Marie Anne de Bourbon (1697–1741)
![Marie Anne de Bourbon's signature](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/Signature_of_Marie_Anne_de_Bourbon%2C_Mademoiselle_de_Clermont_at_the_baptism_of_the_eldest_daughters_of_Louis_XV_%281737%29.png/125px-Signature_of_Marie_Anne_de_Bourbon%2C_Mademoiselle_de_Clermont_at_the_baptism_of_the_eldest_daughters_of_Louis_XV_%281737%29.png)
Marie Anne de Bourbon (16 October 1697 – 11 August 1741)[1] was Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine (Superintendent of the Household) to the French queen Maria Leszczyńska. She was the daughter of Louis III, Prince of Condé. Her father was the grandson of le Grand Condé and her mother, Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Nantes, was the eldest surviving daughter of Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Madame de Montespan. She was known as Mademoiselle de Clermont.
Biography
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Gustaf_Lundberg-Marie_Anne_de_Bourbon_Cond%C3%A9.jpg/220px-Gustaf_Lundberg-Marie_Anne_de_Bourbon_Cond%C3%A9.jpg)
The fourth daughter and the fifth child of her parents, she shared her name with her eldest sister, Marie Anne Éléonore. She was born at the Hôtel de Condé in Paris and was baptised there on 29 August 1700. Marie Anne also shared her name with an aunt, Marie Anne, who became the Duchess of Vendôme after her marriage to Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme in 1710.
Marie Anne was said to have been the fruit of her mother's affair with François Louis, Prince of Conti. Her mother, who had an amorous nature, had been having an affair with the prince in the time leading up to the birth of Marie Anne. François Louis's wife, Marie Thérèse de Bourbon, was the sister of Marie-Anne's mother's husband. Together, the Conti couple had been the titular monarchs of Poland during the year of Marie Anne's birth.
Her first cousin, Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans (1695–1719) married Charles de France, duc de Berry in 1710. Upon her marriage, Marie Louise Élisabeth assumed the rank of Granddaughter of France and became entitled to her own household. Marie Anne was chosen to be one of her ladies-in-waiting. After the death of her husband, Marie Louise Élisabeth led a life of "debauchery" at the Palais du Luxembourg and the Château de La Muette. Her numerous lovers and repeated pregnancies soon gave her the reputation of a Messalina.[2] These libertine scandals was reportedly the reason for Marie Anne to resign her post.
Marie Anne secretly married her lover, the Duke of Joyeuse, in 1719. Her husband, Louis de Melun, was the son of the Louis de Melun, Prince of Epinoy and a princess Élisabeth Thérèse de Lorraine. Louis was also a great great grandson of Gabrielle d'Estrées. He was married to Armande de La Tour d'Auvergne, a daughter of the Duke of Bouillon and grand daughter of Marie Anne Mancini (she died in 1717). In 1724, during a hunting party at Marie Anne's ancestral home, the Château de Chantilly, Louis disappeared and his body was never found. Naturally distraught, Marie Anne never married again. She was never to have any children.[3]
In 1725, she became Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine of the new Polish-born queen, Maria Leszczyńska. She was secured this post thanks to her brother Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon who had helped secure the marriage of Maria Leszczyńska to Louis XV. At the death of her cousin Louise Diane d'Orléans in 1736 after a difficult childbirth (the child was a stillborn), Marie Anne was asked to go to the Château d'Issy to represent the Queen in honour of Louise Diane's early death.[4]
Marie Anne held her post until her death in 1741. She died of inflamed bowels at the hôtel du Petit Luxembourg.[5] Like her sisters, Louise Anne and Élisabeth Alexandrine, she was buried in the Carmelite Convent of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques in Paris.[6]
Her portrait en Sultane, by Jean-Marc Nattier (1733), "justifying her chic state of undress"[7] (Wallace Collection, London) is a famous example of turquerie.
Ancestry
References
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- ^ Dates
- ^ E. de Barthélémy (ed.), Gazette de la Régence. Janvier 1715-1719, Paris, 1887, p.68
- ^ The episode, once it was securely distant in time, provided romantic details for Mme de Genlis' brief nouvelle historique, Mademoiselle de Clermont (1802).
- ^ Williams, H. Noel (1913). Unruly daughters; a romance of the house of Orléans. New York: G. P. Putnam's sons.
- ^ Old home of her paternal grandmother Anne Henriette of Bavaria
- ^ "2 - Une histoire des familles Condé et Conti". Archived from the original on 23 January 2009. Retrieved 3 February 2009.
- ^ Jo Hedley, in The Wallace Collection, 2005:148.
- ^ Genealogie ascendante jusqu'au quatrieme degre inclusivement de tous les Rois et Princes de maisons souveraines de l'Europe actuellement vivans [Genealogy up to the fourth degree inclusive of all the Kings and Princes of sovereign houses of Europe currently living] (in French). Bourdeaux: Frederic Guillaume Birnstiel. 1768. p. 44.
Court offices | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by | Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine to the Queen of France 1725–1741 | Succeeded by |
- v
- t
- e
- Granddaughters of France : Anne Marie Louise, Duchess of Montpensier
- Marguerite Louise, Grand Duchess of Tuscany
- Élisabeth Marguerite, Duchess of Guise
- Françoise Madeleine, Duchess of Savoy
- Marie Anne, Mademoiselle de Chartres
- Princess of the Blood : Anne Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, Duchess of Longueville
- Daughters of France : Marie Therèse, Madame Royale
- Granddaughters of France : Marie Louise d'Orléans, Queen of Spain
- Anne Marie d'Orléans, Queen of Sardinia
- Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, Duchess of Lorraine
- Princesses of the Blood : Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, Duchess of Berry
- Louise Adélaïde d'Orléans
- Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans, Duchess of Modena
- Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, Queen of Spain
- Philippine Élisabeth d'Orléans
- Louise Diane d'Orléans
- Marie Thérèse de Bourbon-Condé, Princess of Conti
- Anne Marie Victoire de Bourbon, mademoiselle de Condé
- Anne Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon-Condé, Duchess of Maine
- Marie Anne de Bourbon-Condé, Duchess of Vendôme
- Marie Anne de Bourbon-Conti, Duchess of Bourbon
- Louise Adélaïde de Bourbon-Conti, mademoiselle de la Roche-sur-Yon
- Princesses of the Blood : Louise Marie d'Orléans
- Marie Anne Éléonore de Bourbon, mademoiselle de Condé
- Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé, Princess of Conti
- Louise Anne de Bourbon-Condé, mademoiselle de Charolais
- Marie Anne de Bourbon-Condé, mademoiselle de Clermont
- Henriette Louise de Bourbon-Condé, mademoiselle de Vermandois
- Élisabeth Alexandrine de Bourbon-Condé, mademoiselle de Sens
- Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conti, Duchess of Orléans
- Daughters of France : Louise Élisabeth, Duchess of Parma
- Madame Henriette
- Louise, Madame Troisième
- Marie Adélaïde, Duchess of Louvois
- Madame Victoire
- Sophie, Duchess of Louvois
- Madame Thérèse
- Madame Louise
- Princess of the Blood : Bathilde d'Orléans, Duchess of Bourbon
- Daughters of France : Marie Zéphyrine, Madame Royale
- Marie Clotilde, Queen of Sardinia
- Madame Élisabeth
- Princesses of the Blood : Adélaïde of Orléans
- Louise Adélaïde de Bourbon, mademoiselle de Condé
- Daughters of France : Marie-Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême
- Granddaughter of France : Sophie, Mademoiselle d'Artois
- Louise d'Artois