February 5, 2024 • 33 mins
Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orleans has been described by historians as having been one of the richest heiresses in history, as an insurgent, as unaccomplished, as an Amazon, as a writer, and as a fool. And she was sort of all of those things.
Research:
- Barine, Arvede, and Helen Meyer. “La Grande Mademoiselle 1627-1652.” Putnam. 1902. Accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50717/50717-h/50717-h.htm
- Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans, duchess de Montpensier". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 May. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anne-Marie-Louise-dOrleans-duchesse-de-Montpensier
- DeJean, Joan. “Against Marriage: The Correspondence of La Grande Mademoiselle.” Chicago University Press. 2002.
- “France’s Mid-17th-Century Crisis: The Fronde (1648-1653).” University of Kentucky. https://history.as.uky.edu/france%E2%80%99s-mid-17th-century-crisis-fronde-1648-1653
- Fraser, Antonia. “Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King.” Anchor Books. 2007.
- “La Grande Mademoiselle 1627-1693.” Chateau de Versailles. https://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/history/great-characters/grande-mademoiselle
- Montpensier, Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orleans. “Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, grand-dughter of Henri Quatre, and niece of Queen Henrietta-Maria.” London, Colburn. 1848. https://archive.org/details/memoirsmademois02montgoog/page/n10/mode/2up
- Sackville-West, V. “Daughter of France: the life of Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier, 1627-1693, la Grande Mademoiselle.” Doubleday. 1959. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/daughteroffrance00sack/page/30/mode/2up
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson. And well before the storming of the Bastille and
the dethroning of Francis, King Louis the sixteenth and his
wife Marie Antoinette, there were plenty of instances of uprisings
and infighting and scandals among the royals and nobility who
occupied the French court.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
And there's one.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Woman who was part of that scene in the later
years of Louis the thirteenth reign and the transition to
Louis the fourteenth, who I just find ceaselessly fascinating, and
that is Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans. And part of why
she's so fascinating is because she has been described over
the years by historians as having been one of the
(00:55):
richest heiresses in history, as an insurgent, as an unaccomplished woman,
as an amazon, as a writer, and even as a fool.
And the thing that makes it really interesting is that
she sort of was all of those things. She led
just an incredibly privileged life that enabled her a great
(01:16):
deal of freedom, more than most people, and unlike most
women in the court of France at the time, she
was never forced into a marriage, although her potential as
marriable was a big issue for France for a long time.
So today we're gonna unravel her story and how closely
tied she was to the son King's birth as well
(01:39):
as his eventual reign. As a note, I just want
to point out because in doing research on her it
was easy to get multiple things. There are multiple women
whose names if you type them up we'll come up
with they'll all get kind of lumped together in your results.
But this is Anne Marie Luise Dorleon, not Anne Marie Dorleon.
(02:00):
Those two women were born about forty years apart. Anne
Marie Louise is the earlier of the two. Anne Marie
Louise Dorlean was born May twenty ninth, sixteen twenty seven
in Paris, specifically in the Louver when it was still
being used as a royal residence. She was a princess
of France. Her mother was Marie de bourbonmont Ponsier, Duchess
(02:22):
of Montponsier. Marie was the only heir of the wealthy
Montposier family, so it had been a very strategic move
to marry her to Gaston, Duke Dorlean. This was an
arrangement that had been orchestrated by King Louis the thirteenth
and Cardinal Richelieu. Gaston was the son of King Henry
(02:43):
the fourth of France and the brother of King Louis
the thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Marie de Bourbonmont Pontier died less than a week after
Anne Marie Louise was born. You'll sometimes see that she
died in childbirth. I saw various dates, but it appears
that that happened during childbirth did result in her death
very shortly after Amory Louise, and at that point the
infant inherited a great deal of money and assets, and
(03:10):
this made her, according to a nineteen fifty nine biography
by Victoria Sackville West, the richest baby in France and
possibly the world. She was moved to Tulerie and cared
for by a large and dedicated staff, with a governess
known as Madame de Saint George serving as her mother figure.
She was frequently visited by the King and Queen, and
(03:32):
as she grew up she was an outgoing and vivacious child,
who was called La Mademoiselle and then eventually Lan Grande
Mademoiselle to acknowledge her high rank. Mademoiselle does not just
indicate that she was an unmarried woman. This is an
inheritance of title from her father, who has brother to
the king, was known by Monsieur as a title, and
(03:54):
speaking of her father, he was largely absent, and it
seems that Anne Marie Louise didn't really get the whole story.
There are a few different things that we'll talk about,
but her father, when she was particularly young, had remarried
in secret to Marguerite of Larene. That was a marriage
the King did not approve of, so Gustave was pretty
absent from court. But when father and daughter were reunited,
(04:18):
Anne Marie Louise described herself being completely overjoyed to see him.
Given her standing in lineage from two important lines, it
was natural for Montpontier to expect that she too would
have a marriage arranged or orchestrated by the crown to
an impressive husband. Really everyone expected this. In the two
(04:41):
thousand and seven book Against Marriage, the correspondence of La
Grande Mademoiselle, translated by Jean de Jon. This situation is
concisely summed up this way quote. In early modern Europe,
the marriage of an aristocratic woman was always a thoroughly
political matter. It was understood by all that she was
first and foremost a commodity. She belonged to her family,
(05:02):
whose role it was to negotiate the exchange of her
hand for whatever it needed, most money, social advancement, a
military alliance. But Momtposier occupied a really unique position in
this practice because she was basically independently wealthy. She had
inherited so many assets from her mother well before she
(05:24):
was able to even understand what wealth was, and the
matter of a marriage arrangement for her was a source
of ongoing conflict. Efforts were made to match her to
various men, but because she did not need any of them,
she had more agency than was usual for a woman
to say no to any such arrangements. On September fifth,
(05:46):
sixteen thirty eight, Louis the fourteenth was born, and there
was immediate speculation that Anne Marie Louise might be betrothed
to the future king. This is allegedly sparked by his mother,
Anne of Austria, who apparently mentioned this jokingly that pairing
did not materialize, but the possibility of it was gossiped
(06:06):
about at all levels of society for quite a while.
Montpalsier is also said to have called Louis her little husband,
which undoubtedly helped stoke such gossip, but she was also
a kid at the time. She was very young and
may have only meant it in jest. She visited him
frequently in his early days the Chateau de Saint Germain,
because his mother adored her and wanted her with her.
(06:29):
She later wrote in her memoirs, quote, the birth of
Monsieur de Dauphin gave me a new occupation. I went
to see him every day, and I called him my
little husband. The king was diverted by this, and he
thought that I did well.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But though King Louis the thirteenth might have thought she
was a delightful child, Cardinal Richelieu really did not. She
described his response to her instant affection for her newborn
cousin Louis the fourteenth, and her memoirs as well, quote
Cardinal de Richelieu, who does not like me to as
myself to being there, nor to have them accustomed to
(07:03):
seeing me there, had me given orders to return to Paris.
