http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226534928/?tag=2022091-20
2002
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0282207031/?tag=2022091-20
2017
leader military writer Noblewoman
Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans was born on May 29, 1627, at the Palais du Louvre, in Paris. She was known as Mademoiselle because her father, Gaston de France, Duke d’Orléans and uncle of Louis XIV, had the designation of Monsieur. From her mother, Marie de Bourbon-Montpensier, she inherited a huge fortune, including Eu and Dombes as well as Montpensier.
Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans grew up under the care of Madame de Saint-Gerges, who thought her how to read and write.
One of the first challenges to young Anne Marie Louis was the Wars of the Fronde, a series of revolts by some of the nobility against the power of the royal house. Anne Marie was quickly favorable to the Fronde but did not commit herself until 1651. Her father was an eternal plotter but also eternally indecisive, often leaving his daughter to act as head of the family. In March 1652 the twenty-five-year-old Anne Marie rushed to the defense of Orleans (part of her father's holdings), which was threatened by the royal army. Accompanied by her female "camp marshals," she roused the troops to action. But the people of Orleans refused to open the gates to her, fearing violent reprisals if they allowed her to enter the city with her army. She, therefore, used small boats and then a ladder to climb to the top of a barred gate that then had to be broken through. She was then welcomed in triumph. A month later she left for Paris, with Orleans firmly under her family's control.
A few months later, during the famous Battle of the Faubourg Saint-Germain (2 July 1652), she led a contingent of troops into Paris itself. The rumor spread that Anne Marie personally fired a cannon against Louis XIV. In reality, after having aimed the cannon of the Bastille in the right direction, she contented herself with giving the order to fire on the royal army. Her actions helped save the rebellious prince of Conde (hero of the Battle of Rocroi) by making it possible for him to enter Paris. The leader of the opposing royal army was the great general Turenne (who had joined the king after having followed Madame de Longueville for a while). As for Louis XIV, he watched the operations from the nearby heights.
At the end of the Fronde, while waiting to obtain a pardon from the king, Anne Marie returned to her lands. There she began to compose her Memoirs, in which she narrated in detail her participation during the troubled years.
Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans was known as the richest woman in Europe. She was a woman determined to control her own life and fortune.
La Grande Mademoiselle was also a writer of considerable ability; she brings to her memoirs the unique double perspective of a woman and an insider, and they provide a rare portrait of aristocratic life during the most tumultuous and dazzling decades of the century.
After a belated unhappy love affair, Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans ended her days, like the duchesses of Chevreuse and Longueville before her, in religious devotion.
During the Fronde, a period of rebellion which began in 1648, Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans sided with her father against the monarchy and the creeping centralization of power overseen by Mazarin. On 2 July 1652, she even ordered her troops stationed at the Bastille fortress to open fire on the king’s soldiers. Thanks to this intervention the Prince of Condé, whom she hoped to marry, was saved. But her actions also incurred the wrath of the young king, and La Grande Mademoiselle was consigned to a long period of exile on her estate at Saint-Fargeau, in the Yonne region.
Quotations: "Greatness of birth and the advantages bestowed by wealth should provide all the elements of a happy life... yet there are many people who have had all these things and are not happy. The events of my own past would give me enough proof of this without looking for examples everywhere."
From a young age, Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans developed pride in her lineage that would in time come to be the dominating passion of her life and a decisive influence on her destiny.
Quotes from others about the person
"A woman commanded troops in the field in the Fronde," which was an example of "the responsibilities that a still half-feudal political order might throw on some women." - Richard Vann
To everyone’s amazement, Louis XIV, on December 15, 1670, consented to Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans’s plea for permission to marry a low-ranking gentleman, the Count de Lauzun, a captain in the king’s bodyguard. Louis then retracted under pressure from outraged advisers and had Lauzun imprisoned. Anne Marie Louise finally obtained Lauzun’s release in 1680 and, in return, ceded much of her estate to Louis’s illegitimate son Louis-Auguste, Duke du Maine. She and Lauzun were married secretly in 1681 or 1682 but were unhappy together and separated in 1684. Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans did not have children.
On August 6, 1626, Gaston, Duke of Orléans, married Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier. They had a daughter, Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier.
Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier, was a French noblewoman and one of the last members of the House of Bourbon-Montpensier.
Antoine Nompar de Caumont, duc de Lauzun, was a French courtier and soldier.
Louis XIII was King of France from 1610 to 1643 and King of Navarre from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown. Shortly before his ninth birthday, Louis became king of France and Navarre after his father Henry IV was assassinated.
