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| Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duke of Penthièvre | |||||
 Portrait byJean-Marc Nattier | |||||
| Born | (1725-11-16)16 November 1725 Château de Rambouillet,France | ||||
| Died | 4 March 1793(1793-03-04) (aged 67) Château de Bizy,Vernon,France | ||||
| Burial | |||||
| Spouse | |||||
| Issue Detail | Louis Marie, Duke of Rambouillet Louis Alexandre, Prince of Lamballe Jean Marie, Duke of Châteauvillain Vincent, Count of Guingamp Marie Adélaide, Duchess of Orléans | ||||
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| House | Bourbon-Penthièvre | ||||
| Father | Louis Alexandre de Bourbon | ||||
| Mother | Marie Victoire de Noailles | ||||
| Signature | .png) | ||||
Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon (16 November 1725 - 4 March 1793) was the son ofLouis Alexandre de Bourbon and his wifeMarie Victoire de Noailles. He was therefore a grandson ofLouis XIV and his mistress,Madame de Montespan. From birth he was known as theDuke of Penthièvre. He also possessed the following titles: Prince of Lamballe (given later as acourtesy title to the duke's only surviving son);Prince of Carignano;Duke of Rambouillet;Duke of Aumale (1775); Duke of Gisors; Duke of Châteauvillain; Duke of Arc-en-Barrois; Duke of Amboise;Count of Eu; Count of Guingamp. He was the father in law ofPhilippe Égalité.
Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon was born at theChâteau de Rambouillet, the son of Louis XIV's youngest legitimised son withMadame de Montespan, theCount of Toulouse, and his wife,Marie Victoire de Noailles, one of the daughters ofAnne Jules de Noailles,Duke of Noailles. Since his mother acted as a surrogate parent to the young, orphanedLouis XV, the duke formed a close relationship with the young monarch, who was his godfather.
At the age of twelve, upon his father's death, he succeeded to his father's military posts and titles:
On 2 July 1733 at the age of eight, he was made amaréchal de camp (field marshal) and the next year, alieutenant général (lieutenant general). In 1740, he received theOrdre de la Toison d'or from his Bourbon cousin, the King of Spain. In 1742, King Louis XV conferred upon him theOrder of the Holy Spirit. He served in the military under his maternal uncle, themaréchal-duc de Noailles, and fought brilliantly atDettingen in 1743 andFontenoy in 1745.
As the possessor of one of the largest fortunes in Europe, Louis Jean Marie was a very attractive marriage candidate, especially considering his close links with the French royal family.
A suggestion was made that he marry his cousin,Louise Henriette de Bourbon, the eldest granddaughter of his paternal aunt,Louise-Françoise de Bourbon. This idea, however, was abandoned asLouise Henriette's mother wished her daughter to marryLouis Philippe d'Orléans, the heir of theHouse of Orléans.
In 1744, at the age of nineteen, Penthièvre marriedPrincess Maria Teresa d'Este (1726-1754), the daughter ofFrancesco III d'Este, the sovereignDuke of Modena and Reggio, and his first cousin,Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans. The young couple occupied a suite of apartments at Versailles which had previously been occupied by their joint ancestor Madame de Montespan. These apartments were used by the duke and his family until the reign ofLouis XVI when the space was given toMesdames, the new king's spinster aunts,Louis XV's unmarried daughters.
The couple had seven children, only two of whom survived infancy:
The Duchess of Penthièvre died in childbirth in 1754, at the age of 27, her last child surviving her only a few hours. His mother-in-law tried to arrange a marriage between the duke and Maria Theresa Felicitas's younger sisterMatilde. Inconsolable at the loss of his loved wife, the grieving duke declined the offer and never married again.
After his wife's death, the duke lived increasingly away from the court atVersailles, dividing his time between two of his many country residences, theChâteau de Rambouillet and theChâteau de Sceaux. He devoted the majority of the rest of his life to dispensing charity. During theFrench Revolution, he gave refuge inSceaux to the poetJean Pierre Claris de Florian, who had formerly been one of his pages and his secretary at theChâteau d'Anet and the Hôtel de Toulouse (seat of theBanque de France since 1811) inParis.