The Queen and Madame d' hautefert did all that was
possible to keep me. They could not obtain their wish,
which I regretted. It was all tears and cries when
I left there. Their majesties gave many proofs of friendship,
especially the Queen, who made me aware of a particular
(07:24):
tenderness on that occasion. After this displeasure, I had still
another to endure. They made me pass through Yu to
see the cardinal who usually lived there when the King
was at Saint Germain. He took it so to heart
that I had called the little Dauphin my little husband,
that he gave me a great reprimand he said that
(07:47):
I was too large to use such terms, that I
had been ill behaved to do so. He spoke so seriously,
just as if I had been a person of judgment, that,
without answering him, I began to weep. To pacify me,
he gave me collation, but I did not pass it over.
I came away from there very angry at all he
had said to me. Charles the second of England was
(08:11):
the next candidate, as a husband of note, who came
into the picture when he was exiled to France in
sixteen forty six. Montposier was nineteen at the time, so
the idea of a marriage between the two royals was
a natural one to be contemplated, but she turned that
marriage down, recognizing that her assets were more valuable to
Charles Stewart than anything he could offer her. As an
(08:34):
exile in sixteen forty seven, Anne Marie Louise had another
potential spouse, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand the Third. There was
a different problem there. France and the Habsburg Empire were
at war, and that could not be part of the
peace negotiations. Apparently. In a biography of Anne Marie Louise
written in nineteen oh two by Arved Barn and translated
(08:56):
by Helen E. Meyer, it described this period of her
lif life this way quote, Mademoiselle was courted and ardently admired.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
The people worshiped her.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Paris was determined to place her upon the throne of France.
Well employed though her time had been, she had done
nothing to distinguish herself, nothing to give her a place
among heroines like the Princess de Conde and the enticing
Madame de Longville. But the year sixteen fifty two was
on its way and it was to bring her her
long awaited glory. We will get to the source of
(09:28):
that glory in a moment, because we need to establish
some contexts regarding the fraud, and we're going to dig
into the Fronde and eventually how Amory Louise was involved
in it. Right after we paused for a sponsor break
(09:50):
in sixteen fifty one, the twenty four year old Amrie Louise,
having grown somewhat frustrated with the crown, became involved with
the effort to fight the central assa of the monarchy's power.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
This conflict became known as the Fronde, and the Frond
had begun in sixteen forty eight. This is an important
moment in French history because had the Frond not happened,
Louis the fourteenth may not have become as powerful as
he ultimately was. The conflict called the Frond is actually
a series of conflicts, kind of like many civil wars.
(10:22):
Sometimes you'll see this referred to as a civil war,
and other times it could have been a civil war
had it gotten any bigger. So just know you'll see
it characterized different ways, and it's the series of conflicts
within France as concerns over the monarchy's power grew. Sometimes too,
you will see the Frond referred to as a civil
war singular, instead of a series of civil wars or
(10:44):
a series of conflicts. It's written about in all the
different ways. There is one big thing called the Frond,
and under that umbrella there are multiple separate issues going on,
which we'll talk about. Though it began officially in sixteen
forty eight, the seeds of the Frond were shown earlier
that decade, when Cardinal Richelieu and Louis the thirteenth died
(11:06):
in sixteen forty two. In sixteen forty three.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Louis the fourteenth was heir to the throne, but he
was only five when his father, the King died. His mother,
Anne of Austria, served as regent for her child king,
and she was aided in this role by Cardinal Mazarin.
You may remember from our episode on Marie and Hortense Mancini.
He was an Italian who had been hand selected to
(11:32):
be part of the French government by Richelieu. France at
this time was facing a number of issues. It had
been engaged in an expensive, long term war with the
Spanish Habsburg's. Various members of the nobility saw the arrangement
with Anne of Austria as regent as weak. They sought
to exert their own influence on the country's political dealings.
(11:53):
This included King Louis the Thirteenth's younger brother, Gaston that
was Anne Marie Louise's father. Additionally, the Parisian Catholic Church,
led by Cardinal Deuretz, saw an opportunity to gain more power.
All of them thought this was a vacuum they could fill.
The tax known as La Paulette had been instituted in
(12:15):
sixteen oh four under King Henry the Fourth. So this
tax was paid to the crown by holders of government offices.
It secured their right to the office and conferred them
the power to transfer that office. It might help to
think of this as sort of like a lease on power,
paid to retain that power annually, with the ability to
pass that position through hereditary lines, and the money collected
(12:38):
from it supported the crown with a steady, reliable income.
But in sixteen forty eight, La Paulette was up for
a renewal, and Mazarin and Anne of Austria thought that
it would be a good bargaining chip to get other
things that they wanted, including additional taxation to fund the military,
but Anne and Mazarin overplayed their hands. Instead, the judges
(13:01):
of Paris banded together against the monarchy to demand reform,
and they had the support of the church and a
portion of the nobility. This all began at an assembly
known as the Chambre Saint Louis. Mazarin in particular was
a problem for the Frond, and he was characterized as
an untrustworthy foreigner. Things became so heated that Anne, Mazarin
(13:23):
and the nine year old At this point Louis the
fourteenth left Paris for Saint Germain, just outside the city.
But this was only the first phase of the Fronde.
The judges of the city parliament, the Regent, Anne and
her advisor negotiated a resolution to their conflict. This deal
got the magistrates a lot of the things that they wanted,
and they were promised amnesty for their part in the
(13:46):
conflicts that had broken out, But in doing so they
had excluded the nobility, which meant that when they announced
the deal that ended the Frond, of parliaments called the
Peace of Rey. A second phase of the Frond. The
Frond of the Princes started, and this is when Anne
Marie Louise and her father Gustave got deeply involved in
(14:08):
the fighting. In some ways, the Frond of the Princes
was a more complex affair than the Frond of Parliament,
because there were various deals being made among nobles to
support each other, to turn on others, to exclude some
members of the nobility, et cetera. It was like a
lot of cliquish, interconnected deals being made. But the big
(14:28):
turn of events that happened was from within the monarchy's
own defenses. Louis the second de Bourbon, the fourth Prince
of Conde, who was a general who had fought to
protect the monarchy in the first phase of the Frond,
turned against the crown in the second phase. Mazarin had
him arrested. That stoked anger against Mazarin to a degree
(14:51):
that in early sixteen fifty one he left the country. That, however,
did not end the conflict. All of those various allegiances
and orals within the rebelling nobility were still in play
as everyone jockeyed for power, and then the young, barely
teenage Louis the fourteenth was recognized as king in sixteen
(15:11):
fifty one. This stopped short the efforts of many nobles
who had sought to gain more influence in the absence
of a fully vested king, and it especially stopped the
efforts of Louis the second of vermon And while there
were additional efforts at resting power from the throne, they
did not succeed. The fraud is named that after the
(15:32):
fact because a frond was a kid's toy. It was
kind of like a slingshot, and the name suggests that
the whole lengthy episode was ultimately kind of silly infighting
and not a serious threat to the monarchy. On the contrary,
it ended up bolstering support for the monarchy in its
final stages, enabling Louis the fourteenth to ultimately rule at
(15:53):
an almost unprecedented level of power. Momtponsier's father, Gaston, had
initially supported and Mazarin in the Fronde, but as the
aristocracy mounted the Frond of the Princes, he was against
the king's mother and her advisor, and he was no
stranger to conflict with the throne, having instigated a number
(16:13):
of rebellions against his brother during Louis the thirteenth reign.
