Marguerite Louise d'Orléans
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Marguerite Louise d'Orleans (Blois, July 28 1645 - Paris, September 17 1721) was a cousin of Louis XIV and wife of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Marguerite Louise d'Orléans was a daughter of Gaston, Duke of Orléans and his second wife Marguerite of Lorraine. She spent her childhood during the Fronde in Blois, where Cardinal Mazarin had banned her father for his plotting with all parties concerned.
Marguerite, "beautiful as the day", was a candidate to marry her cousin Louis XIV, but it was Louise de La Vallière who grew up with Marguerite, who became his mistress.
Her marriage with Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany was also arranged by Mazarin and was finally concluded, after 3 years of negotiations, on June 20 1661. The marriage was not happy and the relationship with her mother-in-law Vittoria Della Rovere was awful. Marguerite asked for a separation and the permission to return to France. Probably upon his mothers' advice, Cosimo agreed to the separation: in 1674 Marguerite-Louise returned to Paris, taking up lodging, albeit episodically causing scandal, in the Benedictine monastery of Montmartre.
She died alone and forgotten, but rich after inheriting from her sister Elizabeth.
[edit] Children
Marguerite Louise d'Orléans had three children with her husband Cosimo III:
- Ferdinando (August 9, 1663 – October 31, 1713)
- Anna Maria Luisa (August 11, 1667 – February 18, 1743), who married (1691) Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine (1658–1716).
- Gian Gastone (May 24, 1671 – July 9, 1737), who succeeded his father as the last Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1723.
[edit] Sources
- James Cleugh: Die Medici. Macht und Glanz einer europäischen Familie. Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-155-4
- Otto Flake: Große Damen des Barock. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-596-22273-7de:Marguerite Louise d’Orléans
it:Marguerite-Louise d'Orleans ja:マルゲリータ・ルイーザ・ディ・ボルボーネ＝オルレアンス
