Maria Fortunata d'Este
Encyclopedia
Maria Fortunata d'Este was a Modenese
Duchy of Modena and Reggio
The Duchy of Modena and Reggio |Italian]] state that existed from 1452 to 1859, with a break between 1796 and 1814. It was ruled by the noble House of Este, from 1814 Austria-Este.-House of Este:...

 princess by birth and a princess of the blood of France
Prince du Sang
A prince of the blood was a person who was legitimately descended in the male line from the monarch of a country. In France, the rank of prince du sang was the highest held at court after the immediate family of the king during the ancien régime and the Bourbon Restoration...

by marriage. By her marriage to a second cousin Louis François Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, she became the Countess of La Marche and later the Princess of Conti and was a member of the French court of Louis XV and Louis XVI. She was the last Princess of Conti and died without issue.

Biography

She was born at the Ducal Palace of Modena
Ducal Palace of Modena
The Ducal Palace of Modena is a Baroque palace in Modena, Italy. It was the residence of the Este Dukes of Modena between 1452 and 1859. It currently houses a portion of the Italian Military Academy.-History:...

, the fourth daughter and eighth child of Francesco III d'Este, Duke of Modena, the Sovereign Duke of Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....

 and his young wife Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans, Mademoiselle de Valois
Mademoiselle de Valois
Mademoiselle de Valois may refer to one of the following:*Françoise Madeleine d'Orléans daughter of Gaston, Duke of Orléans and Marguerite of Lorraine...

— granddaughter of Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 and Madame de Montespan. Her older sister Maria Teresa was her eldest surviving sibling followed by her brother the future Ercole III d'Este, Duke of Modena
Ercole III d'Este, Duke of Modena
Ercole III d'Este was Duke of Modena and Reggio from 1780 to 1796. He was a member of the House of Este.-Biography:...

. The rest of her siblings would die unmarried.

Maria Fortunata was known to have been very pious and at the same time rather timid but charming. Her mother separated from her father in the 1740s after an affair with the Duke of Richelieu was discovered at the Modenese court. Exiled to France, Charlotte Aglaé still managed to help arrange the marriages of two of her daughters. The eldest Maria Teresa Felicitas
Maria Teresa d'Este
Maria Teresa Felicitas d'Este was born a Princess of Modena and was by marriage the Duchess of Penthièvre. She was the mother-in-law of Philippe Égalité and thus the grandmother to the future Louis-Philippe of France.-Life:...

 married her second cousin, the Duke of Penthièvre, the wealthiest man in France and the future in laws of Philippe Égalité. Maria Fortunata also married a cousin, Louis François Joseph de Bourbon, the heir to the Prince of Conti.

Marriage

As the heir of his father, her husband was known by the courtesy title of comte de La Marche at court. The marriage contract was signed in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 on 3 January 1759 by the French ambassador to the court of Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

. A wedding by proxy took place in Milan on 7 February of the same year. It was celebrated in person on the 27th of February at Nangis-en-Brie in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. Maria Fortunata's father settled upon her a dowry of one million livres. In addition, upon her arrival in France, her husband was given a gift of 150,000 livres from King Louis XV
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

. The young comtesse de La Marche was presented to the King, the Queen and the rest of the royal family on 5 March 1759 by the Dowager Princess of Conti, her husbands widowed grandmother as well as her mothers own first cousin. The couple did not get along and never had any children. Many at court said this state of affairs was due to the influence of her husband's mistress, Marie Anne Véronèse
Marie Anne Véronèse
Maria Anna Veronese , was an Italian-French actress, active at the Comédie-Italienne in Paris.Veronese was the daughter of the Italian Pantalone-actor Carlo Veronese and the sister of the actress Giacoma Antonia Veronese . She debuted with her sister at the Comédie-Italienne in Paris in 1744...

, known as Mademoiselle Coraline. Véronèse had been a dancer at an Italian theatre. Louis François and his mistress had two illegitimate children together, born in 1761 and 1767. In 1768, Maria Fortunata was asked to present her niece Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon
Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon
Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans, , was the daughter of Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre and of Princess Maria Theresa Felicitas of Modena. At the death of her brother, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, prince de Lamballe, she became the wealthiest heiress in France...

, Mademoiselle de Penthièvre, to the King and the court. Her niece would eventually marry Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans
Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans commonly known as Philippe, was a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, the ruling dynasty of France. He actively supported the French Revolution and adopted the name Philippe Égalité, but was nonetheless guillotined during the Reign of Terror...

, Duke of Chartres
Duke of Chartres
Originally, the Duchy of Chartres was the comté de Chartres, an Earldom. The title of comte de Chartres thus became duc de Chartres. This duchy–peerage was given by Louis XIV of France to his nephew, Philippe II d'Orléans, at his birth in 1674...

, the future Philipe Égalité, in April 1769.

In 1770, the marriage of the Dauphin of France
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....

, the future Louis XVI, and the Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....

 took place. Marie Fortunée, as she was known in France, and her husband were one of twelve couples invited to dine with the newlyweds in the Opéra of the Palace of Versailles
L'Opéra of the Palace of Versailles
The Opéra Royal de Versailles ' is the main theatre and opera house of the Palace of Versailles. Designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, with interior decoration by Augustin Pajou, the Opéra was constructed entirely of wood and painted to resemble marble in a technique known as faux marble.The house is...