Gaston and Anne Marie Louise were quite close, though he
was often gone during her childhood because of his involvement
with all these various intrigues.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, we mentioned his problematic marriage, but he also was
constantly like, let's revolt against my brother. Now, this involvement
in the fraud is the phase of Anne Marie Louise's
life that I and I think a lot of people
find most fascinating. She got directly involved in the battles
of the Fraud in the sixteen fifties, and by directly involved,
(16:48):
I mean on the ground fighting. She was not the
only woman of nobility to do so. She is often
mentioned with two others, the Duchess de Chevreuse and the
Duchess de Longueville. All all of these women led troops
on horseback into conflicts. That's why the three of them
are sometimes grouped together and called the Amazons. On March
twenty seventh, sixteen fifty two, Montponcier took command of an
(17:11):
army that battered its way into Orleans and occupied the city.
On July second, sixteen fifty two, at the Battle of Faubourg,
Saint Antoine Conde's troops were in trouble. The conflict was
within the city, near the Bastille, and credit is given
to Montponcier for ordering the Bastille cannon to be fired
into the royal army. This gave the rebel forces under
(17:34):
Conde a reprieve. While Conde survived the day thanks to
the Grand Mademoiselle, the rebellion ultimately was defeated.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Conde was arrested and with Louis the fourteenth back in Paris,
ann Marie Louise found herself no longer welcome in the city.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
She was exiled.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
This was not as though she was sent to some
desolate place of misery. She went to the Ynge region,
where she had an estate at Saint Fogo, about one
hundred and eighty five kilometers or one hundred and fifteen
miles south of Paris. Her father was also exiled, but
returned to Paris with a royal reconciliation in sixteen fifty seven.
(18:12):
And while she was living in exile in the country,
mom Polsier certainly was not sulking.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
She still lived like a royal. She had a court
of attendance, and she had social connections. She spent time
overseeing upgrades and decor to the Saint Frago estate, and
there were all manner of entertainment stage for her and
her friends. Sometimes this is called like her Petite Court.
She also started writing during this time, with assistance and
(18:39):
teaching from poet and novel Jeangno de Sergree and scholar
Pierre Daniell Lue, and the level of formal education she
ever received is unknown. It is not generally described as
much at all when she was younger, so this time
of taking up writing would have really been a time
of great learning for her, and it was probably really challenging.
(19:00):
One of the things that she wrote about in her
correspondence during this time was how when she was living
in Paris, she had always thought life in the country
would be just miserable, but it turned out that she
quite liked it.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Montponsier did return to the court at Paris eventually. We'll
talk about her life after that after we hear from
the sponsors that keep the show going. Montpolsier returned to
Paris five years after her exile in sixteen fifty seven.
(19:34):
She started working on her memoirs once she was there,
and there had been sort of a cruel angle to
the timing of her exile period, because in deeming that
five years was how long she had to stay away,
that meant she would be away from court from the
age of twenty five until she was thirty, so that
by the time she had returned she had aged out
(19:57):
of desirability as a perspective on this, however, did not
seem to trouble her, and she also didn't seem eager
to stay in Paris. She left for another period of
country living to write, this time at another estate she
owned about two hundred and ninety five kilometers southwest of Paris,
Champigni Cheveude. She worked on a project there called Diverse Portrait,
(20:20):
which contained fifty nine biographical portraits of people of the
royal court. She was not the only writer on it.
That piece was privately published in early sixteen fifty nine.
When she was traveling with other members of the court
in early sixteen sixty to the wedding proceedings of Louis
the fourteenth to Maria Theresa of Spain, she started to
(20:40):
discuss an idea that really sounds quite modern with some
of the other people on the trip. Was the idea
of a community of people who might choose to leave
the court, stay single and live communally. Sounds kind of
like the fantasy of owning a brownstone with all your
friends as your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Who among us has not had that fantasy.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
The correspondence she shared with Francoise Berto de Montville about
this idea is the basis of the biography we mentioned earlier.
Motvilla had been married off at eighteen to a man
who was ninety, but she did not inherit anything when
he died just two years later. She was probably a
sympathetic ear to Montponcier's ideas of just flipping the table
(21:24):
on what was expected of women in the nobility at
the time.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
One of Montpontier's early letters to Montvilla reads quote, it
is essential, in my opinion, that the people who would
like to withdraw from the court or from society distance
themselves from those places without feeling obliged to leave them,
but rather because they are aware of how little constancy
can be found in this type of life, and even
among one's friends. One can also find one's self at
(21:50):
an age when ambition is less compelling and when reasonable
people are easily cured of it. She goes on to
describe the ideal companions and placement of her theoretical dream community,
writing quote, I would rather there were no married people,
and that everyone would either be widowed or have renounced
this sacrament, for it is said to be an unfortunate undertaking.
(22:11):
You know how lucky we are to be out of it.
For my part in this matter, I have come to
this decision in such a way as those who do
not know me will not guess who I am by
what I say about it. It would be good to
come to an absolute agreement about the place where we
would live, and to consider whether we would choose the
banks of the Loire or those of the sin. She
(22:33):
describes a place where they could grow fruits and vegetables,
and have other gardens that they could watch grow. She
notes that each person would have a house that suited
their tastes, both in design and in placement, and that
it would be a place where community areas would enable
them to play games together and have concerts and other entertainment.
