Victoire of France
Victoire of France | |||||
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Born | Palace of Versailles, Versailles, Kingdom of France | 11 May 1733||||
Died | 7 June 1799 Trieste, Imperial Free City of Trieste | (aged 66)||||
Burial | 20 January 1817 | ||||
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House | Bourbon | ||||
Father | Louis XV | ||||
Mother | Marie Leszczyńska | ||||
Signature |
Victoire of France
Originally known as Madame Quatrième, signifying the fourth daughter of the King (an older sister,
Life
Early years
Princess Victoire was born at the
According to
Reign of Louis XV
On 24 March 1748, being fifteen and no longer regarded a child, Victoire wrote to her father the king and successfully asked permission to return to court. Louis XV appointed three maids-of-honour to attend her, and sent Marie-Angélique-Victoire de Bournonville, Duchesse de Duras, to collect her and meet her with her brother the crown prince at Sceaux.
Upon their arrival at court, they were not included in the household of their elder sisters
While their education had been neglected in the convent, they reportedly compensated for this and studied extensively after their return to court, encouraged by their brother, with whom they immediately formed a close attachment: "When Mesdames, still very young, returned to Court, they enjoyed the friendship of Monseigneur the Dauphin, and profited by his advice. They devoted themselves ardently to study, and gave up almost the whole of their time to it; they enabled themselves to write French correctly, and acquired a good knowledge of history. Italian, English, the higher branches of mathematics, turning and dialing, filled up in succession their leisure moments."[2]
Victoire made a success at court and her father with her lively self-assurance and charm; she was also regarded to be a beauty and was described, "Madame Victoire was handsome and very graceful; her address, mien, and smile were in perfect accordance with the goodness of her heart",
Victoire, as her sisters, had a close relationship with her brother, viewed her mother as a role model, and followed her sister Madame Adélaïde in her campaign against the influence of Madame de Pompadour and, later, Madame du Barry. She also had a close friendship with her favourite lady-in-waiting the Marquise de Durfort, who "afforded to Madame Victoire agreeable society. The Princess spent almost all her evenings with that lady, and ended by fancying herself domiciled with her."[2] In contrast to her elder sister Adélaïde, Victoire was described as "good, sweet-tempered, and affable", and well liked both by society and her staff.[2]
In 1770, the fourteen-year-old
Reign of Louis XVI
From April 1774, Madame Victoire and her sisters attended to their father Louis XV on his deathbed until his death from
Their nephew the king allowed them 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 informal 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.[12] They entertained extensively at Bellevue as well as at 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.[13] The Austrian Ambassador Mercy reported that their salon was a centre of intrigues against Marie Antoinette, where the Mesdames tolerated poems satirizing the queen.[13] The Mesdames gathered the extreme conservative Dévots party of the nobility opposed to the philosophers, the encyclopedists and the economists.[3]
Revolution and later life
Madame Victoire 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."[15]
Their trip was affected by some bad publicity; they were temporarily stopped by a riot against their departure in Moret, and on 21 February, they were detained for several days at a tavern in Arnay-le-Duc, where the municipality wished to confirm their permission to leave from the National Assembly before allowing them to continue. In Paris, the affair caused riots; protesters invaded the gardens of the Tuileries and demanded that the king order his aunts to return to France.[15] The matter was debated in the National Assembly, where M. de Narbonne acted as their spokesperson. Mirabeau convinced the National Assembly that "The welfare of the people cannot depend on the journey the Ladies undertake to Rome; while they are promenading near the places where the Capitol once stood, nothing prevents the edifice of our liberty from rising to its utmost height. [...] Europe will doubtless be much astonished when it learns that the National Assembly of France spent four entire hours in deliberating on the departure of two ladies who would rather hear Mass in Rome - than in Paris."[15] The public at Arnay-le-Duc, however, was not pleased with the decision of the Assembly and so, because of a riot to prevent their departure, the sisters were not able to leave until 3 March.[15]
On several occasions between Lyon and the border, they were exposed to public demonstrations. But they finally left France, crossing the border at
They arrived in Rome on 16 April 1791, 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.[16] 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."[17] 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!",[14] 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.[14]
Upon the invasion of Italy by Revolutionary France in 1796, Adélaïde and Victoire left Rome for
When Naples was invaded by France in 1799, they left for Corfu and finally settled in Trieste, where Victoire died of breast cancer. Adélaïde died one year later. Their bodies were returned to France by Louis XVIII at the time of the Bourbon Restoration and buried at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.
Gallery
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Her father
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Her mother
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Victoire by Jean-Marc Nattier as the 'water'
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Madame Adélaïde also by Jean-Marc Nattieras air
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Coat of arms of a princess of France
Ancestry
Ancestors of Victoire of France Marianna Kazanowska | ||||||||||||||||
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3. Marie Leszczyńska | ||||||||||||||||
28. Krzysztof Opaliński | ||||||||||||||||
14. Jan Karol Opaliński | ||||||||||||||||
29. Teresa Czarnkowska | ||||||||||||||||
7. Katarzyna Opalińska | ||||||||||||||||
30. Adam Uryel Czarnkowski | ||||||||||||||||
15. Zofia Czarnkowska | ||||||||||||||||
31. Teresa Zaleska | ||||||||||||||||
See also
References
This article cites its page references.(June 2019) ) |
- ^ Achaintre, Nicolas Louis, Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison royale de Bourbon, Vol. 2, (Publisher Mansut Fils, 4 Rue de l'École de Médecine, Paris, 1825), 155.
- ^ a b c d e f g Madame Campan, Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Project Gutenberg
- ^ a b c d Latour, Louis Therese (1927). Princesses Ladies and Salonnières of the Reign of Louis XV. Translated by Clegg, Ivy E. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
- ^ 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.
- 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.
- ^ Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette (in Swedish).
- ^ Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette. pp. 72–73.
- ^ ISBN 91-1-893802-7
- ^ a b c Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette. pp. 79–80.
- ^ a b c d e Maxwell-Scott, Mary Monica, Madame Elizabeth de France, 1764-1794, London : E. Arnold, 1908
- ^ 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
- ^ Jill Berk Jiminez, Dictionary of Artists' Models, London, 2001
- ^ 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
- Zieliński, Ryszard (1978). Polka na francuskim tronie. Czytelnik.