Louise of France, OCD (Louise-Marie; 15 July 1737 – 23 December 1787) was a French princess and Discalced Carmelite, the youngest of the ten children of King Louis XV and Queen Maria Leszczyńska.Achaintre, Nicolas Louis, Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison royale de Bourbon, Vol. 2, (Publisher Mansut Fils, 4 Rue de l'École de Médecine, Paris, 1825), 154. She entered the Carmelite convent at Saint-Denis in 1770 and took the religious name Thérèse of Saint-Augustin. She served as prioress in 1773–1779 and 1785–1787.
Her cause for canonisation was opened in 1902 and she was declared venerable by Pope John Paul II in 1997.
Early life
Birth Louise was born at the Palace of Versailles on 15 July 1737, exactly as predicted by the royal physicians. Her parents already had seven daughters and two sons before her, but one sister (Marie Louise) and one brother (Philippe, Duke of Anjou) had already died. As Salic law precluded women from inheriting the throne, Louis XV hoped for a “spare” son from this pregnancy. After the birth, he played a joke on the crowd gathered outside, announcing the birth of a son. The news spread and people celebrated with public feasts. The newborn's maternal grandfather, the deposed King Stanisław of Poland, prepared to travel to Versailles. By evening, the truth was clarified, and Stanisław stayed home. France and the royal court were saddened by the birth of another girl.
Daughters of the French king, known as filles de France, were referred to simply as madame and their given name. French royal children were baptised immediately upon birth with a simplified ceremony called ondoiement (performed by the Archbishop of Vienne for Louise). The baptism was completed a few years later, when godparents and given names were assigned. Until their full baptisms, Louis XV's daughters were known by numbers. Accordingly, Louise was called Madame Septième as his seventh (living) daughter.
An anecdote claims that the King announced that he and Queen Marie would have no more children by calling Louise Madame Dernière (“the last madame”). However, the historian Poignant argues that this story was invented and spread by the Marquis d'Argenson, known for his malignant rumours. Queen Marie Leszczyńska, when she learnt of her baby's gender, whispered to her husband in an exhausted voice, “I would suffer once more [and] just as much [to] give you a duke of Anjou”. Louis XV and France still hoped for a future son, but Louise was his last child.
Infancy in Versailles The royal children lived in an apartment in the aile des Princes (“Wing of Princes”) of Versailles. They shared an antechamber and a cabinet for receiving visitors, where a private altar also stood. The walls and furniture were upholstered in red damask and covered with protective red serge outside of the most important ceremonies. The rooms were decorated with tapestries of mythological and historical scenes. There had been no changes made to the apartment since the time of Louis XIV's children and there were no personal touches added, except the dressing table, provided to each princess at birth and differing in design. That of Louise was upholstered in gold and silver brocade with colourful flowers and lined with green taffeta.
Just like her sisters, Louise had her own bedroom with three beds and a cradle. She shared this with her wet nurse, Madame Anne (d')Hoppen, one of the (sous-)gouvernantes (there was a chief gouvernante and two vice-gouvernantes), the remueuse or “[cradle] rocker”, who was tasked with dressing and bathing the baby, and two chambermaids (who shared one folding bed as one was always awake). Louise received a complete set of solid gold tableware, engraved enfans de France (children of France, with contemporary spelling) at her birth, used only on special occasions. Every item for personal use, including chamber pots, bore the same inscription. The ingredients of their breakfast porridge were brought in a sealed container, inspected, cooked publicly, and tasted first by the gouvernante.
Louise and her siblings were under the care of the gouvernante, Marie Isabelle de Rohan, Duchess of Tallard (Madame de Tallard), who was in charge of every aspect of their upbringing. Each princess was given a large retinue. A foreign visitor to the court recorded his amazement at seeing the princesses run around the palace always followed by at least fourteen people. Like all aspects of their lives, the relationship between the children and their parents was regulated by courtly etiquette, although the King did occasionally bend the rules in private. From the moment of birth, the children participated fully in courtly representation; their meals and their morning and night dressings were public for courtiers (as were those of their parents).
Shortly after Louise's birth, Chief Minister Cardinal de Fleury announced that the presence of so many little girls “embarrassed the court” and cost too much, as well as taking up valuable space that adult courtiers needed. Except for the three eldest, (eleven-year-old Madame, Louise-Élisabeth, whose engagement was being negotiated, her twin Madame Henriette, and six-year-old Madame Troisième, later Madame Adélaïde), the princesses were thus sent to a convent. The Queen opposed the decision, but she was too afraid of her husband and his powerful minister to challenge it.