(22:53):
She is very clear that this commune she envisions isn't
intended to cut the residents off from the society that
they've known. It It's a rather charming.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Section where she says she would absolutely go to events
when invited, but that quote, I believe that I would
be bored, and that I would be very happy to
return home. But I would not let it show for
fear that this affectation would make others despise me, or
would expose me to a mockery. All the more dangerous
(23:23):
because it is well founded and that it is brought
on by ridiculous behavior. Yeah, she's kind of like, I know,
this is a kooky dream.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Not everybody's gonna get it well. Polsier's rural republic, as
she dreamed of it, would be a place of leisure
and socializing. She wanted it to have a hospital for
poor children and quote a beautiful church staffed by capable
and zealous clerics. She wanted livestock so the residents could
milk them and make cheeses and cakes. She envisioned this
(23:55):
as a very religious community, and she wanted it to
also include a carmelite convent as well as abodes for
hermits in the woods. There are a lot of detailed
letters back and forth between Montpalsier and her friend Moltaville
about all the ways that they were going to set
up this commune, which of course never actually happened, but
(24:15):
it does seem that Amory Louise was deeply emotionally invested
in the idea. She wrote, quote, my most agreeable hours
are spent dreaming about our plan and thanking God that
the obstacles that could have stood in its way in
the past have finally been removed, with no signs of
new ones ahead. That means marriage, She continues, quote I
(24:35):
find myself like those little birds who have been in
a cage for a long time, and who are so
overjoyed to fly wherever they like. While she was back
in Paris and in the good graces of the court,
her father Gaston died in sixteen sixty. That left her
with even more of an immense fortune. One of the
things that she did at this time was purchased the
(24:56):
Chateau Dux in Normandy. The grand chateau had been started
as a construction project in fifteen seventy eight by Henry,
the first Duke of Keys.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
It was still unfinished eighty years later when Anne Marie
Louise purchased it. She had the construction completed and set
about decorating it with fine art Also during this time,
her cousin Louis the fourteenth, was looking for potential marriage
alliances for her, because he understood completely how valuable her
(25:26):
holdings were and he wanted them to be used to
secure additional power for France. This culminated in conflict with
the king once again, and in sixteen sixty two, Montponcier
was once again exiled. This time she had refused a
royal match. A marriage deal had been struck that would
wed her to the King of Portugal, Alfonso the sixth,
(25:49):
but ann Marie Louise was not having it. Louis the
fourteenth was angry enough about this that he sent her
away again, this time for two years. She returned to
court in sixteen sixty four, but is described as having
been kind of distant and less central to its various
goings on. In December of sixteen seventy, it seemed that
(26:10):
Montponcier would finally marry, this time because she actually wanted to.
She had fallen in love with the Count de Lauzoon,
Antonine Nampar de Camman. This whole situation was kind of odd,
given all that had come before it, and other reasons
as well. Montponsier had been keenly aware of her fortune's
value in a marriage match. She had always stated that
(26:33):
she didn't want a potential husband who just needed her assets.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
But the Count de Lauzoon was not in line for
any kind of valued position or inheritance. He had no wealth.
He was not the kind of man who would ever
be considered a match for her. The two of them, though,
asked King Louis the fourteenth for permission to marry, and
he granted that permission on December fifteenth, sixteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Mont Poncier immediately started and transferring some of her titles
to her future husband. This would have raised his rank
at court and made the match less lopsided, at least
on paper, but that was premature. The approval she had
been given by the King was something of a shock
to the court. It was seen as Louis the fourteenth
(27:19):
being soft on a woman who had gone against him
at every turn, even with violence.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
The King quickly.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Reversed his decision and rescinded the permission three days after
he had given it.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, there's also the patina of you're going to marry
a poor into our court. Montponsier and Lauzun protested this reversal,
but it did no good, and it probably just annoyed
Louis the fourteenth, because a year later he had Lauzun,
who had been a member of his guard, imprisoned in
the remote fortress at Pinole in the Alps. This is
(27:52):
the same place that the French convict who became known
as the Man in the Iron Mask, was imprisoned before
being moved to the Bastille a. Marie Louise worked to
get Lauzoon freed for the next decade, and then, finally,
in sixteen eighty, Montponcier made the sacrifice of personal wealth
to gain Lauzoon's freedom. She gave up a lot of
(28:15):
her estate, which became the property of Louis Auguste, the
King's son with his mistress Francoise, at Dene de Rocheois
de Montemart, Marquis of Monte di Spon. Some biographies about
Montponcier suggest that Madame de Montespon had been instrumental in
having Lauzun imprisoned because she saw the potential opportunity to
(28:36):
seize Amrie Louise's assets for her son. Sometime after Lauzun's release,
although the exact date is not known, he and Anne
Marie Louise were married in a secret ceremony, secret because
Louis the fourteenth had never given them permission to wed
after having given it and then resented it, and there's
(28:57):
some speculation that there never was a formal marriage. This
is not a happily ever after. She had spent at
that point eleven or twelve years fighting to be with him,
but it turned out that Montponsier and Lauzun were ill
suited to have a life together. This marriage only lasted
a couple of years. Lauzun is said to have been
(29:18):
kind of a womanizer and not especially attentive to the
woman who had agreed to be with him, despite being
so far above his station, Anne Marie Louise ended things
abruptly and sent him away. After that, she lived alone,
working on her memoirs. She still had a number of estates,
even though she had given a lot up, and she
(29:40):
moved from one to another in the last decade of
her life. She reportedly lived for a short time at
the end of her life in a convent in Paris.
There's a lot of speculation about whether she had considered
becoming a nun throughout her life. She died in that
convent on April fifth, sixteen ninety three, from a bladder issue.
Lauzoon It said, attempted to see her when she was
(30:00):
on her deathbed, but she refused his visit. She was
sixty five when she died. Because she had never married
or had any children, her cousin, Philippe, the first Duke
d'orleon inherited all of her assets and Montponcier was buried
in the Basilica de Sant Denis. There's also some details
about her funeral which are a little horrifying, and we're
(30:23):
gonna save those for Friday.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Oh no, but that is the life of Anne Marie
Louise Montpontier, who I just like heaps. I just feel
like she's an interesting person. I feel like she was
probably a lot of fun to be around. She's the
party girl, but also possibly a pill's herd. Yeah, she
(30:45):
knew her own heart. I have to say that she's
got props. You have listener mail I have. I know,
I keep doing things about our various calendar things. But
a lot of people had comments and thoughts about them
that were interesting. This one got me very excited. It's
Reurlessener Jessica. Uh who actually titled it? Another Advent calendar email.
(31:08):
Jessica writes, Hi, I don't know if either of you
are puzzle people, but my sister stumbled on Advent puzzles
last year. My family suffers from an inability to not
finish a puzzle the same day we started. But with
the Advent puzzle, you get many puzzles each day that
make the whole picture. She bought one for each household,
so we trade them out on Thanksgiving. Attached a picture
(31:29):
of mine this year. Yes, one piece is missing. I
was doing the last day outside because the puppy also
attached solo and in matching Christmas jammies with his older
sister needed to run out some energy and one piece
ended up going through the deck slats, atlantic clay dirt
underneath the deck, and with the rain in the past
few days, that piece is a goner. I hope you've
had a RESTful winter holiday season. Jessica. Okay, this is brilliant.
