Elisabeth Charlotte of Orleans

Elisabeth Charlotte of Orleans , born on September 13rd, 1676 and died in 1744, is the girl of Mister , Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV and Charlotte-Elisabeth of Bavaria, Palatine Princess; she married the duke of Lorraine and Bar Léopold Ier. If it could not marry her daughter with Louis XV, by his son François, husband of the empress Marie-Therese of Austria, it is the grandmother of Marie-Antoinette and the ancestor of all the current Habsbourg-Lorraine.

Education

Elisabeth Charlotte carried the first name of her mother, just as his/her brother the first name of their father carried.

Its childhood occurred without notorious incident. His/her older sister, queen of Spain, the second, duchess of Savoy, and the king not having a surviving girl, that which the label named Miss since the marriage of his/her sisters could expect a prestigious union. The dauphine one which proposed to him to marry his/her young brother, Elisabeth Charlotte answered: I am not made, Madam, for a junior . This distributed was rented by the court.

Notwithstanding, like the writing, not without humor, Arlette Lebigre in her biography of the palatine Princess Miss is a war victim : twelve years old when bursts the Guerre of the league of Augsburg, it has of them twenty and one when the guns are keep silent, which, for a princess of the east an age of old maid .

The king tried well to marry Miss with Louis Auguste of Bourbon, duke of Maine, wire legitimated which it had had of the Marquise of Montespan just like it had succeeded in marrying the duke of Chartres, brother of the princess, with one of her bastard. However, it had to take into account his sister-in-law: if Madam had had to give its assent - not without cries and tears - to the marriage of his/her son, it comforted itself by thinking that his/her son gave his row to his daughter-in-law. On the other hand, it fought nozzle and nails so that his/her daughter, resulting from blood legitimates France, is not retrogressed with the row of legitimated princess. It was already sufficiently unbearable for him that the new duchess of Chartres wanted to treat her young person beautiful sister like a maidservant. Fearing the scandal, the king renonça with this project.

Madam thought of giving her daughter to king d' Angleterre, Guillaume III, her cousin, widower since 1694 of the queen Marie II of England, although this one is twenty-five years old more than Elisabeth Charlotte and is manifestly homosexual. It is true that the husband of Madam had the same inclinations. Apart from the arguments concerning the characters of the people concerned, Madam forgot some elements of a political nature: the king of England was Protestant and neither his court, nor his subjects would accept a catholic queen coming in addition to the country of the Dragonnades. Then England of Guillaume III was keenest of the enemies of France of Louis XIV. Lastly, the two countries were in open war since 1688.

Another party, more prestigious still, was proposed by the Pape: the king of the Romans, Joseph, oldest son and heir designated to the Emperor. The future emperor Joseph Ier was only two years old less than Miss and its family was firmly catholic. By this marriage, the pope had wished réconciler the two great dynasties catholic, enemy hereditary for two hundred years, once again in war and to seal peace between the Habsbourg and the Bourbons. Its Holiness ran up against the respectful but firm refusal of the two houses. (The pope was however visionary, this reconciliation will intervene in 1756 and will concretize by the marriage of the future Louis XVI, descendant of Louis XIV, with Marie Antoinette, little girl of Miss).

During this time, Miss went up out of seed and supported sometimes with difficulty the supervision of her parents. If Orleans trained a linked family, Miss had inherited the frank speech of her Mother whom it reproached her germanophilie sharply militant.

Mister was a tender father but openly Homosexuel. He posted himself with his favorite, the Chevalier of Lorraine. Moreover, at that time, considering that its existence went towards its end, Mister very declared go with his wife and Miss who he intended to enjoy even more life and not to more curb any its vices.

During this time, Charles Perrault dedicated the Tales of my mother the Goose to Miss (1696).

The Paix of Ryswick gave a husband to Miss. Indicator which the war enlisait, Louis XIV had to make concessions and to return the territories which it had occupied - in all illegality - for several years. It thus returned the Lorraine and the Barrois with their legitimate duke, Léopold Ier which, 18 years old, had been born in exile and did not know its fatherland. However, being wary of this nephew and godson of the Emperor, the king wanted to stick it while making him marry his niece.

Alliance was brilliant but the duke did not have a penny and the Lorraine, like the Barrois, was ruined by nearly 80 years of wars and various occupations.

The king largely opened his cassette for his niece. So many honors excited the jealousy of the other family members royal: taking for pretext death in low age of a child of the Duke of Maine, certain princesses claimed to attend the ceremonies of the marriage by procuration out of mourning cloth. In the same way, the duchesses were moved by learning that, to honor the engaged couple, the princesses of the Maison of Lorraine remaining at the court (descendants of the Guise) would dance before them.

The king was annoyed and all was held according to its orders (1698).

Family

Unusually and with surprised of all, this political marriage was moulted in love match. As of the following year, the ducal couple comes to Versailles where Léopold must pay homage to Louis XIV for left bank of the Meuse. Lorraine find Orleans and the happiness of the young couple bursts with the eyes of the amazed courtiers.

Elisabeth is soon pregnant and his/her mother would like to visit it but insurmountable problems of label make the voyage impossible.