In 1791, he moved to theChâteau de Bizy,[1] atVernon inNormandy,[2] where his daughter joined him in April of that year after leaving her husband, theDuke of Orléans (Philippe Égalité during the French Revolution). Respected by the people because of his philanthropy, the duke was never bothered by the radicals as theFrench Revolution progressed. Others of his immediate family, however, were not spared. On 3 September 1792, his daughter-in-law, theprincesse de Lamballe, was savagely murdered, and on 21 January 1793, his cousinLouis XVI was executed. He never saw the arrest of his daughter in April 1793, as he died on 4 March 1793 at Bizy. On the night of 6 to 7 March, his body was brought clandestinely to Dreux, where it was buried in the family crypt at theCollégiale Saint-Étienne. Nine months later, on the afternoon of 21 November 1793 a group of Jacobin radicals and their workmen broke into the chapel, with the excuse of searching for lead and destroying feudal symbols, which had recently been outlawed. They smashed the armorial decorations, uprooted the coffins, and treated the remains of the royally-connected Penthievre family to a common pauper's burial, in a quicklime-coated pit in the nearby canons' cemetery. Similar treatment had recently been given to the remains of the duc's executed cousin King Louis XVI in Paris, and to their ancestors at the royal necropolis of St.Denis. The raid had yielded 1,252 pounds of lead for reuse as ammunition "to fire at the enemies of the Revolution". In 1798 the remains of the chapel were put up for auction, and demolished as recyclable building materials by the successful bidder, a timber merchant from Chartres.
During his lifetime, the duc de Penthièvre had one passion, that of collecting watches.
Penthièvre was one of the wealthiest men of his day and probably the richest in France. He was known to be very charitable. Most of his vast riches derived from the fortune ofLa Grande Mademoiselle, the first cousin of KingLouis XIV.
In 1681, Louis XIV had given his consent that his cousin marry theduc de Lauzun, the only man she ever loved, on the condition she make theDuke of Maine, the newly legitimised son of the king and Mme de Montespan, her heir. All she could be made to accept, against her will, was to give the young duke the county of Eu and the principality of Dombes. Upon which, untrue to his word, Louis XIV refused to let her marry Lauzun.[3][4]
Du Maine's fortune was enlarged with many expensive gifts from his adoring father. His two sons inherited his fortune and when they both died childless, the duc de Penthièvre was the sole heir to du Maine's wealth. The châteaux atSceaux,Anet, Aumale, Dreux and Gisors were part of this huge inheritance.
In addition, being his only child, the duc de Penthièvre was the only heir of the comte de Toulouse from whom he inherited theHôtel de Toulouse in Paris, and thechâteau de Rambouillet surrounded by the game-rich Rambouillet forest. TheHôtel de Toulouse was the family's residence in Paris. The duc de Penthièvre willed it to his daughter,Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. It was located opposite thePalais-Royal.[5]
Over the years, the duc de Penthièvre also acquired other estates:
Because his male heir, the prince de Lamballe, predeceased him in 1768, his only surviving child, his daughter, became the sole heir to his fortune. In 1769, she had married theDuke of Chartres, future duc d'Orléans, known to history asPhilippe Égalité. As a result, what she managed (after the Bourbon Restoration) to recuperate of her fortune confiscated during the French Revolution, passed, upon her death in 1821, into the possession of theHouse of Orléans.
The lands of theComté de Dreux (County of Dreux), had been given to the duc de Penthièvre by his cousinLouis XVI. In November 1783, after having sold toLouis XVI thechâteau de Rambouillet and the immense rich-game forest attached to the estate - the latter being the main reason of the sale - Penthièvre transferred the nine bodies of his family (his parents, his wife and six of his seven children) from the 12th century Saint-Lubin church in the village of Rambouillet to theCollégiale Saint-Étienne de Dreux, where he himself was buried in March 1793. In November 1793, a revolutionary mob desecrated the family crypt and threw the ten bodies in a mass grave in theCollégiale cemetery (cimetière des Chanoines). In 1816, his daughter,Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon,duchesse douairière d'Orléans, had a new chapel built on the site of that grave, as the final resting place for the members of theHouse of Bourbon-Toulouse-Penthièvre. After the accession to the throne of her son, Louis-Philippe, King of the French, the chapel was namedChapelle royale de Dreux,[7] and became the necropolis of the royal Orléans family. It contains the remains of 75 members of the Bourbon and Orléans families.
A street in Paris near the Avenue des Champs Élysées is named for the duc de Penthièvre.[8] At the site of n° 11 rue de Penthièvre, anhôtel particulier of theFirst French Empire period with a large garden, is believed to have once been the residence of the duc de Penthièvre's grandson, the futureKing of the French, Louis-Philippe, in his youth. In the late 19th century, n° 11 housed the American Embassy. This address became famous in the early 20th century as thesalon de couture of the British designer,"Lucile".
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Toulouse, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 99.| Titles and Succession | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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