Adélaïde of France
Adélaïde of France | |||||
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Basilica of Saint Denis | |||||
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House | Bourbon | ||||
Father | Louis XV | ||||
Mother | Marie Leszczyńska | ||||
Signature |
Marie Adélaïde de France
As a legitimate daughter of the King, Adélaïde was a
Life
Childhood
Adélaïde was born on 23 March 1737 in France as the sixth child and fourth daughter of King
Her younger sisters were raised at the
She was put in the care of
Reign of Louis XV
In 1744, the King removed Henriette and Adelaide from the royal nursery into their household, known as the Household of the Mesdames aînées ('Elder Mesdames'). The sisters had two ladies-in-waiting (dame pour accompagner Mesdames). Two years later, they were given their own dame d'honneur, Marie-Angélique-Victoire de Bournonville, Duchesse de Duras.[6] When the younger sisters arrived to court from Fontevrault in 1748–50, they were not inducted in to the Household of their elder sisters but formed the Household of the Mesdames cadettes ('Younger Mesdames'). After the death of Henriette in 1752, the Household of the Mesdames aînées was transformed into the Household of Madame Adélaïde, headed by Marie-Suzanne-Françoise de Creil, Duchesse de Beauvilliers, and she thus held a unique position as the only unmarried royal princess with her own separate household, while her younger sisters shared theirs.[6]
Adélaïde was never married. In the late 1740s, when she had reached the age when princesses were typically married, there were no potential Catholic consorts of desired status available, and she preferred to remain unmarried rather than marry someone below the status of a monarch or an heir to a throne.
When her younger sisters arrived back from Fontevrault in 1748–50, she became the head of the group of the four unmarried, younger sisters; the others were
Like their mother, the well loved Queen Marie Leczynska, Adélaïde and her siblings were actually very charitable as noted by the Duke de Luynes in his memoirs and often gave money using their allowances in supporting workhouses for the poor as well as given alms to regions struck by calamity. She is described as an intelligent beauty; her appearance an ephemeral, "striking and disturbing beauty of the Bourbon type characterized by elegance", with "large dark eyes at once passionate and soft", and her personality as extremely haughty to her father's debauched circle of friends but was actually friendly towards the common people of France during public ceremonies in Paris as described by the Duke de Luynes, with a dominant and ambitious character with a strong will, who came to dominate her younger siblings: "Madame Adélaïde had more mind than Madame Victoire; but she was altogether deficient in that kindness which alone creates affection for the great, abrupt manners, a harsh voice, and a short way of speaking, rendering her more than imposing. She carried the idea of the prerogative of rank to a high pitch."
Madame Adélaïde, as well as her siblings, attempted without success to prevent their father's liaison with Madame de Pompadour, which began in 1745. In the early 1750s, when the health of Madame de Pompadour was deteriorating, Adélaïde, who was a good rider, became the favorite and close companion of her father, during which she often accompanied him during his riding and amused him with conversation. Their new close relationship, and Adelaide's status as the most beautiful among her sisters, caused rumors that they had an incestuous relationship.[15] A rumor also claimed that Adélaïde was the true mother of Louis de Narbonne (born 1755) by her father.[7][page needed] There is nothing to indicate that these rumors were true but was rather a very hurtful way in undermining her status as a loving daughter to her father.
Between the death of Madame de Pompadour in 1764 and before the rise of Madame du Barry in 1768, Louis XV did have a certain confidence in Madame Adélaïde, and was supported by her "firm and rapid resolutions."
In the last years of their father's reign, Adélaïde and her sisters were described as bitter old hags, who spent their days gossiping and knitting in their rooms.
The Mesdames had a good relationship with the children of their brother, and it was said that they "proved that piety is not incompatible with intellectual charm."
In 1772, this state of affairs created a serious rift in the relationship between the King and Marie Antoinette, and Empress
Reign of Louis XVI
From April 1774, Madame Adélaïde and her sisters attended to their father Louis XV on his deathbed until his death from smallpox on 10 May. Despite the fact that the sisters never had the disease and the male members of the royal family, as well as the Dauphine, were kept away because of the high risk of catching the illness, the Mesdames were allowed to attend to him until his death, being female and therefore of no political importance because of the
Madame Adélaïde came to play a political role after the succession of her nephew. The sisters had in fact been infected by their father and fell ill with smallpox (from which they recovered), and were kept in quarantine on a little house near the Palace of Choisy, to which the court evacuated after the death of the king until their recovery.[18] Despite this, however, Madame Adélaïde had the time to intervene in the establishment of the new government: Louis XVI had been advised by his father to ask the advice of Adélaïde should he become King, and after his succession, he sent her a letter and asked her advice on whom he should entrust his kingdom,[19] and she replied with a list of names of minister candidates to him suggested by his father.[18]
After her brother the dauphin's death in 1765, followed in 1767 by that of his spouse,
At the beginning of his reign, the confidence Louis XVI felt for Madame Adélaïde sometime extended to state affairs, and he thought her intelligent enough to make her his political adviser and allowed her to make appointments to the Treasury and to draw on its funds.
