Louise-Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé
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Louise-Élisabeth sometime after her marriage to the Prince de Conti.

Louise-Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé, princesse de Conti (1693 - 1775) was the oldest daughter of Louis III, Prince of Condé and his wife, Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, an illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV.

Life

Born a princesse du sang on November 22, 1693, at the Palace of Versailles, she was known at court as Mademoiselle de Charolais (sometimes as Mademoiselle de Condé^[1]), a style later borne by her younger sister. Her parents second daughter, she was a pretty, smart and fun loving girl and grew up with her various siblings in and around Paris.^{citation needed}

Marriage and Children

At the age of 17, it was suggested by her mother that she marry her cousin, the duc de Berry and a Petit-fils de France. Unfortunaltly for Mlle de Charolais the marriage did not take place and Louise-Élisabeth lost out on privileges such as the coveted stool in front of the king, dictated by the strict ettiquete at Versailles. It was at Versailles where she would marry 3 years later.

In 9 July 1713, Louise-Élisabeth married her cousin Louis Armand II de Bourbon, prince de Conti. In August,1716, at the age of twenty-two, Louise-Élisabeth contracted smallpox. A year later she gave birth to her first child. Her children were:

• Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti (1717 - 1776) - he succeeded to the Conti titles and lands.
• Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conti (1726 - 1759) - she wed Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans. She was the mother of Philippe Égalité and Bathilde d'Orléans, the last princesse de Condé.

Like her mother, she was of a very amorous nature and was often unfaithful (many knew of her liaisons with one Philippe Charles de La Fare^[2]) to her unattractive husband who, as a result turned into a violent man. After a particularly dramatic scene in the Bourbon-Conti household, she refused to live with her husband and then took refuge with her mother. She once said of him:

he did not have the power to make a prince of the blood without her^[3]

The first years of her marriage were full of court cases at the Paris Parlemant against her husband due to his violence and her wanting to leave him.^[4] She later retired to a convent. In 1725, she returned to her husband who then had her practically confined in the Château de l'isle-Adam outside Paris. She then managed to convince her husband to return to paris where she gave birth to her daughter, the future duchesse d'Orléans. He died a year later.

Princesse Douarière

In order to tell the wives of the various Princes of Conti apart after their deaths, the widows were given the name of Douarière or dowager and a number corresponding to when they lost their husband. After being widowed their full style would be Madame la Princesse de Conti 'number' Douarière. Between 1727 and 1732, there were three widowed Princesses de Conti. They were:

• Marie Anne de Bourbon (1666-1739), the illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV and Louise Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc; she was the wife of Louis Armand I, Prince of Conti. She was known as Madame la Princesse de Conti Première Douarière as she was the first to be widowed in 1685. The title went to her husband's younger brother, François Louis, Prince of Conti.
• Marie-Thérèse de Bourbon-Condé (1666-1732), the wife of François Louis, Prince of Conti; she was known as Madame la Princesse de Conti Seconde Douarière after losing her husband in 1709.
• Louise-Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé (1693-1775), the wife of Louis Armand II de Bourbon, prince de Conti, the son and successor of François Louis, Prince of Conti. She was the daughter of Louis III, Prince of Condé. After her husband died in 1727, she was known as Madame la Princesse de Conti Troisième/Dernière Douarière.

Later life

After the death of her husband, Louise-Élisabeth led the typical life of the Ancien Régime, visiting the various châteaux of her cousin, King Louis XV, and attending the court at the Palace of Versailles.

In order to try and smooth over the family rift between the House of Bourbon-Condé and House of Orléans, she married her son off to her first cousin, Louise Diane d'Orléans, and her daughter off to the nephew of Louise Diane, the heir to the House of Orléans.

This helped, but the family rivalry that had been started by the animosity between her mother, the princesse de Condé, and her aunt, the duchesse d'Orléans, both illegitimate daughters of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, was difficult to diminish.

After the death of her mother, the princesse de Condé, in 1743, she acquired the Château de Louveciennes, which was later given to the Crown. Louis XV in turn gave it to the successor of Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry. The princesse de Conti later also acquired the Château de Voisins.

Later, in 1746, the Princesse de Conti was asked by Louis XV to help present his mistress, the future Madame de Pompadour, at court. She obliged in order to encourage the King to forget about her debts, a tactic which worked. The King did not forget the favour she had done for him.

After living to be eighty-one years old, she died in Paris on 27 May 1775.

Ancestry

References

Titles

Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé was the princesse de Conti from 1713 - 1727. After the death of her husband, in 1727, she became the princesse douairière de Conti. She was later created comtesse de Sancerre in 1740 and held that title till her death in 1775. The title went back to the Condé family and was the sold to the title (along with many others) for 1,4 million Livres to the Sahuguet family.

Louise-Élisabeth was the Dames d’Étampes or Lady of Étampes. She held the title in her own right and had received it at the death of her aunt Marie-Anne de Bourbon-Condé, 1718, who was the wife of duc de Vendôme. She gave it to her daughter in the year of her marriage to the duc de Chartres.^[1]