See also: Marie

Marie Leszczyńska (Trzebnica, June 23rd 1703 - Versailles, June 24th 1768), princess of Poland, queen of France (1725 - 1768), girl of the détrôné king of Poland Stanislas Leszczyński.

Biography

Dates

• 1703, June 23rd: Birth with Trzebnica
• 1725, September 5th: Marriage with Fontainebleau with the king of France Louis XV
• 1727, August 14th: Birth of his/her first daughters: Marie Louise Elisabeth († December 6th, 1759) and Anne Henriette († February 10th, 1752), binoculars, respectively called Madam (as an oldest daughter of the king) or Mrs First (then Mrs Infante) and Mrs Second (then Mrs Henriette, then Madam)
• 1729: Birth of his/her son, the dolphin Louis de France
• 1738: Introduced with Versailles the Christmas tree
• 1768, June 24th: Death with Versailles

Children

• August 14th 1727: Marie Louise '' Elisabeth '' († December 6th 1759) and Anne '' Henriette '' († February 10th 1752), binoculars, called respectively Madam (as an oldest daughter of the king) or Mrs First (then Mrs Infante ) and Mrs Second (then Mrs Henriette , then Madam )

• July 28th 1728: Marie Louise , Mrs Third (then Mrs Louise ) († February 19th 1733)
• September 4th 1729: Louis († December 20th 1765), dolphin
• August 30th 1730: Philippe, duke of Anjou († April 7th 1733)
• March 23rd 1732   Marie '' Adélaïde '' († February 27th 1800, Mrs Fourth (then Mrs Third , then Mrs Adélaïde , then Madam )
• May 11th 1733: Victoire Louise Marie Therese († June 7th 1799), Mrs Fourth (then Mrs Victoire )
• July 27th 1734: '' Sophie '' Filipino Elisabeth Justine († March 2nd 1782), Mrs Fifth (then Mrs Sophie )
• May 16th 1736: '' Therese '' Congratulated, Mrs Sixth (then Mrs Therese ) († September 28th 1744)
• July 15th 1737: '' Louise '' Marie († December 23rd 1787), Mrs Seventh (then Mrs Louise ), entered with the Carmel in 1770 under the name of Therese Sister of St-Augustin

Life

Second girl (the elder one, Anne, had been born in 1699 and had died of disease in 1717) of Catherine Opalińska and Stanislas I {{er}} Leszczyński, short king de Pologne and Duc of Lorraine (with life annuity), Leszczyńska Marie-Catherine-Sophie-Happiness was born with Trzebnica, in Silesia, the June 23rd 1703.

Marie Leszczyńska always preserved close links with her father, who undertook itself his education whereas it was in exile.

Exiled in the Alsatian city of Wissembourg following many political negociations, it is initially had a presentiment of in 1721 to be the woman of the duke of Bourbon. When Louis XV returns in 1725 its young person promised in marriage, the Infante-queen Marie-Anne-Victoire de Bourbon, Fleuriau de Morville, one of the Secretaries of State, draws up a list of the possible parties, and Marie appears there. The March 31st 1725, Marie is chosen by the Duc of Bourbon, Prime Minister under the influence his mistress, the Marquise of Requests, which counts on the fact that this obscure princess will be grateful to them and that thus they will preserve the capacity. The king, fifteen year old orphan hardly, and its tutor, the cardinal of Fleury, rival of the duke of Bourbon, accept this alliance without advantage with this princess almost old maid who counts already twenty two years - - that is to say seven of more than her husband-to-be.

The April 2nd, Mr. the Duke requires of Stanislas his daughter in marriage in the name of Louis XV.

The advertisement of the marriage is not very well accommodated at the Court, where one récrie on the origins of the Leszczyński family and her Polish nationality. Elisabeth-Charlotte, duchess of Lorraine, writes as follows:

I acknowledge that for the King, whose blood had remained the only pure one in France, it is surprising that one makes him make a similar misalliance and marry a simple Polish young lady, because (…) it is not more, and his/her father was king only twenty-four hours.

Rumors go even until announcing that the future queen is ugly, Scrofule uses, epileptic, or sterile.

