Louise Françoise | |||||
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Légitimée de France Princess of Condé Duchess of Bourbon |
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Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, Princess of Conde (right), with her sister Françoise-Marie, Duchess of Orléans
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Born |
Tournai, France |
1 June 1673||||
Died | 16 June 1743 Palais Bourbon, Paris, France |
(aged 70)||||
Burial | Carmel du faubourg Saint-Jacques, Paris | ||||
Spouse | Louis de Bourbon | ||||
Issue Detail |
Marie Anne Éléonore, Mademoiselle de Bourbon Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon Louise Élisabeth, Princess of Conti Louise Anne, Mademoiselle de Charolais Marie Anne, Mademoiselle de Clermont Charles, Count of Charolais Henriette Louise, Mademoiselle de Vermandois Élisabeth Alexandrine, Mademoiselle de Sens Louis, Count of Clermont |
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Father | Louis XIV | ||||
Mother | Madame de Montespan |
Full name | |
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Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Légitimée de France |
Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Légitimée de France (1 June 1673 – 16 June 1743) was the eldest surviving legitimised daughter of Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Madame de Montespan. She was said to have been named after her godmother, Louise de La Vallière, the woman that her mother had replaced as the king's mistress. Prior to her marriage, she was known at court as Mademoiselle de Nantes.
Married at the age of eleven, she became known as Madame la Duchesse, a style which she kept as a widow. She was, Duchess of Bourbon and Princess of Condé by marriage. She was later a leading member of the cabale de Meudon, a group of people who centered on Louis, le Grand Dauphin her older half brother. Whilst her son, Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon was Prime Minister of France she tried to further her political influence but to little avail.
Very attractive, she had a turbulent love life and was frequently part of scandal during the reign of her father Louis XIV. Later in life, she built the Palais Bourbon in Paris, the present seat of the National Assembly of France, with the fortune she amassed having invested greatly in the Système de Law.
Louise Françoise was born in Tournai on 1 June 1673 while her parents, King Louis XIV and Françoise-Athénais de Rochechouart were on a military tour; her maternal aunt, the marquise de Thianges, was there also. After returning from Tournai, her parents placed her and her older siblings in the care of one of her mother's acquaintances, the widowed Madame Scarron.