(31:52):
I love this idea event puzzles. I'm gonna look for those. Also,
puppies puppies and pajamas I want the cutest.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
These are puffy little things. They look almost like maybe
Australian shepherds or a cattle dog. I can't quite tell.
I'm sorry if I have misidentified your sweet babies, but
they are both gorgeous. They need hugs and kisses on
their snooch. See. I love finding out about all of
the advent calendars that people have found because it's just
(32:27):
gonna feed my little addiction and I'm going to live
in a pile of them soon. If you have a
cool advent calendar we have not yet heard, please tell me,
because you know what I need is more stuff. If
you would like to.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Do that, you could do that through the Email History
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us
on social media as Missed in History, and if you
haven't subscribed yet, you can do that on the iHeartRadio
app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff
you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
(33:03):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson. And well before the storming of the Bastille and
the dethroning of Francis, King Louis the sixteenth and his
wife Marie Antoinette, there were plenty of instances of uprisings
and infighting and scandals among the royals and nobility who
occupied the French court.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
And there's one.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Woman who was part of that scene in the later
years of Louis the thirteenth reign and the transition to
Louis the fourteenth, who I just find ceaselessly fascinating, and
that is Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans. And part of why
she's so fascinating is because she has been described over
the years by historians as having been one of the
(00:55):
richest heiresses in history, as an insurgent, as an unaccomplished woman,
as an amazon, as a writer, and even as a fool.
And the thing that makes it really interesting is that
she sort of was all of those things. She led
just an incredibly privileged life that enabled her a great
(01:16):
deal of freedom, more than most people, and unlike most
women in the court of France at the time, she
was never forced into a marriage, although her potential as
marriable was a big issue for France for a long time.
So today we're gonna unravel her story and how closely
tied she was to the son King's birth as well
(01:39):
as his eventual reign. As a note, I just want
to point out because in doing research on her it
was easy to get multiple things. There are multiple women
whose names if you type them up we'll come up
with they'll all get kind of lumped together in your results.
But this is Anne Marie Luise Dorleon, not Anne Marie Dorleon.
(02:00):
Those two women were born about forty years apart. Anne
Marie Louise is the earlier of the two. Anne Marie
Louise Dorlean was born May twenty ninth, sixteen twenty seven
in Paris, specifically in the Louver when it was still
being used as a royal residence. She was a princess
of France. Her mother was Marie de bourbonmont Ponsier, Duchess
(02:22):
of Montponsier. Marie was the only heir of the wealthy
Montposier family, so it had been a very strategic move
to marry her to Gaston, Duke Dorlean. This was an
arrangement that had been orchestrated by King Louis the thirteenth
and Cardinal Richelieu. Gaston was the son of King Henry
(02:43):
the fourth of France and the brother of King Louis
the thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Marie de Bourbonmont Pontier died less than a week after
Anne Marie Louise was born. You'll sometimes see that she
died in childbirth. I saw various dates, but it appears
that that happened during childbirth did result in her death
very shortly after Amory Louise, and at that point the
infant inherited a great deal of money and assets, and
(03:10):
this made her, according to a nineteen fifty nine biography
by Victoria Sackville West, the richest baby in France and
possibly the world. She was moved to Tulerie and cared
for by a large and dedicated staff, with a governess
known as Madame de Saint George serving as her mother figure.
She was frequently visited by the King and Queen, and
(03:32):
as she grew up she was an outgoing and vivacious child,
who was called La Mademoiselle and then eventually Lan Grande
Mademoiselle to acknowledge her high rank. Mademoiselle does not just
indicate that she was an unmarried woman. This is an
inheritance of title from her father, who has brother to
the king, was known by Monsieur as a title, and
(03:54):
speaking of her father, he was largely absent, and it
seems that Anne Marie Louise didn't really get the whole story.
There are a few different things that we'll talk about,
but her father, when she was particularly young, had remarried
in secret to Marguerite of Larene. That was a marriage
the King did not approve of, so Gustave was pretty
absent from court. But when father and daughter were reunited,
(04:18):
Anne Marie Louise described herself being completely overjoyed to see him.
Given her standing in lineage from two important lines, it
was natural for Montpontier to expect that she too would
have a marriage arranged or orchestrated by the crown to
an impressive husband. Really everyone expected this. In the two
(04:41):
thousand and seven book Against Marriage, the correspondence of La
Grande Mademoiselle, translated by Jean de Jon. This situation is
concisely summed up this way quote. In early modern Europe,
the marriage of an aristocratic woman was always a thoroughly
political matter. It was understood by all that she was
first and foremost a commodity. She belonged to her family,
(05:02):
whose role it was to negotiate the exchange of her
hand for whatever it needed, most money, social advancement, a
military alliance. But Momtposier occupied a really unique position in
this practice because she was basically independently wealthy. She had
inherited so many assets from her mother well before she
(05:24):
was able to even understand what wealth was, and the
matter of a marriage arrangement for her was a source
of ongoing conflict. Efforts were made to match her to
various men, but because she did not need any of them,
she had more agency than was usual for a woman
to say no to any such arrangements. On September fifth,
(05:46):
sixteen thirty eight, Louis the fourteenth was born, and there
was immediate speculation that Anne Marie Louise might be betrothed
to the future king. This is allegedly sparked by his mother,
Anne of Austria, who apparently mentioned this jokingly that pairing
did not materialize, but the possibility of it was gossiped
(06:06):
about at all levels of society for quite a while.
Montpalsier is also said to have called Louis her little husband,
which undoubtedly helped stoke such gossip, but she was also
a kid at the time. She was very young and
may have only meant it in jest. She visited him
frequently in his early days the Chateau de Saint Germain,
because his mother adored her and wanted her with her.
(06:29):
She later wrote in her memoirs, quote, the birth of
Monsieur de Dauphin gave me a new occupation. I went
to see him every day, and I called him my
little husband. The king was diverted by this, and he
thought that I did well.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But though King Louis the thirteenth might have thought she
was a delightful child, Cardinal Richelieu really did not. She
described his response to her instant affection for her newborn
cousin Louis the fourteenth, and her memoirs as well, quote
Cardinal de Richelieu, who does not like me to as
myself to being there, nor to have them accustomed to
(07:03):
seeing me there, had me given orders to return to Paris.
The Queen and Madame d' hautefert did all that was
possible to keep me. They could not obtain their wish,
which I regretted. It was all tears and cries when
I left there. Their majesties gave many proofs of friendship,
especially the Queen, who made me aware of a particular
(07:24):
tenderness on that occasion. After this displeasure, I had still
another to endure. They made me pass through Yu to
see the cardinal who usually lived there when the King
was at Saint Germain. He took it so to heart
that I had called the little Dauphin my little husband,
that he gave me a great reprimand he said that
(07:47):
I was too large to use such terms, that I
had been ill behaved to do so. He spoke so seriously,
just as if I had been a person of judgment, that,
without answering him, I began to weep. To pacify me,
he gave me collation, but I did not pass it over.