, which had been constructed for the royal wedding.

Princess of Conti

In 1776, Marie Fortunée's father-in-law died making her husband the head of the House of Conti. Pious, discreet and very cultured, Marie Fortunée was not destined to be part of the new Queen's inner circle at Versailles. She maintained very good relations with her brother-in-law, the Duke of Penthièvre, who had lost his wife in 1754. She also got on well with her two nieces, the Princess of Lamballe
Princess Marie Louise of Savoy
Maria Luisa of Savoy was a member of the House of Savoy. She was married at the age of 16 to Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Prince de Lamballe, the heir to the greatest fortune in France. After her marriage, which lasted a year, she went to court and became the confidante of Queen Marie Antoinette...

 and the future Duchess of Orléans
Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon
Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans, , was the daughter of Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre and of Princess Maria Theresa Felicitas of Modena. At the death of her brother, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, prince de Lamballe, she became the wealthiest heiress in France...

.

While at the French court, in 1784 she met Gustav III of Sweden
Gustav III of Sweden
Gustav III was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Adolph Frederick and Queen Louise Ulrica of Sweden, she a sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia....

, styled incognito as the Count of Haga who was a guest at he Hôtel de Toulouse
Hôtel de Toulouse
The Hôtel de Toulouse, former Hôtel de La Vrillière, situated 1 rue de La Vrillière, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, was built between 1635 and 1640 by François Mansart, for Louis Phélypeaux, seigneur de La Vrillière....

 and later on she met Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of Frederick the Great
Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

. She also met her niece Maria Beatrice d'Este and her husband Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in 1786. The latter pair were styled as the Count and Countess of Nettembourg. Ferdinand was a son of Empress Maria Theresa.

Exile

The Conti couple officially separated in 1777 even though they had lived apart since 1775. In 1780, Marie Fortunée acquired the Château
Château
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...

 de Triel, a place which would become her favourite haunt. During the crisis of 1789, when the Estates General
Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the French Estates-General, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the nobility, the Church, and the common people...

 was called at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...

, Marie Fortunée supported the royal family and even took part in a march to the Church of Saint Louis. She later escaped revolutionary France under the name of the comtesse de Triel. After first taking refuge in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, Marie Fortunée eventually settled in Chambéry
Chambéry
Chambéry is a city in the department of Savoie, located in the Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France.It is the capital of the department and has been the historical capital of the Savoy region since the 13th century, when Amadeus V of Savoy made the city his seat of power.-Geography:Chambéry...

, then a part of the Kingdom
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

 of Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

. In 1791, she moved again, this time to Fribourg
Fribourg
Fribourg is the capital of the Swiss canton of Fribourg and the district of Sarine. It is located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss plateau, and is an important economic, administrative and educational center on the cultural border between German and French Switzerland...

 which was a small village in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 known for its large settlement of émigrés. The town also had strong religious ties, another attraction for the pious princess.

In 1794, she let her great-niece Adélaïde d'Orléans stay with her after her escape from France. Adélaïde's mother, the duchesse d'Orléans, had been imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace
Luxembourg Palace
The Luxembourg Palace in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, north of the Luxembourg Garden , is the seat of the French Senate.The formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children sail model...

 in Paris. The elderly Marie Fortunée and Adélaïde d'Orléans set up a new home in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

. During the spring of 1800, the pair and their household were forced to flee again to Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 in oder to avoid the hostilities of Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

. It was while in Hungary that she received another visit from her niece, Maria Beatrice. The princess was the heiress of Marie Fortunée's elder brother, who had lost the duchies of Modena and Reggio in 1796 as a result of the Napoleonic creation of the Cispadane Republic
Cispadane Republic
The Cispadane Republic was a short-lived republic located in Northern Italy, founded in 1796 with the protection of the French army, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. In the following year, it was merged into the Cisalpine Republic....

.

Death

1801 saw the reunion of Adélaïde d'Orléans and her mother, the now dowager Duchess of Orléans, in Barcelona after her release from prison and exile from France. Later, Marie Fortunée decided to retire to the Convent of the Visitation in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. She moved to the convent on 19 October with three of her maids and her faithful friend, the comtesse des Roches, who had accompanied the princess all throughout her exile in Europe. A victim of pleurisy
Pleurisy
Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy....

, the princess died on 21 September 1803 at the age of seventy-one. She was buried in the chapel of the convent. Her brother, Ercole III of Modena
Ercole III d'Este, Duke of Modena
Ercole III d'Este was Duke of Modena and Reggio from 1780 to 1796. He was a member of the House of Este.-Biography:...

, and her sister, Matilda d'Este, are also buried there.

The comtesse des Roches died some time after Marie Fortunée and was also buried there. Marie Fortunée's husband died in 1814.

Ancestry



Titles and styles

  • 24 November 1731 – 7 February 1759 Her Highness Maria Fortunata d'Este, Princess of Modena
  • 7 February 1759 – 2 August 1776 Her Serene Highness the Countess of La Marche
  • 2 August 1776 – 21 September 1803 Her Serene Highness the Princess of Conti

See also

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