Nevertheless, the August 15th 1725, the duke of Orleans Marie wife by procuration in the Cathedral of Strasbourg, in front of the cardinal of Rohan, Large chaplain of France. Marie is quickly made like of the people by distributing alms on the way of Fontainebleau, in Champagne and Brie. The September 4th, Marie meets Louis XV, and the September 5th, they marry with Fontainebleau. The marriage is consumed the evening even, and the king will make last “honeymoon” with Fontainebleau until December. Marie falls in love with the King at once, and itself in is, at the time, very enthusiast (it is its first love).

One gives to the new queen the cardinal of Fleury like large Aumônier, and of the servants who took care on Louis XV child, in order to allow him to better know her husband. It gives him children quickly, and in great number: 10 in 10 years (eight girls of which binoculars and two wire), whose only boy will survive childhood.

Birth of " Mrs Septième" (1737) then a miscarriage the following year mark the end of the marital happiness of the royal couple: Louis XV, twenty three years, young person and full with energy, is bored near a woman of ripe age (thirty years was beyond the threshold of old age at that time), tired by its many pregnancies and rather tern. In spite of his moral and religious scruples, the King secretly takes his first mistress, the countess of Mailly, first of the “Sœurs of Nesle”.

The Marie queen had started to alienate her husband at the beginning of her marriage while interfering herself policy in spite of the warning statements of her father never to involve businesses of the Kingdom. Not having been born in a court, not knowing yet completely the uses nor the label of Versailles, it " convoqua" the King in his apartments to ask him to preserve unpopular the duke of Bourbon which risked disgrace. It lost as of this moment any political influence on her husband (1726).

In 1733, it supported the efforts of his/her father who tried to go up, in vain, on the throne of Poland (War of succession of Poland).

Gradually, Louis XV forsook it completely, in particular as from the moment when she refused to him the entry of her room (1738). In spite of an awkward reconciliation after the disease of the King with Metz in 1744, this renunciation was final. Marie Leszczyńska lived the twenty last years of her life with Versailles, surrounded by a restricted circle of courtiers: “The house of the queen was formed people of spirit, various social conditions, on the model of the famous Parisian living rooms so characteristic of the time”.

Marie however remained very attached to her husband (“My last sigh will be wishes for him forever” writes it in its will) and succeeds in well adapting to the life of Versailles: she was made inform on the questions of Cérémonial and label and assumed her duties of representation at the time of the frequent absences of Louis XV, with hunting or elsewhere. Large amatrice of Music and Painting (it painted itself of the Aquarelle S), it was the true patron of the culture at the court. It contributed, with its daughter-in-law Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, to make come to Versailles from the artists from reputation, like the castrato Farinelli in 1737, which gave him courses of song, and the young wonder Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1764. Confronted with the adultery of the King, it keeps discretion and dignity, maintaining even during twenty years the cordial relations with most famous the mistresses Louis XV, the Marquise of Pompadour. However it is necessary to acknowledge, as Talleyrand notes it, that “its virtues something of sad which port with any drive towards it”. After the disaffection of Louis XV, it took refuge in the affection for his/her daughters and her father, which came to often visit it.

It obtained Louis XV, the King perhaps seeking to be made forgive, a large private apartment (destroyed by installations of Marie-Antoinette) where it could carry out a life calmer and less turned towards the pageantry. A group of friends was formed around it, of which the couple of Luynes. It had a cassette of 96.000 books, summons poor enough for a Queen, to assign to her entertainment, its alms and its play. She will frequently have some debts, which had with her passion for the play (especially for the cavagnole), sponged by Louis XV or her father Stanislas.

She died out the June 24th 1768, with Versailles. Its body is buried with the Basilique Saint-Denis while its heart rests near his/her parents, in the church Our-Lady-with-Bonsecours of Nancy.

Quotations

• Your majesty, it is better to listen to those which shout you by far, relieve our misery, which those which say to you closely, increase our fortune. Marie Leszcyńska in Louis XV.

• It is a stupid thing which to be queen! For little that the disorders continue, one will strip us soon this inconvenience.
• I do not need dresses when the poor do not have shirts.
• the mercy of the kings is to return justice, but the justice of the queens is to exert the mercy. With Louis XV, to ask for the grace of a deserter.
• doesn't All the good of a mother belong to his/her children? has its treasurer, who considered his alms excessive.

See too