Marguerite Louise d'Orléans
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Marguerite Louise d'Orléans (July 28, 1645 – September 17, 1721) was a cousin of Louis XIV of France and wife of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Born at Blois, she was a daughter of Gaston, Duke of Orléans and his second wife Marguerite of Lorraine. A petite-fille de France (French: Granddaughter of France), 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 was brought up with Marguerite in the court of the duc d'Orléans, who became his mistress.
Mazarin arranged Marguerite's marriage to Cosimo III de' Medici; three years of negotiations were finally concluded on June 20, 1661. The marriage was an unhappy one, and Marguerite's relationship with her mother-in-law Vittoria Della Rovere was particularly awful. Marguerite asked for a separation and for permission to return to France. Probably upon his mother's 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 3-596-22273-7