In 1701, Mister dies and Madam wishes to settle near her daughter but the king of France cannot allow that his/her sister-in-law finish her days in foreign territory. Mother and girl will remain plain by their correspondence which, unfortunately, will be destroyed in the fire of the Château of Lunéville on January 4th 1719.

After ten years of marriage (and many pregnancies of the duchess), Léopold, always burning, éprit of the princess of Beauvau-Craon born AsMarguerite of Ligniville which was ten years old less than his wife. This link made to suffer the duchess, who, on the councils of her mother took refuge in a quiet dignity. The duke did not continue any less to attend his layer and to make children including one great number died in low age:

The ducal couple had 13 children:

Regency

With died her husband Léopold, in 1729, it seizes regency until in 1730, date on which his/her son François III, future emperor of the Holy roman Empire, returns of Vienna where he continued his education and takes the reins.

This one, leaving as of the following year Lunéville for one turn of Europe he entrust the regency which she will exert until in 1737. In fact, named by the Emperor viceroy of Hungary, then been engaged to the archduchess heiress Marie-Therese, it will never return in its fatherland.

Elisabeth Charlotte will try to maintain the independence of the duchies while saving her subjects.

Although it is grand-daughter of France, and in spite of the mistrust of the Council of State, it will not follow a policy pro-Frenchwoman but, on the contrary, will fight until the end to preserve the independence of the duchies active until proposing with her son François III to abdicate in favor of her younger brother, Charles-Alexandre of Lorraine, when is played the future of the Lorraine and the Barrois at the end of the War of succession of Poland.

It could not succeed: confronted with the hostility and the ambitions of France which wanted to annex its states, François III had agree to abdicate in favor of Stanislas Leczinski, king deposed of Poland but father-in-law of king de France who accepted the duchies in life annuity and entrusted the government to an agent of France.

By an irony of the history, Stanislas, placed on the throne of Poland in 1704 by the king Charles XII of Sweden, soon driven out by Russian, rejected of all the sovereigns of Europe, seeing his threatened days, found asylum at Léopold and Elisabeth Charlotte. Soon, it was question of marrying the young person Louis XV, the princesses of Lorraine were likely all to be selected. The intrigues of the Duc of Bourbon carried out on the throne a princess without dowry whose union, far from bringing advantages to France, impoverished it: the girl of Stanislas! And here that one gave the duchies to this same king, still fugitive.

There was what for our now sexagenarian duchess, who had fought so much for his, being disappointed.

One ressuscita for the duchess dowager the tiny sovereign principality of Commercy, where Elisabeth Charlotte went to finish her days, in the bitterness and precariousness.

Reprocess

Not having been able to prevent his/her son from yielding the Lorraine and the Barrois to king de Pologne, father-in-law of king de France (1736-1737), it is withdrawn after this date with the castle of Haroué, then in the principality of Commercy which it holds in life annuity, not without to have made shine the ducal court of its last fires by marrying her oldest daughter, Elisabeth-Therese, with the king Charles-Emmanuel III of Sardinia.

In 1739, it leaves to In to meet his/her daughter-in-law Marie-Therese, leaving the principality to the care of the old count of Girecourt, a trusty servant of the duchies.

In 1740, his/her son Charles-Alexandre is named regent of the the Netherlands by Marie-Therese but it cannot go there: the War of succession of Austria has just started.

In 1741, his/her daughter-in-law, Marie-Therese, gives finally the day to a boy, the future Joseph II, the first of the Habsbourg-Lorraine but his/her daughter, the queen of Sardinia dies the same year.

In 1744, Charles-Alexandre wife Marie-Anne of Austria, the sister of Marie-Therese. With the head of the Austrian troops, it penetrates in Lorraine but must turn back on order of the sovereign one.

End

Its Royal Highness Elisabeth Charlotte, duchess Lorraine dowager of and Bar, princess sovereign of Commercy died of an attack of apoplexy on December 23rd 1744.

His/her Anne-Charlotte daughter withdrew herself near her brothers, with Vienna then with Brussels where it became the influential adviser of its brother Charles-Alexandre of Lorraine, regent of the the Netherlands. She died in 1773.

Its nephew, the king of France, Louis XV made prohibit any demonstration of mourning on the old subjects of the late one.

Last nine months later, Francois, the husband of Marie-Therese was elected Empereur of the Saint Empire Romain Germanique and the girl of this one, Marie-Antoinette, queen of France, will decline her identity in front of the court by her words: me was called Marie-Antoinette of Lorraine of Austria .

Charitable works

It authorized the construction of a hospital with Bruyères on the request of the count de Girecourt. It offered, in 1730, the mounting out of gilded wooden which conceals the relics of saint Pierre Fourier in the basilica of Mattaincourt.

Reference

  • Guy Cabourdin, illustrated Encyclopedia of Lorraine, Modern times , Serpenoise editions, P.U.N., 1991.
  • Jacques Charles-Caffiot, Lunéville, Records of Lorraine Versailles , ED Carpentier, Paris, 2003.
  • Arlette Lebigre, the Palatine Princess …
  • Dirk Van der Cruysse, Mrs Palatine, French Letters , Beech, 1989.

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