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Duchess of Louvois From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sophie Philippine Élisabeth Justine of France[1] (27 July 1734 – 2 March 1782) was a French princess, a fille de France. She was the sixth daughter and eighth child of King Louis XV and his queen consort, Marie Leszczyńska. First known as Madame Cinquième (an older sister, Marie Louise, had died in 1733), she later became Madame Sophie. She and her sisters were collectively known as Mesdames. In 1777, Sophie and her elder sister Adélaïde were both given the title Duchess of Louvois.
Sophie of France | |||||
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Duchess of Louvois | |||||
![]() Portrait of Sophie, by Jean-Marc Nattier (1748) | |||||
Born | Palace of Versailles, Versailles, Kingdom of France | 27 July 1734||||
Died | 2 March 1782 47) Palace of Versailles, Versailles, Kingdom of France | (aged||||
Burial | |||||
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House | Bourbon | ||||
Father | Louis XV of France | ||||
Mother | Marie Leszczyńska | ||||
Signature | ![]() |
Sophie Philippine Élisabeth Justine was born on 27 July 1734 in France. She was the eighth child and sixth daughter of King Louis XV of France and his charitable wife, Marie Leszczyńska who was nicknamed "The Good Queen" by the common people. Sophie is less well known than many of her sisters. Her birth at the Palace of Versailles was relatively unremarked. Her second name, Philippine, was given in honour of her older brother Philippe, who had died the previous year. Sophie and her sisters were collectively called the Mesdames.
Unlike the older children of Louis XV, she was not raised at Versailles but, in June 1738, sent to live at the Abbey of Fontevraud with her elder sister Madame Victoire and younger sisters Madame Thérèse (who died young) and Madame Louise, because the cost of raising the sisters in Versailles with all the status they were entitled to was deemed too expensive by Cardinal Fleury, Louis XV's chief minister. Their mother, Marie Leszczyńska was forbidden on visiting them and thus frequently wrote to them and sending them gifts such as a toy horse for little Sophie. [2] On 6 June, they officially left Versailles for Fontevraud in eight coaches and two chaises with twenty wagon loads of luggage.[3] The journey took thirteen days.[3]
According to Madame Campan, who was employed as the reader to Sophie and her sisters Victoire and Louise in 1768, the Mesdames had rather a traumatic upbringing in Fontevraud, and were not given much education:
Madame Sophie and her sister Louise were allowed to return to the court of Versailles in 1750, two years after Victoire. Madame de Pompadour, who witnessed the arrival of Sophie and her younger sister Louise from Fontevrault, described Sophie as "almost as tall as I" and "very attractive if rather plump, with a fine complexion …".[5]
According to Madame Campan’s memoirs, while their education had been neglected in the convent, they compensated for this and studied extensively, after their return to court, encouraged by their brother, Louis, with whom they immediately formed a close attachment.[6] The Mesdames learned to write French correctly, while also learning Italian and English.[6] They also learned higher branches of mathematics, turning and dialling, and history.[6]
The King referred to them by nicknames: he called Madame Adélaïde, 'Loque' (Tatters/Rag/Rags/Scraggy); Madame Victoire, 'Coche' (Pig/Piggy/Sow); Madame Louise, 'Chiffe' (Shoddy silk/Rags); and Madame Sophie, 'Graille' (Grub/Scrap/Carrion crow).[6][7][8][9][10][11]
Madame Sophie never married, but became a member of the collective group of unmarried princesses known as Mesdames. Charles Philippe d'Albert, 4th Duke of Luynes noted that Sophie and her siblings would assist their mother Marie Leszczyńska on various charitable activities she initiated outside Versailles such as giving money and clothes to the poor on various parishes. Being described as of a shy and reserved nature, she did not attract much attention. She did not exercise any influence at the court, but let herself be directed by her older sister Madame Adélaïde, following her in her antipathy against her father's mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and then Madame du Barry. Madame Sophie enjoyed the Château de Bellevue in Meudon and the Château de Louvois in Marne.[12]
In 1761, when her sister, Victoire, in the company of Adélaïde, visited the waters in Lorraine for medical purposes, Sophie and Louise visited Paris for the first time.[13]
Madame Campan, who was employed as her reader in 1768, described her thusly:
And the life of the sisters in the last years of the reign of their father was described as follows:
In 1770, the fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette became Dauphine by marriage to the nephew of Madame Sophie and her sisters, the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI. Because of the close relationship between the Dauphin and his aunts, Marie Antoinette also initially came close to the Mesdames her first years in France as the senior royal women at court. The Mesdames use to alternate with the Countess of Provence in accompanying Marie Antoinette on official assignments.[14] The close relationship between Marie Antoinette and Mesdames was, however, discontinued in 1772, after the attempt to entice Marie Antoinette to humiliate Madame du Barry was thwarted, a plan which had been led by Madame Adélaïde with support of Madame Victoire and Madame Sophie.
