Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans (13 March 1753 - 23 June 1821), was the daughter of Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre and Princess Maria Teresa d'Este. At the death of her brother, Louis Alexandre, Prince of Lamballe, she became the wealthiest heiress in France prior to the French Revolution. She married Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, the "regicide" Philippe Égalité, and was the mother of France's last king, Louis Philippe I. She was sister-in-law to Marie Thérèse Louise, Princess of Lamballe, and was the last member of the Bourbon-Penthièvre family.
Early life Marie-Adélaïde was born on 13 March 1753 at the Hôtel de Toulouse, the family residence in Paris since 1712, when her grandfather, Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse, bought it from Louis Phélypeaux de La Vrillière. She was the youngest daughter of Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre and his wife, Princess Maria Teresa d'Este. Her mother died in childbirth the following year.Lenotre, G., Le Château de Rambouillet: six siècles d'histoire, Denoël, Paris, 1984, chapter 5: Le prince des pauvres, p. 71. Styled Mademoiselle d'Ivoyfrom seigneurie d'Ivoy-Carignan, books.google.com; accessed 14 April 2014. initially and, as a young girl, until her marriage, Mademoiselle de Penthièvre (derived from the duchy inherited by her father). The style of Mademoiselle de Penthièvre had been previously borne by her sister Marie Louise de Bourbon (1751–1753), who died six months after Marie-Adélaïde's birth.
Education At birth, she was put in the care of Madame de Sourcy and, as was the custom for many girls of the nobility, she was later raised at the Abbaye de Montmartre convent, overlooking Paris,Castelot, André, Philippe Égalité le Régicide, éd. Jean Picollec, Paris, 1991, pp. 22–35, 73–80, 86–87, 95, 124, 206–210, 213, 271-274Le quartier Montmartre , L'Histoire en Ligne (in French); accessed 14 April 2014. where she spent twelve years. As a child, she was encouraged to take an active part in the charities for which her father had become known as "Prince of the Poor".Lenotre, p. 72. His reputation for beneficence made him popular throughout France and, subsequently, saved him during the Revolution.Lenotre, chapter 8, L'ouragan, p. 102.
Marriage Upon the death of her brother and only sibling, the Prince de Lamballe, on 8 May 1768, Marie-Adélaïde became heiress to what was to become the largest fortune of France.In 1775, the Duc de Penthièvre was to inherit the fortune and estates of his cousin, the Comte d'Eu, son of the Duc du Maine, making him the richest man in France.
Her marriage to Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans, Duke of Chartres, son of the Duke of Orléans, had been envisaged earlier and, while the Duke of Penthièvre saw in it the opportunity for his daughter to marry the First Prince of the Blood Royal, the Orléanses did not want another union with an illegitimate branch of the royal family. However, when the Prince de Lamballe's death left his sister sole heiress to the family fortune, the bar sinister on her inescutcheon was "overlooked". Although Marie-Adélaîde was much in love with her Orléans cousin, Louis XV warned Penthièvre against such a marriage because of the reputation of the young Duke of Chartres as a libertine. Louis XV was also fearful of the powerful leverage given the Orléans branch should it inherit the Penthièvre fortune.You are wrong, my cousin, said Louis XV to Penthièvre, the Duke of Chartres has a bad temper, bad habits: he is a libertine, your daughter will not be happy. Do not rush, wait!Vous avez tort, mon cousin, lui dit-il, le duc de Chartres a un mauvais caractère, de mauvaises habitudes; c'est un libertin, votre fille ne sera pas heureuse. Ne vous pressez pas, attendez!, Castelot, p. 29.
Mademoiselle de Penthièvre was presented to the King on 7 December 1768, in a ceremony called de nubilité,Nubile by her maternal aunt, Maria Fortunata d'Este, Comtesse de la Marche. She was greeted by Louis XV, the Dauphin and other members of the royal family. On that day, she was baptised by Charles Antoine de La Roche-Aymon, Grand Almoner of France, and given the names Louise Marie Adélaïde.
Her marriage to the Duke of Chartres took place at the Palace of Versailles on 5 April 1769 in a ceremony which all of the princes du sang attended. The marriage contract was signed by all members of the royal family. Afterwards, Louis XV hosted a wedding supper which included the entire royal family. Mlle de Penthièvre brought to the already wealthy House of Orléans a dowry of six million livres, an annual income of 240,000 livres (later increased to 400,000), and the expectation of much more upon her father's death.
The Comtesse de Genlis
During the first few months of their marriage, the couple appeared devoted to each other, but the duke went back to the life of libertinage he had led before his marriage.
In the summer of 1772, a few months after his wife had given birth to a stillborn daughter, Philippe's secret liaison began with one of her ladies-in-waiting, Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest de St-Albin, Comtesse de Genlis, the niece of Madame de Montesson, the morganatic wife of Philippe's father. Passionate at first, the liaison cooled within a few months and, by the spring of 1773, was reported to be "dead". After the romantic affair was over, Félicité remained in the service of Marie-Adélaïde at the Palais-Royal, a trusted friend to both Marie-Adélaïde and Philippe. They both appreciated her intelligence and, in July 1779, she became the governess of the couple's twin daughters born in 1777.
