Élisabeth | |||||
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Fille de France | |||||
Portrait by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun
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Born |
Palace of Versailles, France |
3 May 1764||||
Died | 10 May 1794 Paris, France |
(aged 30)||||
Burial | Cimetière des Errancis, Paris (first) Catacombs of Paris (final) |
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House | Bourbon | ||||
Father | Louis, Dauphin of France | ||||
Mother | Duchess Maria Josepha of Saxony |
Full name | |
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Élisabeth Philippine Marie Hélène de France |
Élisabeth of France (Élisabeth Philippine Marie Hélène de France; 3 May 1764 – 10 May 1794), known as Madame Élisabeth, was a French princess and the youngest sibling of King Louis XVI. During the French Revolution, she remained beside the king and his family and was executed at Place de la Révolution in Paris during the Terror.
Élisabeth was born on 3 May 1764 in the Palace of Versailles, the youngest child of Louis, Dauphin of France, and his wife, Marie-Josèphe of Saxony. Her paternal grandparents were King Louis XV of France and his consort, Queen Maria Leszczyńska. As the granddaughter of the king, she was a Petite-Fille de France. Her maternal grandparents were King Augustus III of Poland, also the Elector of Saxony, and his wife, the Archduchess Maria Josepha, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I.
At the sudden death of her father in 1765, Élisabeth's oldest surviving brother, Louis Auguste (later to be Louis XVI), became the new Dauphin (the heir-apparent to the French throne). Their mother Marie Josèphe, who never recovered from the loss of her husband, died in March 1767 from tuberculosis. This left Élisabeth an orphan at the age of just two years old, along with her older siblings: Louis Auguste, Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence, Charles Philippe and Clotilde ("Madame Clotilde").