Charlotte Aglaé of Orléans

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Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans
Duchess Consort of Modena

Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans in Hebe
Born October 20, 1700(1700-10-20)
Birthplace Palais Royal, Paris, France
Died January 19, 1761 (aged 60)
Place of death Palais du Luxembourg, Paris, France
Consort October 26, 1737 - 1744
Consort to Francesco III, Duke of Modena
Issue Alfonso
Francesco Costantino
Maria Teresa
Ercole Rinaldo
Mathilde
Beatrice
Maria Fortunata
Benedetto Filippo
Maria Elisabetta
Royal House House of Orléans
Father Philippe II d'Orléans
Mother Françoise-Marie de Bourbon

Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans (sometimes Charlotte Aglaë d'Orléans) was the Duchess of Modena and Reggio by marriage. She was born in Paris on October 20, 1700 and died on January 19, 1761. She was the third daughter of Philippe II, duc d'Orléans, Regent of France from 1715 to 1723, and his wife, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, she was a Princesse du Sang.

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[edit] Youth

She was born at her parents' home, the Palais Royal in Paris. As a young child, Charlotte was known by the same form of address as her mother had been in her youth, Mademoiselle de Blois, but later on, assumed the style of Mademoiselle de Valois.

She, vivacious and self-assured, and her older sister Louise, were considered the more attractive of the daughters of the Régent and her mother had wanted her to marry her cousin, the prince de Dombes, son of Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine but Charlotte refused. Her grand mother, the Dowager duchesse d'Orléans, said of her:

Mademoiselle de Valois is not, in my opinion, pretty, and yet occasionally she does not look ugly. She has something like charms, for her eyes, her colour and her skin are good. She has white teeth, a large, ill-looking nose, and one prominent tooth, which when she laughs has a bad effect[1]

She also said of her grand daughter that:

She has a good deal of the Mortemart family in her, and is as much like the Duchess of Sforza, the sister of Montespan[2]

Her father had a special affection for her and paid particular attention to her education.
In 1717, at the age of seventeen, Charlotte began an affair with Louis François Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu.[3] The duke was arrested and jailed in Hem in connection with the Cellamare Conspiracy in 1719. Charlotte visited him in prison several times and urged her father, as regent, to pardon her lover so they could marry.


[edit] Duchess of Modena

Despite Charlotte's wishes, the regent accepted an offer of marriage for his daughter that was proffered by the sovereign Duke of Modena for his son and heir, Prince Francesco d'Este (1698-1780). An earlier project to marry Charlotte to the King of Sardinia had failed. On 12 February 1720 at Palais de Tuilieries, Paris, she had a proxy marriage before she met her husband in her distant new home.[4]

The wedding took place in 1720, and Charlotte received an enormous dowry of 1,8 million Livres, half of which was to be contributed by the king, on orders of the regent. Upon the death of her father-in-law in 1737, her husband became Francesco III, reigning Duke of Modena. At the time of her marriage, her husbands lands were exhausted by debts from the recent wars such as the Spanish, Polish and Austria Successions.

[edit] Children

Like her mother and father, she had a very large family. Seven survived infancy and overall Charlotte and her husband had nine children:

Francesco d'Este-Módena - her husband
Francesco d'Este-Módena - her husband

[edit] Later life

Charlotte grew bored and lonely in Modena, and the duc de Richelieu visited her in disguise. She wanted, at all costs, to separate from her husband and return to her homeland France; She was allowed to return, however once she did, King Louis XV welcomed her with extreme coldness and forced her to live a marginalised life in the city of her birth.

While in France, she tried her best to secure most of her daughters the best marriages possible; her eldest daughter was engaged to marry Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre and hier to the vastly wealthy House of Bourbon-Penthièvre. The couple were married in the year of Charlottes return to France, 1744. Her grand daughter was Mademoiselle de Penthièvre, a vast hieress who was the mother of Louis-Philippe of France.

She also managed to secure a marriage for her fourth daughter known as Maria Fortunata d'Este. She married a cousin of her mothers, Louis François II de Bourbon, prince de Conti. He was the last prince de Conti and the marriage was very unhappy to the point that the groom did not want to live with his wife. Despite the work she did for her family back in France, she was relatively ignored once she returned and did not pay court to her cousin, King Louis XV.

She died in Paris at the palais du Luxembourg, where her elder sister, Louise Elisabeth, had died nearly twenty years earlier. Charlotte died at the age of sixty, outliving all of her siblings. Her heart was placed in the Chapel of Val-de-Grâce but was removed and lost during the revolution.[5] After her death, her husband remarried twice more morganatically to Teresa Castelberco and Renata Teresa d'Harrach.

[edit] Ancestors

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mémoires sur la cour de Louis XIV et de la Régence by duchesse d'Orléans
  2. ^ Mémoires sur la cour de Louis XIV et de la Régence by duchesse d'Orléans
  3. ^ Histoire de France par Louis-Pierre Anquetil 1820
  4. ^ La Cour du Régent par Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon
  5. ^ Val de Grace

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

[edit] Titles

Charlotte Aglaé of Orléans
Born: October 20 1700 Died: January 19 1761
French nobility
Preceded by
Mademoiselle de Valois		 Mademoiselle de Valois
1700–-		 Succeeded by
N/A
Preceded by
Françoise-Marie de Bourbon		 Mademoiselle de Blois III
-–1720		 Succeeded by
N/A
Italian royalty
Preceded by
Charlotte Felicity of Brunswick-Lüneburg		 duchesse de Módene et Reggio
1737–1744		 Succeeded by
Maria Teresa Cybo Malaspina