Their nephew the king allowed the sisters to keep their apartments in the Palace of Versailles, and they kept attending court at special occasions - such as for example at the visit of
The Mesdames did not get along well with Queen Marie Antoinette. When the queen introduced the new custom of informal evening family suppers, as well as other habits which undermined the formal court etiquette, it resulted in an exodus of the old court nobility in opposition to the queen's reforms, which gathered in the salon of the Mesdames.[7][page needed] They entertained extensively at Bellevue as well as Versailles; their salon was reportedly regularly frequented by minister Maurepas, whom Adélaïde had elevated to power, by the Prince of Condé and the Prince of Conti, both members of the anti-Austrian party, as well as Beaumarchais, who read aloud his satires of Austria and its power figures.[20] The Austrian Ambassador Mercy reported that their salon was a center of intrigues against Marie Antoinette, where the Mesdames tolerated poems satirizing the queen.[20] The Mesdames gathered the extreme conservative Dévots party of the nobility opposed to the philosophers, the encyclopedists and the economists.[4][page needed] When Marie Antoinette, referring to the rising opposition of the monarchy, remarked to Adélaïde of the behavior of the "shocking French people", Adelaide replied, "I think you mean shocked", insinuating that Marie Antoinette's behavior was shocking.[4][page needed]
In May 1787 she was visited by Henry Swinburne, who described her and their meeting: "To Bellevue with Mrs S., were Madame Adélaïde received us, and was extremely civil. We dined there. The Princess is thin and wizened; she walks about the gardens in a dress made like a riding-habit, and a man's round hat."[21][page needed]
Madame Adélaïde, reportedly, did not regard the Assembly of the States General as a prelude to a revolution, only as a grand state occasion.[19]
Revolution and later life
Madame Adélaïde and her sister
Revolutionary laws against the Catholic Church caused them to apply for passports from their nephew the king to travel on pilgrimage to the
Their departure was given attention in the press. The Chroniqle de Paris wrote: "Two Princesses, sedentary by condition, age, and taste, are suddenly possessed by a mania for travelling and running about the world. That is singular, but possible. They are going, so people say, to kiss the Pope's slipper. That is droll, but edifying. [...] The Ladies, and especially Madame Adélaïde, want to exercise the rights of man. That is natural. [...] "The fair travellers are followed by a train of eighty persons. That is fine. But they carry away twelve millions. That is very ugly. [...]", while the Sahhats Jacobites wrote: " The Ladies are going to Italy to try the power of their tears and their charms upon the princes of that country. Already the Grand Master of Malta has caused Madame Adélaïde to be informed that he will give her his heart and hand as soon as she has quitted France, and that she may count upon the assistance of three galleys and forty-eight cavaliers, young and old. Our Holy Father undertakes to marry Victoire and promises her his army of three hundred men to bring about a counter-revolution."[22][page needed]
They were temporarily stopped by a riot against their departure in
They arrived in Rome on 16 April 1791, where the pope gave them an official welcome with ringing of bells, and where they stayed for about five years. In Rome, the sisters were given the protection of the Pope and housed in the palace of Cardinal de Bernis.[3] In the Friday receptions of Cardinal de Bernis, Cornelia Knight described them: "Madame Adélaïde still retained traces of that beauty which had distinguished her in her youth, and there was great vivacity in her manner, and in the expression of her countenance. Madame Victoire had also an agreeable face, much good sense, and great sweetness of temper. Their dress, and that of their suite, were old-fashioned, but unostentatious. The jewels they brought with them had been sold, one by one, to afford assistance to the poor emigrées who applied to the princesses in their distress. They were highly respected by the Romans; not only by the higher orders, but by the common people, who had a horror of the French revolution, and no great partiality for that nation in general."[23]
When news came that Louis XVI and his family had left Paris on the Flight to Varennes in June, a misunderstanding first caused the impression that the escape had succeeded; at this news, "the whole of Rome shouted with joy; the crowd massed itself under the windows of the Princesses crying out: Long live the King!",[17] and the Mesdames arranged a grand banquet for the nobility of Rome in celebration, which had to be interrupted when it was clarified that the escape had in fact failed.[17]
Upon the invasion of Italy by Revolutionary France in 1796, Adélaïde and Victoire left Rome for
Gallery
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Madame Adélaïde costumed à la turque by Liotard
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Madame Adélaïde by Jean-Marc Nattier as ‘air’ (1750-1)
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Madame Adélaïde in late life
Ancestry
Ancestors of Marie Adélaïde of France Anne Marie of Orléans | |||||||||||||||
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1. Marie Adélaïde of France | |||||||||||||||
12. Rafał Leszczyński | |||||||||||||||
6. Stanisław I Leszczyński | |||||||||||||||
13. Anna Jabłonowska | |||||||||||||||
3. Marie Leszczyńska | |||||||||||||||
14. Jan Karol Opaliński | |||||||||||||||
7. Katarzyna Opalińska | |||||||||||||||
15. Zofia Czarnkowska | |||||||||||||||
See also
References
- ^ Achaintre, Nicolas Louis, Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison royale de Bourbon, Vol. 2, (Rue de L'École de Médecine, 1824), 154.
