisation because Madame de Montespan was still married to the Marquis de Montespan, who might have counter-claimed paternity and custody of his wife's children. By the time of her birth, her parents' relationship was coming to an end because of Madame de Montespan's possible involvement in the Affaire des poisons.


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