I came away from there very angry at all he
had said to me. Charles the second of England was
(08:11):
the next candidate, as a husband of note, who came
into the picture when he was exiled to France in
sixteen forty six. Montposier was nineteen at the time, so
the idea of a marriage between the two royals was
a natural one to be contemplated, but she turned that
marriage down, recognizing that her assets were more valuable to
Charles Stewart than anything he could offer her. As an
(08:34):
exile in sixteen forty seven, Anne Marie Louise had another
potential spouse, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand the Third. There was
a different problem there. France and the Habsburg Empire were
at war, and that could not be part of the
peace negotiations. Apparently. In a biography of Anne Marie Louise
written in nineteen oh two by Arved Barn and translated
(08:56):
by Helen E. Meyer, it described this period of her
lif life this way quote, Mademoiselle was courted and ardently admired.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
The people worshiped her.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Paris was determined to place her upon the throne of France.
Well employed though her time had been, she had done
nothing to distinguish herself, nothing to give her a place
among heroines like the Princess de Conde and the enticing
Madame de Longville. But the year sixteen fifty two was
on its way and it was to bring her her
long awaited glory. We will get to the source of
(09:28):
that glory in a moment, because we need to establish
some contexts regarding the fraud, and we're going to dig
into the Fronde and eventually how Amory Louise was involved
in it. Right after we paused for a sponsor break
(09:50):
in sixteen fifty one, the twenty four year old Amrie Louise,
having grown somewhat frustrated with the crown, became involved with
the effort to fight the central assa of the monarchy's power.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
This conflict became known as the Fronde, and the Frond
had begun in sixteen forty eight. This is an important
moment in French history because had the Frond not happened,
Louis the fourteenth may not have become as powerful as
he ultimately was. The conflict called the Frond is actually
a series of conflicts, kind of like many civil wars.
(10:22):
Sometimes you'll see this referred to as a civil war,
and other times it could have been a civil war
had it gotten any bigger. So just know you'll see
it characterized different ways, and it's the series of conflicts
within France as concerns over the monarchy's power grew. Sometimes too,
you will see the Frond referred to as a civil
war singular, instead of a series of civil wars or
(10:44):
a series of conflicts. It's written about in all the
different ways. There is one big thing called the Frond,
and under that umbrella there are multiple separate issues going on,
which we'll talk about. Though it began officially in sixteen
forty eight, the seeds of the Frond were shown earlier
that decade, when Cardinal Richelieu and Louis the thirteenth died
(11:06):
in sixteen forty two. In sixteen forty three.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Louis the fourteenth was heir to the throne, but he
was only five when his father, the King died. His mother,
Anne of Austria, served as regent for her child king,
and she was aided in this role by Cardinal Mazarin.
You may remember from our episode on Marie and Hortense Mancini.
He was an Italian who had been hand selected to
(11:32):
be part of the French government by Richelieu. France at
this time was facing a number of issues. It had
been engaged in an expensive, long term war with the
Spanish Habsburg's. Various members of the nobility saw the arrangement
with Anne of Austria as regent as weak. They sought
to exert their own influence on the country's political dealings.
(11:53):
This included King Louis the Thirteenth's younger brother, Gaston that
was Anne Marie Louise's father. Additionally, the Parisian Catholic Church,
led by Cardinal Deuretz, saw an opportunity to gain more power.
All of them thought this was a vacuum they could fill.
The tax known as La Paulette had been instituted in
(12:15):
sixteen oh four under King Henry the Fourth. So this
tax was paid to the crown by holders of government offices.
It secured their right to the office and conferred them
the power to transfer that office. It might help to
think of this as sort of like a lease on power,
paid to retain that power annually, with the ability to
pass that position through hereditary lines, and the money collected
(12:38):
from it supported the crown with a steady, reliable income.
But in sixteen forty eight, La Paulette was up for
a renewal, and Mazarin and Anne of Austria thought that
it would be a good bargaining chip to get other
things that they wanted, including additional taxation to fund the military,
but Anne and Mazarin overplayed their hands. Instead, the judges
(13:01):
of Paris banded together against the monarchy to demand reform,
and they had the support of the church and a
portion of the nobility. This all began at an assembly
known as the Chambre Saint Louis. Mazarin in particular was
a problem for the Frond, and he was characterized as
an untrustworthy foreigner. Things became so heated that Anne, Mazarin
(13:23):
and the nine year old At this point Louis the
fourteenth left Paris for Saint Germain, just outside the city.
But this was only the first phase of the Fronde.
The judges of the city parliament, the Regent, Anne and
her advisor negotiated a resolution to their conflict. This deal
got the magistrates a lot of the things that they wanted,
and they were promised amnesty for their part in the
(13:46):
conflicts that had broken out, But in doing so they
had excluded the nobility, which meant that when they announced
the deal that ended the Frond, of parliaments called the
Peace of Rey. A second phase of the Frond. The
Frond of the Princes started, and this is when Anne
Marie Louise and her father Gustave got deeply involved in
(14:08):
the fighting. In some ways, the Frond of the Princes
was a more complex affair than the Frond of Parliament,
because there were various deals being made among nobles to
support each other, to turn on others, to exclude some
members of the nobility, et cetera. It was like a
lot of cliquish, interconnected deals being made. But the big
(14:28):
turn of events that happened was from within the monarchy's
own defenses. Louis the second de Bourbon, the fourth Prince
of Conde, who was a general who had fought to
protect the monarchy in the first phase of the Frond,
turned against the crown in the second phase. Mazarin had
him arrested. That stoked anger against Mazarin to a degree
(14:51):
that in early sixteen fifty one he left the country. That, however,
did not end the conflict. All of those various allegiances
and orals within the rebelling nobility were still in play
as everyone jockeyed for power, and then the young, barely
teenage Louis the fourteenth was recognized as king in sixteen
(15:11):
fifty one. This stopped short the efforts of many nobles
who had sought to gain more influence in the absence
of a fully vested king, and it especially stopped the
efforts of Louis the second of vermon And while there
were additional efforts at resting power from the throne, they
did not succeed. The fraud is named that after the
(15:32):
fact because a frond was a kid's toy. It was
kind of like a slingshot, and the name suggests that
the whole lengthy episode was ultimately kind of silly infighting
and not a serious threat to the monarchy. On the contrary,
it ended up bolstering support for the monarchy in its
final stages, enabling Louis the fourteenth to ultimately rule at
(15:53):
an almost unprecedented level of power. Momtponsier's father, Gaston, had
initially supported and Mazarin in the Fronde, but as the
aristocracy mounted the Frond of the Princes, he was against
the king's mother and her advisor, and he was no
stranger to conflict with the throne, having instigated a number
(16:13):
of rebellions against his brother during Louis the thirteenth reign.