Childhood at Fontevraud Abbey Louise was not yet one year old when, on 16 June 1738, she was sent to far-away Fontevraud Abbey with her three elder sisters: five-year-old Victoire, four-year-old Sophie, and two-year-old Thérèse (known as Madame Quatrième, Madame Cinquième, and Madame Sixième, as they had not yet been baptised). Louis XV was away at Rambouillet for a day of hunting; his emotional reaction to the separation from his daughters is unknown. Louise shared a carriage with one of their sous-gouvernantes, and two chambermaids. They were followed by eight coaches, two chaises, twenty wagons of luggage, and members of the royal bodyguard. Louise's wet nurse, Madame Hoppen, accompanied her. The total retinue of the four girls consisted of 120 people and 200 horses. Civilians along the way were obligated to provide lodging and necessities.
The sisters arrived in Fontevraud on 28 June amidst a cheering crowd, received by a guard of honour of local gendarms. A feast was held for more than two hundred guests, with illuminations and fireworks. The next day, Madame de La Lande returned to Versailles and responsibility for the princesses was handed over to the abbess, Louise Françoise de Rochechouart de Mortemart. In late 1739, renovations started on a building known as the Logis-Bourbon (“Bourbon residence”) near the abbey, built by Éléonore de Bourbon, aunt of King Henry IV. It was extended with a new wing and a private chapel for the princesses, but they could only move there in 1741.
For three years during the renovations, Victoire and Sophie lived in the abbess' apartment and Thérèse and Louise in a neighbouring, badly maintained house. The poor living conditions may have contributed to a serious illness Sophie, Thérèse, and Louise suffered in late 1738. The youngest was so ill that the abbess ordered her baptism on 20 December, which is when she received the name Louise Marie. The cermony took place in the local parish , and the sick girl was placed under the Virgin Mary's special protection, dedicated to wear white for a year. The Queen remarked on the illness in a personal letter, identifying it as dysentery, adding that “one has but pains in this cruel world, but thank God, we are not made to stay here”. As an adult, Louise remained fond of the church where she had been christened, received her first communion, and was confirmed, and where she and her sisters celebrated Easter every year (ordinarily, they heard mass in their private chapel). In 1755, the princesses donated a painting of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child to the church.
The princesses were raised primarily by two nuns, Sister Mac Carthy and Sister Françoise Paris de Soulange, the latter being the most beloved by them. They were also each assigned one nun as a personal gouvernante. Sometimes, they were subjected to harsh punishments, such as being shut into a burial crypt alone, which caused Madame Victoire to suffer from lifelong panic attacks. They were never visited by any of their relatives, including their parents.
Three teachers are known to have been appointed for the girls at Fontevraud: Abbot Piers, a legal scholar, who, however, died in November 1738; Monsieur de Caix, one of the royal musicians; and a dancing master. The memoirs of Madame Campan claim that by the age of twelve, Louise had not yet learnt the alphabet fully, which her biographer Stryenski dismisses based on the existence of her signatures from the time. She was considered intelligent from a young age and she enjoyed mocking others and herself (as did her father and her brother).
In September 1744, the sister closest to her in age, Thérèse, died of smallpox. In September 1747, the King commissioned paintings by Jean-Marc Nattier of the three surviving girls as a surprise for his wife. Commenting on the painting, the Queen said that she had “never seen anything so pleasant as [Louise]: her face is heart-warming and very far removed from sadness; [she had] not seen one so singular; [Louise] is moving, gentle, and spiritual”. As a child, she was also haughty and expected special treatment and courtly etiquette from the nuns. According to anecdotes, she demanded that people rise when she entered a room or when she drank, commanding,“Stand, ladies! Louise drinks.” The Abbess, Madame de Soulanges, responded, “Remain seated!” When a maid did not behave humbly enough in her presence, young Louise asked, “Am I not the daughter of your king?”. The woman replied, apparently upon the instruction of Madame de Soulanges, “And I, madam, am I not the daughter of your God?” Louise and her friends later credited the nuns with curbing her pride and teaching her a humble religious outlook.
As a child, Louise was afraid that she was unworthy of God's love, and felt fearful because of her first communion, wondering if she was ready for it. The ceremony nevertheless took place on 21 November 1748, the feast of Candlemas, when she was twelve. Louise went on to cherish the memory of this religious union with God, as she described in her Eucharistic Meditations: “I longed for nothing more than the moment of receiving you [God] there [in the sacrament]”.
During her time in Fontevraud, Louise might have had an accident: waiting for her chambermaid in the morning, she climbed on the railings of her bed and fell down. Whatever the cause, at some point, she developed a “hump” (as she called it). She perhaps inherited the congenital scoliosis running in the Bourbon family. Throughout her childhood, her health was frail.
In 1748, when Louise, aged eleven, was still in Fontevraud, rumors began to circulate that her father intended her to marry Prince Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the throne of England. Louise then declared, "I do not worry about being good for a husband, I, who desire no other than Jesus Christ".
Adulthood in Versailles