Louise Élisabeth of France

Louise-Élisabeth of France (Marie Louise-Élisabeth; 14 August 1727 – 6 December 1759) was a French princess, a fille de France. She was the eldest daughter of King Louis XV and Queen Maria Leszczyńska, and the twin sister of Henriette of France, and she was the only one of his legitimate daughters who married. She married Infante Philip of Spain, who inherited the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza through his mother in 1748. Infante Philip was her father's first cousin; both men were grandsons of Louis, Grand Dauphin. Thereafter, Élisabeth and her husband founded the House of Bourbon-Parma. She functioned as the de facto ruler of the Duchy of Parma between 1748 and 1759. within her family circle.

She was put under the care of Marie Isabelle de Rohan, Duchess of Tallard. Élisabeth was raised at Versailles with Henriette, their younger sisters Marie Louise, Marie Adélaïde; and their brother, Louis, Dauphin of France. Her younger sisters, Victoire, Sophie, Marie Thérèse and Louise Marie, were sent to be raised in Fontevraud Abbey in June 1738.

Élisabeth was regarded as not being as pretty as her twin: her nose was considered too short and too broad; her face too plump; with her forehead, high; and complexion dark and sometimes blotchy. She was sometimes described as dull and indolent, but usually vivacious and decided: it was said of her that she "knew how to exact obedience and to get her own way", and she was generally considered charming, "pleasing, piquant, and intelligent personality".

This engagement followed a tradition dating back to 1559 of cementing military and political alliances between the Catholic powers of France and Spain with royal marriages. Despite this, the announcement of the marriage agreement was not well received at the French court, as there was little chance that Philip would become king of Spain, and that only a marriage with a crown prince or a king was deemed worthy of a princess of France. . According to the memoirs of the Duke of Luynes, Elisabeth spent a great deal of time with her loving mother, Queen Marie Leszczyńska in her apartments prior to her departure. When she left for Spain in September, Her mother wept alongside her younger siblings while the King was reportedly so moved that he entered her carriage and accompanied her for the first miles on her journey. She passed the border and met her nineteen-year-old husband some thirty kilometers northeast of Madrid, at Alcalá de Henares, where the marriage took place on 25 October 1739.

Infanta of Spain Élisabeth made a personal success upon her arrival in Spain and was soon the "idol of Madrid". the powerful Adrien Maurice de Noailles, 3rd Duke of Noailles and Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas, allied with the Queen to achieve the same, and the French ambassador at Madrid, Monseigneur Louis-Gui de Guérapin de Vauréal, bishop of Rennes, was reportedly so willing to be of assistance that he was ridiculed for it. During her stay at Versailles, she spent most of her time with her father the King, who visited her several times daily via a private staircase to discuss business with her while she also regularly visited her mother Queen Marie Leszczyńska in her own apartments to whom she maintained an affectionate relationship and correspondence when she was in Spain and later in Parma. She successfully achieved her goal when her father granted two hundred thousand francs for the Duke of Parma. Before the former duke, Philip's brother Charles, had left to become king of Naples, he had reportedly stripped the palace of much of its interior decoration and furniture, and the residence also lacked a garden. Élisabeth spent great sums to create a residence and a court to her taste; the whole arrangement and plan of the residence was redesigned, and she organised court ceremonies and hosted numerous festivities such as opera six times a week and trips to the second residence in Colorno and Piacenza.

Élisabeth returned to Parma in October 1753. Upon her return, she appointed Guillaume du Tillot as chief minister and administrator of the principality, securing both her own pro-French policy as well as marking France's de facto conquest of Parma. boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc; boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9; boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc; boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc; boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe; 1= 1. Louise Élisabeth of France 2= 2. Louis XV of France 3= 3. Marie Leszczyńska 4= 4. Louis, Duke of Burgundy 5= 5. Marie Adélaïde of Savoy 6= 6. Stanisław I Leszczyński 7= 7. Katarzyna Opalińska 8= 8. Louis, Dauphin of France 9= 9. Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria 10= 10. Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia 11= 11. Anne Marie of Orléans 12= 12. Rafał Leszczyński 13= 13. Anna Jabłonowska 14= 14. Jan Karol Opaliński 15= 15. Zofia Czarnkowska