Gaston and Anne Marie Louise were quite close, though he
was often gone during her childhood because of his involvement
with all these various intrigues.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, we mentioned his problematic marriage, but he also was
constantly like, let's revolt against my brother. Now, this involvement
in the fraud is the phase of Anne Marie Louise's
life that I and I think a lot of people
find most fascinating. She got directly involved in the battles
of the Fraud in the sixteen fifties, and by directly involved,
(16:48):
I mean on the ground fighting. She was not the
only woman of nobility to do so. She is often
mentioned with two others, the Duchess de Chevreuse and the
Duchess de Longueville. All all of these women led troops
on horseback into conflicts. That's why the three of them
are sometimes grouped together and called the Amazons. On March
twenty seventh, sixteen fifty two, Montponcier took command of an
(17:11):
army that battered its way into Orleans and occupied the city.
On July second, sixteen fifty two, at the Battle of Faubourg,
Saint Antoine Conde's troops were in trouble. The conflict was
within the city, near the Bastille, and credit is given
to Montponcier for ordering the Bastille cannon to be fired
into the royal army. This gave the rebel forces under
(17:34):
Conde a reprieve. While Conde survived the day thanks to
the Grand Mademoiselle, the rebellion ultimately was defeated.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Conde was arrested and with Louis the fourteenth back in Paris,
ann Marie Louise found herself no longer welcome in the city.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
She was exiled.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
This was not as though she was sent to some
desolate place of misery. She went to the Ynge region,
where she had an estate at Saint Fogo, about one
hundred and eighty five kilometers or one hundred and fifteen
miles south of Paris. Her father was also exiled, but
returned to Paris with a royal reconciliation in sixteen fifty seven.
(18:12):
And while she was living in exile in the country,
mom Polsier certainly was not sulking.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
She still lived like a royal. She had a court
of attendance, and she had social connections. She spent time
overseeing upgrades and decor to the Saint Frago estate, and
there were all manner of entertainment stage for her and
her friends. Sometimes this is called like her Petite Court.
She also started writing during this time, with assistance and
(18:39):
teaching from poet and novel Jeangno de Sergree and scholar
Pierre Daniell Lue, and the level of formal education she
ever received is unknown. It is not generally described as
much at all when she was younger, so this time
of taking up writing would have really been a time
of great learning for her, and it was probably really challenging.
(19:00):
One of the things that she wrote about in her
correspondence during this time was how when she was living
in Paris, she had always thought life in the country
would be just miserable, but it turned out that she
quite liked it.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Montponsier did return to the court at Paris eventually. We'll
talk about her life after that after we hear from
the sponsors that keep the show going. Montpolsier returned to
Paris five years after her exile in sixteen fifty seven.
(19:34):
She started working on her memoirs once she was there,
and there had been sort of a cruel angle to
the timing of her exile period, because in deeming that
five years was how long she had to stay away,
that meant she would be away from court from the
age of twenty five until she was thirty, so that
by the time she had returned she had aged out
(19:57):
of desirability as a perspective on this, however, did not
seem to trouble her, and she also didn't seem eager
to stay in Paris. She left for another period of
country living to write, this time at another estate she
owned about two hundred and ninety five kilometers southwest of Paris,
Champigni Cheveude. She worked on a project there called Diverse Portrait,
(20:20):
which contained fifty nine biographical portraits of people of the
royal court. She was not the only writer on it.
That piece was privately published in early sixteen fifty nine.
When she was traveling with other members of the court
in early sixteen sixty to the wedding proceedings of Louis
the fourteenth to Maria Theresa of Spain, she started to
(20:40):
discuss an idea that really sounds quite modern with some
of the other people on the trip. Was the idea
of a community of people who might choose to leave
the court, stay single and live communally. Sounds kind of
like the fantasy of owning a brownstone with all your
friends as your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Who among us has not had that fantasy.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
The correspondence she shared with Francoise Berto de Montville about
this idea is the basis of the biography we mentioned earlier.
Motvilla had been married off at eighteen to a man
who was ninety, but she did not inherit anything when
he died just two years later. She was probably a
sympathetic ear to Montponcier's ideas of just flipping the table
(21:24):
on what was expected of women in the nobility at
the time.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
One of Montpontier's early letters to Montvilla reads quote, it
is essential, in my opinion, that the people who would
like to withdraw from the court or from society distance
themselves from those places without feeling obliged to leave them,
but rather because they are aware of how little constancy
can be found in this type of life, and even
among one's friends. One can also find one's self at
(21:50):
an age when ambition is less compelling and when reasonable
people are easily cured of it. She goes on to
describe the ideal companions and placement of her theoretical dream community,
writing quote, I would rather there were no married people,
and that everyone would either be widowed or have renounced
this sacrament, for it is said to be an unfortunate undertaking.
(22:11):
You know how lucky we are to be out of it.
For my part in this matter, I have come to
this decision in such a way as those who do
not know me will not guess who I am by
what I say about it. It would be good to
come to an absolute agreement about the place where we
would live, and to consider whether we would choose the
banks of the Loire or those of the sin. She
(22:33):
describes a place where they could grow fruits and vegetables,
and have other gardens that they could watch grow. She
notes that each person would have a house that suited
their tastes, both in design and in placement, and that
it would be a place where community areas would enable
them to play games together and have concerts and other entertainment.
(22:53):
She is very clear that this commune she envisions isn't
intended to cut the residents off from the society that
they've known. It It's a rather charming.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Section where she says she would absolutely go to events
when invited, but that quote, I believe that I would
be bored, and that I would be very happy to
return home. But I would not let it show for
fear that this affectation would make others despise me, or
would expose me to a mockery. All the more dangerous
(23:23):
because it is well founded and that it is brought
on by ridiculous behavior. Yeah, she's kind of like, I know,
this is a kooky dream.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Not everybody's gonna get it well. Polsier's rural republic, as
she dreamed of it, would be a place of leisure
and socializing. She wanted it to have a hospital for
poor children and quote a beautiful church staffed by capable
and zealous clerics. She wanted livestock so the residents could
milk them and make cheeses and cakes. She envisioned this
(23:55):
as a very religious community, and she wanted it to
also include a carmelite convent as well as abodes for
hermits in the woods. There are a lot of detailed
letters back and forth between Montpalsier and her friend Moltaville
about all the ways that they were going to set
up this commune, which of course never actually happened, but
(24:15):
it does seem that Amory Louise was deeply emotionally invested
in the idea. She wrote, quote, my most agreeable hours
are spent dreaming about our plan and thanking God that
the obstacles that could have stood in its way in
the past have finally been removed, with no signs of
new ones ahead. That means marriage, She continues, quote I
(24:35):
find myself like those little birds who have been in
a cage for a long time, and who are so
overjoyed to fly wherever they like. While she was back
in Paris and in the good graces of the court,
her father Gaston died in sixteen sixty. That left her
with even more of an immense fortune. One of the
things that she did at this time was purchased the
(24:56):
Chateau Dux in Normandy. The grand chateau had been started
as a construction project in fifteen seventy eight by Henry,
the first Duke of Keys.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
It was still unfinished eighty years later when Anne Marie
Louise purchased it. She had the construction completed and set
about decorating it with fine art Also during this time,
her cousin Louis the fourteenth, was looking for potential marriage
alliances for her, because he understood completely how valuable her
(25:26):
holdings were and he wanted them to be used to
secure additional power for France. This culminated in conflict with
the king once again, and in sixteen sixty two, Montponcier
was once again exiled. This time she had refused a
royal match. A marriage deal had been struck that would
wed her to the King of Portugal, Alfonso the sixth,
(25:49):
but ann Marie Louise was not having it. Louis the
fourteenth was angry enough about this that he sent her
away again, this time for two years. She returned to
court in sixteen sixty four, but is described as having
been kind of distant and less central to its various
goings on. In December of sixteen seventy, it seemed that
(26:10):
Montponcier would finally marry, this time because she actually wanted to.
