Marie Victoire de Noailles

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Marie Victoire de Noailles, later the comtesse de Toulouse, duchesse de Vendôme, duchesse de Rambouillet, duchesse d'Arc, duchesse de Châteauvillain and then later duchesse de Penthièvre
Marie Victoire de Noailles, later the comtesse de Toulouse, duchesse de Vendôme, duchesse de Rambouillet, duchesse d'Arc, duchesse de Châteauvillain and then later duchesse de Penthièvre

Marie Victoire Sophie de Noailles (1688-1766) was the daughter of Anne Jules de Noailles the 2nd duc de Noailles and his wife Marie-Françoise de Bournonville.

[edit] Life

Marie Victoire was born at Versailles 6 May 1688 and was one of twenty children. In 1707, she married the marquis de Gondrin, the grandson of Louis-Henri de Pardaillan de Gondrin, marquis de Montespan (1640 - 1701) and his wife, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart (1641 - 1707), better known as Louis XIV's most famous mistress, Madame de Montespan. From this first marriage she gave birth to two children:

  • Louis de Pardaillan de Gondrin (1707 - 1743), duc d'Antin,
  • Antoine François de Pardaillan de Gondrin (1709 - 1741), marquis de Gondrin.

During this first marriage, she was known as the marquise de Gondrin. In 1712, the marquis died leaving his young wife and their small children on their own. On 2 February 1723, at the Palace of Versailles, she entered into a second marriage with the Comte de Toulouse, the half-brother of her deceased husband's grandfather. The Comte de Toulouse was the youngest illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.

From this marriage she became the:

  • comtesse de Toulouse
  • duchesse de Vendôme
  • duchesse de Rambouillet
  • duchesse d'Arc-en-Barrois
  • duchesse de Châteauvillain
  • duchesse de Penthièvre (a title later used by her youngest son)

After being married for two years, she gave birth to the couple's only child, a son who was to be the sole heir of his father:

She was widowed in 1737 after the death of her second husband. In 1744, she helped to secure her son a marriage to a royal princess, Marie Thérèse Félicité d'Este-Modène, who was also a descendent of Madame de Montespan through her second daughter, the duchesse d'Orléans, who was the wife of the Régent of France during the minority of King Louis XV.

On September 30, 1766, the comtesse died at the Hôtel de Toulouse, the Parisian townhouse built by her second husband. Like her husband, she was buried in the family crypt at the Château de Rambouillet, but her body and that of the Comte de Toulouse were later moved by their son to Saint-Étienne de Dreux after he sold Rambouillet to King Louis XVI in 1783. In 1816, the duc de Penthièvre's daughter, Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon-Penthièvre, had the Chapelle royale de Dreux built as the new final resting place for her family, and the bodies were moved once again.

[edit] Descendents

She is a direct ancestor of the modern House of Orléans through her grand-daughter, Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon-Penthièvre, who was married to the Louis Philippe II, duc d'Orléans, better known as Philippe Égalité, and became the mother of King Louis-Philippe of the French. Through the House of Orléans, she is also an ancestor of the Belgian, Brazilian and Bulgarian royal families.

[edit] See Also

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