- ^ a b Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette. p. 159. ISBN.
- ^ a b c Jill Berk Jiminez, Dictionary of Artists' Models, London, 2001
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Latour, Louis Therese (1927). Princesses Ladies and Salonnières of the Reign of Louis XV. Translated by Clegg, Ivy E. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
- ^ a b Madame Campan, Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Project Gutenberg
- ^ a b Luynes (Charles-Philippe d’Albert, duc de), Mémoires du duc de Luynes sur la cour de Louis XV (1735-1758), publiés sous le patronage de M. le duc de Luynes par Louis Dussieux et Eudore Soulié, Paris, Firmin Didot, 1860-1865, 17 vol.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette (in Swedish). ISBN.
- ^ Giacomo Casanova: History of My Life, Volume 11–12
- ^ a b c Madame Campan, Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Project Gutenberg
- J.B. Lippincott. p. 18.
- ISBN 9781400033287.
- ^ Campan, Mme. Jeanne-Louise-Henriette (1895). Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette. Vol. 1. H. S. Nichols & Company. p. 4.
- ^ Gibbs, Philip (1906). Men and Women of the French Revolution. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd. p. 12.
- ISBN 9780948248764.
- ^ In any case, their close relationship was a temporary one. Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette (in Swedish). p. 38. ISBN.
- ^ a b c Hardy, B. C. (Blanche Christabel), The Princesse de Lamballe; a biography, 1908, Project Gutenberg, retrieved 2-05-17
- ^ a b c d e f Maxwell-Scott, Mary Monica, Madame Elizabeth de France, 1764-1794, London : E. Arnold, 1908
- ^ a b c Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette. pp. 72–73. ISBN.
- ^ a b c Boigne, Louise-Eléonore-Charlotte-Adélaide d'Osmond, Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne (1781-1814), London, Heinemann, 1907
- ^ a b c Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette. pp. 79–80. ISBN.
- ^ Henry Swinburne, The Courts of Europe at the Close of the Last Century, Volym 2, 1841
- ^ a b c d e Imbert de Saint-Amand, 1834-1900; Martin, Elizabeth Gilbert, b. 1837, tr, Marie Antoinette at the Tuileries, 1789-1791, New York, C. Scribner's sons, 1891
- ^ Ellis Cornelia Knight, Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight, Lady Companion to the Princess, Harvard College Library, 1861
- ^ Justin C. Vovk: In Destiny's Hands: Five Tragic Rulers, Children of Maria Theresa (2010), p. 277
- ^ 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. 12.
- ^ Żychliński, Teodor (1882). Złota księga szlachty polskiéj: Rocznik IVty (in Polish). Jarosław Leitgeber. p. 1. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
Further reading
- Henry Gardiner Adams, ed. (1857). "Wikidata Q115297351.
- Antoine, Michel, Louis XV, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1989, (French).
- Castelot, André Charles X, Librairie Académique Perrin, Paris, 1988, (French).
- Lever, Évelyne, Louis XVI, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1985, (French).
- Lever, Évelyne, Marie Antoinette, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1991,(French).
- Lever, Évelyne, Louis XVIII, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1988, (French).
- Zieliński, Ryszard, Polka na francuskim tronie, Czytelnik, 1978, (Polish).