From April 1774, Madame Sophie, along with her sisters Adélaïde, Victoire and Louise, attended their father, Louis XV, on his deathbed until his death from smallpox on 10 May. Despite the fact that the sisters had never had smallpox, the Mesdames were allowed to attend him, even while other male members of the royal family, as well as the Dauphine, Marie Antoinette, were kept away due to the serious risk of catching the illness. Since the Mesdames were female, and therefore of no political importance because of the Salic law, they were not prevented from doing so.
After the death of Louis XV, he was succeeded by his grandson, Louis-Auguste, as Louis XVI. Louis XVI referred to his aunts as Mesdames Tantes. The sisters did catch smallpox from their father's deathbed, and were kept in quarantine in a little house near the Château de Choisy, to which the court evacuated after the death of the King, until they eventually recovered.[15]
Their nephew, the King, allowed them to keep their apartments in the Palace of Versailles, and they continued attending court at special occasions. Such as for the visit of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, who reportedly charmed Madame Sophie’s sister Adélaïde.[16] However, they distanced themselves from court and often preferred to reside in their own Château de Bellevue in Meudon; they also traveled annually to Vichy, always with a retinue of at least three hundred people, and made the waters there fashionable.[17] The Mesdames continued to be the confidants of Louis XVI, and they also maintained a good relationship with their niece, Princess Élisabeth of France, and often visited her in her retreat at the Domain of Montreuil.[18]
In 1777, Sophie and her sister Adélaïde were both given the title of Duchess of Louvois by their nephew, the King, after having jointly acquired an estate of that name.[13]
The Mesdames did not get along well with the new Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. When the Queen introduced the new custom of informal evening family suppers, as well as other informal habits which undermined the formal court etiquette, it resulted in an exodus of the old court nobility in opposition to the Queen's reforms, which gathered in the salon of the Mesdames.[16] They entertained extensively at Bellevue, as well as at Versailles; their salon was reportedly regularly frequented by minister Jean Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas, whom Adélaïde had elevated to power through Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, and Louis François Joseph, Prince of Conti—both members of the anti-Austrian party. Pierre Beaumarchais was also a frequent guest, who read aloud his satires of Austria and its power figures.[17] The Austrian Ambassador, Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, reported that their salon was a center of intrigues against Marie Antoinette, where the Mesdames tolerated poems satirizing the queen.[17]
The Mesdames gathered the extreme conservative Dévots party of nobility opposed to the philosophes, encyclopedists and economists.[13]
On 2 March 1782, at the Palace of Versailles in France, Sophie died due to dropsy at the age of forty-seven. She outlived 6 of her 9 siblings. She was buried in the royal tomb at the Basilica of St Denis, which was plundered and destroyed at the time of the French Revolution.[citation needed]
Her great-niece, Sophie Beatrix, youngest daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, was named after her.[19]
In 2006, she was played by Scottish actress Shirley Henderson in the movie Marie Antoinette.
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