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Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conti
Portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier as Hebe.
Born	(1726-06-20)June 20, 1726 Paris, France
Died	February 9, 1759(1759-02-09) (aged 32) Palais Royal, Paris, France
Spouse(s)	Louis Philippe I d'Orléans, duc d'Orléans
Children	1 Daughter 2 Louis Philippe II d'Orléans, duc d'Orléans 3 Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans.
Parent(s)	Louis Armand II de Bourbon-Conti, prince de Conti, Louise-Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé

Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conti, duchesse d'Orléans, (Paris June 20 1726 - Paris February 9, 1759), was a French princess.

Life

She was a daughter of Louis Armand II de Bourbon, prince de Conti and Louise-Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé. Her mother was a daughter of Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, the eldest illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.

As such, she was a Princesse du Sang. In her youth, she was known at the Royal court as Mademoiselle de Conti. She was one of two children of her unhappy parents. She had an older brother:

• Louis François I de Bourbon-Conti (August 13, 1717 – August 2, 1776)
  • He was later the prince de Conti. He married his cousin, Louise Diane d'Orléans.

Marriage

She married a cousin, the duc de Chartres, on December 17, 1743 at the Palace of Versailles. The pious father of the groom, Louis d'Orléans, the duc d'Orléans, had a lot of difficulties in finding a suitable wife for his son, and accepted the not so glorious background of Louise Henriette believing that the girl was a model of Christian virtues, having been raised in a convent. This judgment turned out to be a mistake. Louise Henriette caused a lot of scandal during her marriage.

The unhappy marriage produced three children :

• A girl (1745 - 1745)
• Louis Philippe,d'Orléans duc de Chartres (1747–1793),
  • Succeeded his father as Duc d'Orléans in 1785. During the French Revolution, he became better known as Philippe-Égalité;
• Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans (1750–1822),
  • Married Louis de Bourbon-Condé, the last prince de Condé.

Later Life

Her son, Philippe-Égalité, claimed publicly during the Revolution that his real father wasn't his mother's husband at all, but was instead a coachman at the Palais Royal. This wasn't very probable, considering the striking resemblance between father and son.

Louise Henriette died young in 1759 at the Palais Royal, the city residence of the House of Orléans. It was said that she died as a consequence of her notorious debaucheries.

Gallery

Ancestry

Titles

• House of Bourbon-Conti
• Natural Descendants of Louis XIV
• 1726 births
• Dukes of Étampes
• 1759 deaths
• Duchesses of Orléans