She had fallen in love with the Count de Lauzoon,
Antonine Nampar de Camman. This whole situation was kind of odd,
given all that had come before it, and other reasons
as well. Montponsier had been keenly aware of her fortune's
value in a marriage match. She had always stated that
(26:33):
she didn't want a potential husband who just needed her assets.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
But the Count de Lauzoon was not in line for
any kind of valued position or inheritance. He had no wealth.
He was not the kind of man who would ever
be considered a match for her. The two of them, though,
asked King Louis the fourteenth for permission to marry, and
he granted that permission on December fifteenth, sixteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Mont Poncier immediately started and transferring some of her titles
to her future husband. This would have raised his rank
at court and made the match less lopsided, at least
on paper, but that was premature. The approval she had
been given by the King was something of a shock
to the court. It was seen as Louis the fourteenth
(27:19):
being soft on a woman who had gone against him
at every turn, even with violence.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
The King quickly.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Reversed his decision and rescinded the permission three days after
he had given it.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, there's also the patina of you're going to marry
a poor into our court. Montponsier and Lauzun protested this reversal,
but it did no good, and it probably just annoyed
Louis the fourteenth, because a year later he had Lauzun,
who had been a member of his guard, imprisoned in
the remote fortress at Pinole in the Alps. This is
(27:52):
the same place that the French convict who became known
as the Man in the Iron Mask, was imprisoned before
being moved to the Bastille a. Marie Louise worked to
get Lauzoon freed for the next decade, and then, finally,
in sixteen eighty, Montponcier made the sacrifice of personal wealth
to gain Lauzoon's freedom. She gave up a lot of
(28:15):
her estate, which became the property of Louis Auguste, the
King's son with his mistress Francoise, at Dene de Rocheois
de Montemart, Marquis of Monte di Spon. Some biographies about
Montponcier suggest that Madame de Montespon had been instrumental in
having Lauzun imprisoned because she saw the potential opportunity to
(28:36):
seize Amrie Louise's assets for her son. Sometime after Lauzun's release,
although the exact date is not known, he and Anne
Marie Louise were married in a secret ceremony, secret because
Louis the fourteenth had never given them permission to wed
after having given it and then resented it, and there's
(28:57):
some speculation that there never was a formal marriage. This
is not a happily ever after. She had spent at
that point eleven or twelve years fighting to be with him,
but it turned out that Montponsier and Lauzun were ill
suited to have a life together. This marriage only lasted
a couple of years. Lauzun is said to have been
(29:18):
kind of a womanizer and not especially attentive to the
woman who had agreed to be with him, despite being
so far above his station, Anne Marie Louise ended things
abruptly and sent him away. After that, she lived alone,
working on her memoirs. She still had a number of estates,
even though she had given a lot up, and she
(29:40):
moved from one to another in the last decade of
her life. She reportedly lived for a short time at
the end of her life in a convent in Paris.
There's a lot of speculation about whether she had considered
becoming a nun throughout her life. She died in that
convent on April fifth, sixteen ninety three, from a bladder issue.
Lauzoon It said, attempted to see her when she was
(30:00):
on her deathbed, but she refused his visit. She was
sixty five when she died. Because she had never married
or had any children, her cousin, Philippe, the first Duke
d'orleon inherited all of her assets and Montponcier was buried
in the Basilica de Sant Denis. There's also some details
about her funeral which are a little horrifying, and we're
(30:23):
gonna save those for Friday.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Oh no, but that is the life of Anne Marie
Louise Montpontier, who I just like heaps. I just feel
like she's an interesting person. I feel like she was
probably a lot of fun to be around. She's the
party girl, but also possibly a pill's herd. Yeah, she
(30:45):
knew her own heart. I have to say that she's
got props. You have listener mail I have. I know,
I keep doing things about our various calendar things. But
a lot of people had comments and thoughts about them
that were interesting. This one got me very excited. It's
Reurlessener Jessica. Uh who actually titled it? Another Advent calendar email.
(31:08):
Jessica writes, Hi, I don't know if either of you
are puzzle people, but my sister stumbled on Advent puzzles
last year. My family suffers from an inability to not
finish a puzzle the same day we started. But with
the Advent puzzle, you get many puzzles each day that
make the whole picture. She bought one for each household,
so we trade them out on Thanksgiving. Attached a picture
(31:29):
of mine this year. Yes, one piece is missing. I
was doing the last day outside because the puppy also
attached solo and in matching Christmas jammies with his older
sister needed to run out some energy and one piece
ended up going through the deck slats, atlantic clay dirt
underneath the deck, and with the rain in the past
few days, that piece is a goner. I hope you've
had a RESTful winter holiday season. Jessica. Okay, this is brilliant.
(31:52):
I love this idea event puzzles. I'm gonna look for those. Also,
puppies puppies and pajamas I want the cutest.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
These are puffy little things. They look almost like maybe
Australian shepherds or a cattle dog. I can't quite tell.
I'm sorry if I have misidentified your sweet babies, but
they are both gorgeous. They need hugs and kisses on
their snooch. See. I love finding out about all of
the advent calendars that people have found because it's just
(32:27):
gonna feed my little addiction and I'm going to live
in a pile of them soon. If you have a
cool advent calendar we have not yet heard, please tell me,
because you know what I need is more stuff. If
you would like to.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Do that, you could do that through the Email History
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us
on social media as Missed in History, and if you
haven't subscribed yet, you can do that on the iHeartRadio
app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff
you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
(33:03):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Tracy V. Wilson
Holly Frey
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