In 1782, the young Louis Philippe was nine and in need of discipline. However, the Duke of Chartres could not think of someone better qualified to "turn his sons over to" than Mme de Genlis. Thus she became the "gouverneur" of the Duc and Duchesse de Chartres' children. Teacher and pupils left the Palais-Royal and went to live in a house built specially for them on the grounds of the Couvent des Dames de Bellechasse in Paris. Mme de Genlis was an excellent teacher, but like those of her former lover, the Duc de Chartres, her liberal political views made her unpopular with Queen Marie Antoinette. In the dissemination of her ideas, de Genlis managed to alienate her charges from their mother.
Marie-Adélaïde began to object to the education given her children by her former lady-in-waiting. The relationship between the two women became unbearable when Louis-Philippe, on 2 November 1790, one month after his seventeenth birthday, joined the revolutionary Jacobin Club. Marie-Adélaïde's relationship with her husband was also at its worst at this point, and the only way the two would communicate was through letters. In the memoirs of the Baronne d'Oberkirch, Marie-Adélaïde is described as:always wearing a melancholic expression which nothing could cure. She sometimes smiled, she never laughedMemoirs of Baronne d'Oberkirch (Paris, 1869, II, 67–68)
Upon the death of her father-in-law Louis Philippe d'Orléans in November 1785, her husband became the new Duke of Orléans, and First Prince of the Blood, taking rank only after the immediate family of the king. As the wife of a prince du sang she was entitled to be addressed as "Your Serene Highness", though she already had such privilege by birth.
Revolution On 5 April 1791, Marie-Adélaïde left her husband, and went to live with her father at the château de BizyGiverny Vernon Chateau; accessed 14 April 2014. overlooking Vernon, Eure in NormandyVernon, France website; accessed 14 April 2014. In September 1792, having sided with the Revolution, the Duke of Orléans was elected to the National Convention under the name of Philippe Égalité. Siding with the radical group called La Montagne, he was from the very beginning suspect in the eyes of the Girondists, who wanted all the Bourbons to be banished from France. The fate of the Orléans family was sealed when Marie-Adélaïde's eldest son, the duc de Chartres, "Général Égalité" in the Army of the North commanded by Charles François Dumouriez, sought political asylum from the Austrians in March 1793. On 6 April, all the members of the Orléans family still remaining in France were arrested. After their arrest in Paris, Philippe Égalité and his son, the comte de Beaujolais, were imprisoned in the prison de l'Abbaye in Paris.
Later, the two were transferred to the prison of Fort Saint-Jean in Marseille, where they were soon joined by the duc de Montpensier who had been arrested while serving as an officer in the Army of the Alps. The day before his father and brothers were arrested in France, the duc de Chartres rushed to Tournai, near the French border,Tournai, within the Netherlands, which had become Austrian territory at the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, was occupied by French troops since 1792. where his sister Adélaïde and Mme de Genlis had been living since Philippe Égalité had made them emigrate in November 1792. The duc de Chartres accompanied them to safety in Switzerland. In the meantime, due to her poor health, Marie-Adélaïde was allowed to stay in France, under guard, at the château de Bizy, where her father had died a month earlier. Her inheritance, however, was confiscated by the revolutionary government. Despite having voted for the death of his cousin Louis XVI, and having denounced his son's defection, Philippe-Égalité was guillotined on 6 November 1793.
Widow Égalité
Upon the execution of her husband, Marie-Adélaïde, now known as the "Veuve Égalité" ("Widow Égalité"), was incarcerated at the Luxembourg Palace, which had been transformed into a prison during the Revolution. There she met the man who was to become the "love of her life", a former member of the National Convention named Jacques-Marie Rouzet,Étienne Léon de La Mothe-Langon, Jean Théodore Laurent-Gousse, Biographie toulousaine, ou Dictionnaire historique des personnages qui, par des vertus, des talens, des écrits, de grandes actions, des fondations utiles, des opinions singulières, des erreurs, etc. se sont rendus célèbres dans la ville de Toulouse, ou qui ont contribué à son illustration, Paris, Chez L. G. Michaud, 1823, tome 2, pp. 338–343 who had been imprisoned at the fall of the Girondins. Nearly executed before the fall of Robespierre, in July 1794 at the end of the Reign of Terror, she was transferred to the "Pension Belhomme", a former mental institution turned into a "prison for the rich" during the Revolution.Dufresne, Claude, Les Orléans, Criterion, Paris, 1991, p. 314.
After Rouzet, who after his liberation had become a member of the Council of Five Hundred, succeeded, in 1796, to secure her liberation and that of her two sons still imprisoned in Marseille,Upon their liberation, Montpensier and Beaujolais joined their brother Chartres in the United States until sailing for England, where they landed in January 1800 (Dufresne, pp. 325–326) the two always remained together and lived in Paris until 1797, when a decree banished the remaining members of the House of Bourbon from France. Marie-Adélaïde was exiled to Spain, as was her sister-in-law Bathilde d'Orléans, the last princesse de Condé. Rouzet accompanied them to the Spanish border and managed to secretly join them in Barcelona where he became her chancellor, and she obtained for him the title of comte de Folmont.Étienne Léon de La Mothe-Langon, Jean Théodore Laurent-Gousse