Religion Roman Catholicism Name Louise de House House of Bourbon | Signature Role Duke of Etampes | |
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Born 22 November 1693
Palace of Versailles, France ( 1693-11-22 ) Burial Eglise Saint-Sulpice, Paris, France Issue
Detail Louis Francois, Prince of Conti
Louise Henriette, Duchess of Orleans Father Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde Mother Louise Francoise de Bourbon-Conde Died May 27, 1775, Hotel de Conti Spouse Louis Armand II, Prince of Conti (m. 1713) Children Louise Henriette of Bourbon, Duchess of Orleans, Louis Francois, Prince of Conti Parents Louis, Prince of Conde, Louise Francoise de Bourbon, Duchess of Bourbon Similar People Louise Francoise de Bourb, Louis Francois - Prince of, Louis - Prince of Conde, Francois Louis - Prince of, Francoise Marie de Bourbon | ||
Louise Elisabeth de Bourbon-Conde (Louise Elisabeth; 22 November 1693–27 May 1775) was a daughter of Louis III de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, and his wife, Louise Francoise de Bourbon, legitimee de France, a legitimised daughter of Louis XIV of France and Madame de Montespan.
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She was the wife of Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti. It was Louise Elisabeth who presented Madame de Pompadour to the court of Louis XV; she also built the Hotel de Brienne, present seat of the French Ministry of Defence. Louise Elisabeth was the Duchess of Etampes in her own right, having succeeded to the title at the death of her aunt, Marie Anne de Bourbon-Conde, Dowager Duchess of Vendome. The county of Sancerre, previously held by her brother Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon, also became her property in 1740 at his death.
Biography
Louise Elisabeth was born on 22 November 1693, at the Palace of Versailles. As a member of the House of Bourbon Conde, she was a princesse du sang. In youth, she was known at court as Mademoiselle de Charolais, a style later borne by her younger sister. Her parents' second daughter, and third child, she was one of nine children:
She was baptised in the chapel of Versailles on 24 November 1698 with her brother Louis Henri and her sister Louise Anne.
Marriage
At the age of seventeen, it was suggested by her ambitious mother that she marry one of the king's grandsons, the young Duke of Berry. The marriage, however, did not take place due to the machinations of Louise Elisabeth's aunt, the Duchess of Orleans, who wanted the duke for her own daughter, Marie Louise Elisabeth d'Orleans.
On 9 July 1713, Louise Elisabeth married her first cousin Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, at Versailles. Her husband, who was three years younger than his bride, had become the Prince of Conti in 1709 upon the early death of his father Francois Louis, Prince of Conti. His mother was the pious Marie Therese de Bourbon, eldest granddaughter of Le Grand Conde.
Her marriage was part of a double wedding between the Conde and Conti branches of the House of Bourbon; Louise Elisabeth's older brother Louis Henri de Bourbon married Mademoiselle de Conti, Marie Anne de Bourbon-Conti, Mademoiselle de Conti. The ceremony took place in the newly built Royal Chapel of Versailles.
Present at the wedding were her mother, paternal grandmother the Princess Palatine Anne, Dowager Princess of Conde; Charles, Duke of Berry and his wife Marie Louise Elisabeth d'Orleans, her uncles Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine, Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse and Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, as well as her aunts Francoise-Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Orleans and the two widowed Princesses of Conti, Marie Anne de Bourbon and Marie Therese de Bourbon.
In August 1716, at the age of twenty-two, Louise Elisabeth contracted smallpox from her husband whom she had been nursing through his illness. A year later she gave birth to her first child. She and her husband had five children.
The Princess Palatine Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans (Madame), sister in law of Louis XIV and famous memoir writer, wrote of Louise Elisabeth circa 1719:
She is a person full of charms, and a striking proof that grace is preferable to beauty. When she chooses to make herself agreeable, it is impossible to resist her. Her manners are most fascinating; she is full of gentleness, never displaying the least ill-humour, and always saying something kind and obliging. It is greatly to be regretted that she is not in the society of more virtuous persons, for she is herself naturally very good; but she is spoiled by bad company. She has an ugly fool for her husband, who has been badly brought up; and the examples which are constantly before her eyes are so pernicious that they have corrupted her and made her careless of her reputation. Her amiable, unaffected manners are highly delightful to foreigners. Among others, some Bavarians have fallen in love with her, as well as the Prince Ragotzky; but she disgusted him with her coquetry.
..she does not love her husband, and cannot do so, no less on account of his ugly person than for his bad temper. It is not only his face that is hideous, but his whole person is frightful and deformed. She terrified him by placing some muskets and swords near her bed, and assuring him that if he came there again with his pistols charged, she would take the gun and fire upon him, and if she missed, she would fall upon him with the sword. Since this time he has left off carrying his pistols.
Louise Elisabeth had several extramarital affairs, such as her liaison with the handsome Philippe Charles de La Fare. These infidelities incensed her husband, whose jealousy made him turn physically violent against his wife. He is reported to have hurt his wife to the point that she had to see a doctor on two separate occasions. After a particularly dramatic scene in the Conti household, the princess refused to live with her husband anymore and took refuge with her mother. Later she fled to a convent. According to Saint-Simon, she once said of her husband:
he could not make a prince du sang without her, while she could make one without him.
The first years of her marriage were full of court cases at the Parlement de Paris against her husband due to his violent temper and her desire to leave him. In 1725, she consented to return to the Prince of Conti, who had her confined to the Chateau de l'Isle-Adam. She was able later, however, to convince him to allow her to return to Paris in order to give birth to her daughter, Louise Henriette. Her husband died a year later.
Due to his open support of the Scottish economist John Law who had implemented the introduction of paper money to France during the Regence of the young King Louis XV of France, her husband had made a fortune.
Her husband died in 1727 at the Hotel de Conti in Paris due to a "chest swelling". Louise Elisabeth was known at court either as Madame la Princesse de Conti troisieme or Madame la Princesse de Conti derniere douairiere, in order to distinguish Louise Elisabeth from the other two widowed princesses of Conti still alive:
The Dowager Princess and her aunt the Dowager Duchess of Orleans joined forces in 1743 to arrange the marriage of her son to her first cousin, Louise Diane d'Orleans, and that of her daughter to Louise Diane's nephew, the heir to the House of Orleans. This helped to somewhat smooth over the century-long feud between the House of Conde and House of Orleans, a feud fueled by the animosity between Louise Elisabeth's mother and aunt, the Princess of Conde and the Duchess of Orleans, both legitimised daughters of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.
After the death of her mother in June 1743, she acquired the chateau de Louveciennes, which later reverted to the Crown. Louis XV in turn gave it to the successor of Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry. The Dowager Princess of Conti later also acquired the chateau de Voisins.
Later, in 1746, the Dowager Princess was asked by Louis XV to present his new mistress, the future Madame de Pompadour, at court. She attended the ball at Versailles in honour of the marriage of Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain to Louis, Dauphin of France in 1745. According to Nancy Mitford's Madame de Pompadour book, the proud Dowager Princess was annoyed at no one recognising her. She obliged the king in the hope that he would help her escape her debts, a tactic which worked.
The princess died at her town house in Paris at the age of eighty-one, on 27 May 1775. She was buried at the Eglise Saint-Sulpice in Paris. She had just sold the Hotel de Conti to her grandson Louis Francois de Bourbon-Conti who moved in in the next year.