Died 2 August 1740 Name Elisabeth de | House House of Lorraine | |
 | ||
Burial 20 August 1740
Chapelle de la Sorbonne, Paris, France Spouse Armand de Vignerot du Plessis Issue
Detail Antoine, Duke of Richelieu
Jeanne Sophie, Countess of Egmont Father Joseph, Count of Harcourt | ||
Elisabeth Sophie of Lorraine (Marie Elisabeth Sophie; 1710 – 2 August 1740.) was a French noblewoman and the second wife of Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, the famous womaniser the Duke of Richelieu.
Contents
Biography
She was born in 1710 and was the second daughter of Joseph de Lorraine, Count of Harcourt and his wife Marie Louise Jeannin de Castille. Her older sister Louise Henriette Francoise married the Duke of Bouillon in 1725.
A member of the House of Guise founded by Claude, Duke of Guise, she was a Princess of Lorraine as a male line descendant of Rene II, Duke of Lorraine. At court, she, like his Lorraine family, held the rank of Foreign Prince, a rank which was below that of the immediate Royal Family and Princes of the Blood. This also allowed her the style of Her Highness.
Family relations included Emmanuel Maurice, Duke of Elbeuf, second cousin of her husband via Emmanuel Maurice's mother Elisabeth de La Tour d'Auvergne. Others included the Abbess of Remiremont, Princess of Epinoy and a Queen consort of Sardinia.
She was a proposed bride of Paul II Anton Esterhazy, a prince of the House of Esterhazy, a distinguished soldier and patron of music. The marriage never materialised.
In the end, with the help of Voltaire, the Duke of Richelieu was married to Elisabeth Sophie. As she was a Princess of Lorraine, Richelieu had to ask permission from the then Duke of Lorraine Francis III Stephen. The Duke of Lorraine accepted and Elisabeth Sophie married Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu on 7 April 1734.
Richelieu had been married before to Anne Catherine de Noailles and had had no children. Elisabeth Sophie however, gave him two children including the next duke of Richelieu.
The court said that Elisabeth Sophie had a strong mind and a heart capable of great affection and gratitude. She was praised for her virtuous, passionate nature and was a devoted wife to one of the most notorious womaniser's of the age.
She died of Scurvy in her husbands arms on 2 August 1740 aged roughly 30 and only five months after the birth of her daughter. She was buried at the Chapelle de la Sorbonne of the on 20 August 1740. In 1780, her husband married again to Jeanne Catherine Josephe de Lavaulx; there were no children from the marriage.
Issue
- Antoine de Vignerot du Plessis (4 February 1736 – 1791) married Adelaide Gabrielle de Hautefort in 1765 and had issue; married Marie Antoinette de Gallifet and had issue;
- Jeanne Sophie de Vignerot du Plessis (1 March 1740 – 14 October 1773) married Don Casimir Pignatelli, Count of Egmont, Duke of Bisaccia in 1755; no issue.