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Princess 'Elisabeth Charlotte of Orléans', named ''Mademoiselle de Chartres'' (Saint-Cloud, September 13 1676 - Commercy, December 23 1744) was a French Royal Princess and Duchess of Lorraine.

Contents

Biography

Notes

Biography

Elisabeth Charlotte was the only daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (1640-1701), brother of King Louis XIV and his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine (1652-1722), daughter of Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine.
As a child she was described by her mother as 'so terribly wild' and 'rough as a boy'. ^[1]

Her mother had hopes to marry Élisabeth Charlotte to her widowed cousin, the Great Dauphin or even to his son Louis Duke de Bourgogne, but this was not to be.

She married on October 13 1698 in Fontainebleau Leopold, Duke of Lorraine (1679-1729), son of Charles V, Duke of Lorraine and Eleonora Maria Josefa of Austria.

They had 13 children :

★ Léopold (26 Aug 1699 - 2 April 1700)

★ Elisabeth Charlotte (21 Oct 1700 - 4 May 1711)

★ Louise Christine (13 Nov 1701 - 18 Nov 1701)

★ Marie Gabrièle Charlotte (30 Dec 1702 - 11 May 1711)

★ Louis (28 Jan 1704 - 10 May 1711)

★ Josepha Gabrièle (16 Feb 1705 - 25 Mar 1708)

★ Gabrièle Louise (4 Mar 1706 - 13 June 1710)

★ Léopold Clement Charles (25 April 1707 - 4 June 1723)

★ Francis Stephen (8 Dec 1708 - 18 Aug 1765), his successor, married Maria Theresa of Austria and became Holy Roman Emperor.

★ Eléonore (4 June 1710 - 28 July 1710)

★ Elisabeth Therese (15 Oct 1711 - 3 July 1741), married in 1737 Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia.

★ Charles Alexander Emmanuel (12 Dec 1712 - 4 July 1780), governor of the Austrian Netherlands and army commander.

★ Anne Charlotte (1714 - 1773), abbesse at Essen.
After the death of her husband, Elisabeth Charlotte ruled the Duchy until 1737 as regent under sometimes difficult circumstances, while her son had left Lorraine to make a "Tour of Europe".

Not being able to prevent her son to cede Lorraine to Stanisław Leszczyński, she had to leave the Duchy in 1737.

Her cousin, King Louis XV, (1710-1774) son-in-law of Stanisław Leszczyński, named her Duchess of Commercy.
As Mother of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, she was an ancestor of the entire 18th and 19th century Habsburg family, as they all descended from Francis I and Maria Theresa. Amongst them are Queen Marie Antoinette and Marie-Louise of Austria, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Notes

1. Antonia Fraser: ''Love and Louis XIV'', p.189