Louis, Dauphin of France (1729-1765)
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Louis, Dauphin of France (Louis-Ferdinand de France) (4 September 1729 – 20 December 1765), was the eldest and only surviving son of King Louis XV of France and his wife, Queen Marie Leszczyńska.
Louis-Ferdinand was born at the Palace of Versailles. The birth of an heir to the throne had long been awaited since the tragic decimation of the French royal family in the early 1710s (see Louis XV of France). When the fourth pregnancy of Marie Leszczyńska resulted in a son in 1729, there was great rejoicing and celebrations complete with fireworks (memorialized in engravings) in all the major cities of France, and indeed in most European courts. For the first time in fifteen years, the future of the dynasty seemed assured. As the heir apparent to the throne of France, he was given the traditional title of Dauphin.
[edit] Adulthood and marriages
In 1745, at sixteen years old, Louis-Ferdinand was married to the first cousin of his father, the nineteen year old infanta Maria Teresa of Spain, the daughter of King Philip V of Spain and his Italian wife, Elisabeth of Parma. This marriage followed a tradition of cementing military and political alliances between the Catholic powers of France and Spain with royal marriages. The tradition went back to the marriage of King Philip II of Spain with the French princess, Elisabeth of Valois, the daughter of King Henry II of France, in 1559 as part of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis.
Like his father before him, the sixteen year old dauphin was instructed to impregnate his wife immediately and produce as many heirs to the throne as possible. However, the frail and delicate Maria Teresa died on July 22, 1746, shortly after giving birth to her first and only child, Princess Marie-Thérèse of France (July 19, 1746 - April 27, 1748). Louis was not yet seventeen, but there was great pressure on King Louis XV to find a new wife for his son.
An eighteen year old Louis-Ferdinand remarried in 1747 Princess Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the sixteen year old younger daughter of Frederick Augustus II, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and his wife, the Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria. Marie-Josèphe eventually gave birth to three kings of France.
Louis-Ferdinand was rather plump, but well educated and not dim-witted in the least. A man of study, cultivated and lover of music, he preferred the pleasures of conversation to those of hunting, balls, or spectacles. With a keen sense of morality, he was very much committed to his wife, Marie-Josèphe, as she was to him. Very devout, he was a fervent supporter of the Jesuits, like his very Catholic mother and sisters, and was led by them to worship the Sacred Heart. He appeared in the eyes of his sisters as the ideal of the Christian prince, in sharp contrast with their royal father who was a notorious womanizer.
Kept away from government affairs by his father, Louis was at the center of the Dévots, a group of religiously-minded men who hoped to gain power with the dauphin's accession to the throne.
Louis-Ferdinand died of consumption at Fontainebleau in 1765 at the age of 36, while his father was still alive, thus never becoming king of France. His mother, Queen Marie Leszczyńska, and maternal grandfather, Stanisław Leszczyński, the Duke of Lorraine, also survived him. His eldest surviving son, Louis-Auguste, Duc de Berry, became the new dauphin, and later ascended the throne as Louis XVI at the death of Louis XV.
[edit] Children
Louis-Ferdinand married Maria Teresa of Spain (11 June 1726 – 22 July 1746) and they had a daughter:
He married secondly Marie-Josèphe of Saxony (4 November 1731 – 13 March 1767) on 9 February 1747 and they had eight children:
- Marie-Zéphyrine (26 August 1750–1 September 1755).
- Louis, Duc de Bourgogne (13 September 1751–22 March 1761).
- Xavier, Duc de Guyenne (8 September 1753–22 February 1754).
- Louis-Auguste, Duc de Berry, the future king Louis XVI (23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) (guillotined).
- Louis-Stanislas, Comte de Provence, the future king Louis XVIII (17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824).
- Charles-Philippe, Comte d'Artois, the future king Charles X (9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836).
- Marie-Clotilde (23 September 1759 – 7 March 1802), married King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia, Prince of Piedmont.
- Élisabeth-Philippine (3 May 1764 – 10 May 1794), known as Madame Élisabeth (guillotined).
[edit] External link
- De la Tour's pastels at the Musée l'Écuyer, Saint-Quentin, (in French) the pastel illustrated above described as a study for one of four portraits De la Tour made of the Dauphin (according to a letter of the Marquis de Marigny), of which the only known survivor, at the Louvre is dated 1748. The curators at the Musée l'Écuyer consider the study above to have served perhaps for the first of these portraits, that of 1745.
| House of Bourbon Cadet Branch of the Capetian dynasty Born: 4 September 1729 Died: 20 December 1765 |
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| Preceded by Louis |
Dauphin of France 4 September 1729–20 December 1765 |
Succeeded by Louis-Auguste |
