Louis the Enlightened

[FONT=&quot]LOUIS L’ÉCLAIRÉ[/FONT]​
[FONT=&quot]The Life of Louis XVI of France[/FONT]

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Author's Note
This is loosely based on an earlier (and unfinished) timeline I started some years back on a surviving Duc de Bourgogne, which can be found here. Sometime later, I considered a re-write in the form of a personal biography, which was discussed here. Until now, however, I wasn't able to get around to finally starting a draft. This concept is based on the POD that Louis de France, Duc de Bourgogne (the elder brother of the Louis XVI of OTL) does not fall from a toy horse and die at the age of nine, but instead survives to adulthood, becoming King of France.

This timeline will be updated irregularly for now, but please, subscribe if you happen to enjoy it and I will continue to provide entries as I am able.
And of course, feel free to comment, discuss and assist.

Amitiés,

Endymion

 
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I
Mon Chou d'Amour

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Le duc de Bourgogne, by Jean-March Nattier, 1755.
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‘...The good of God has willed that I should survive him for whom I would have gladly given a thousand lives. Mon chou d’amour is all that remains for me in this world. Without him I fear that I would swiftly rejoin my husband in heaven, for there is no one else, not even maman, who could be of such comfort to me now. He remains always at my side in this terrible time and he resembles his father so much that I thank God everyday for sending him to me. It is mon chou d’amour, who is head of this family now and we all look to him to lead us through the darkness that now covers everything in the absence of dearest papa.’ [/FONT]
--The Dauphine Marie-Josèphe in a letter to her brother, Franz Xavier von Sachsen, December 29, 1765.

The Dauphin Louis-Ferdinand had married Maria Josepha von Sachsen (thereafter known in her husband’s country as ‘Marie-Josèphe’) in 1747. At the time, he was seventeen and already a widower, still grieving for his wife, the Infanta María Teresa Rafaela, who had died the previous year giving birth to a short lived daughter. A well educated and somewhat melancholy man, the dauphin formed a stark contrast to his extravagant father, King Louis XV., preferring conversation, music and religious devotion to hunting, balls and the theatre. The new dauphine, by contrast, was naturally agreeable and vivacious, although also gentle and pious. She was almost at once rejected by the dauphin, who treated her coldly and continued to revere the memory of his lost infanta. Being the daughter of August III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, she was also disliked by the queen, Marie Leczinska, whose own father, King Stanisław Leszczyński, had been deposed by the elector during the War of Polish Succession in 1733. Despite this difficult start, Marie-Josèphe was able to win the affection of her new husband and in-laws, moderating her lively disposition and comforting the mourning dauphin with their shared piety; within a year the marriage had thus blossomed into a rare love match.

Shut out of politics by his father (with whom his relationship had been strained for some years), the dauphin, together with his mother and five unmarried sisters (collectively known as the Mesdames), formed the centre of the dévots, opposing the king’s influential mistress, the marquise de Pompadour, and her various protégées. The couple thus eschewed the excesses of the court and instead settled into a relatively quiet life of domesticity within their apartments on the ground floor of Versailles, which overlooked the famed orangerie of Louis XIV. Sadly, the dauphine’s first two pregnancies ended in miscarriage and the third resulted in a daughter, known as Madame Royale, who died just after her fifth birthday. Thus, when it was announced in early 1751 that Marie Josèphe was again pregnant, there was a great deal of excitement at court. The dauphin was the only surviving son of the king, who himself had no brothers. By the laws and customs of the Kingdom of France, the throne was vested solely in the princes of the male line of Saint Louis IX., of which the Bourbons were the last extant descendants. The need for a male heir was thus imperative.

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[FONT=&quot]King Louis XV and Queen Marie Leczinska.
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In the early evening of the 12th of September 1751, the dauphine rang the bell in her chamber, signifying the beginning of her douleurs. The duchesse de Brancas, who as the dauphine’s dame d’honneur had the right to be informed immediately of her mistress’ labour pains, escorted her to the chambre de la reine, which had been previously prepared as a birthing chamber during the dauphine’s accouchement [1]. At Versailles a rigid etiquette surrounded even the most mundane of activities and nowhere was this considered more vital than the birth of a Child of France. Madame de Brancas thus proceeded to personally deliver the news of the dauphine’s labour to the members of the royal family and the Princes of the Blood—another of the many privileges associated with her office. Within several hours, the dauphine was surrounded in the birthing chamber by not only her husband, the king, the queen and the Mesdames, but also the Princes of the Blood (such as the families of the duc d’Orléans and the prince de Condé), the Maine and Penthièvre clans (descended from the legitimised sons of Louis XIV.), the Peers of France and those few other courtiers who possessed the honour to be directly present at the dauphine’s side, such as Madame de Brancas and the duchesse de Tallard, the governess of the Children of France. The scene could not have been a particularly comforting or relaxing one, for in the grand cabinet just outside the doors of the room (which had been left open as a matter of custom) there awaited a noisy assembly of all those courtiers who held the coveted Rights of Entry, along with the members of the households of the dauphine, the king, the queen and the dauphin. The rest of the court waited impatiently for news in the adjacent galleries, such as the antichambre and the salle des gardes, at various times rushing and crowding around the doors of the grande appartement. Despite these distractions, the labour proved rather easy and the baby was born just after one o’clock in the morning on the 13th of September, at which exact time those aforementioned courtiers waiting in the grand cabinet were allowed as a matter of custom to rush into the chambre de la reine and serve as improvised witnesses to the birth of the child.[/FONT]

It was a boy.

The infant was immediately presented with the cordon bleu of the Saint Esprit and the black ribbon of the Order of Saint Michel and afterward handed over to Madame de Tallard, whose privilege it was to present him to the waiting courtiers in the outer salons. The birth was greeted by such customary feats as a feu de joie of a hundred-and-one cannon, a Te Deum service in the Royal Chapel, public fireworks and the distribution of commemorative medals marking the occasion, along with many other entertainments held in the course of the succeeding week by the king. The newborn was privately baptised without a name the following afternoon in the cabinet de la dauphine by the Grand-Aumônier of France, Cardinal de Soubise. By the decision of King Louis, the boy was styled by courtesy as the ‘Monsieur le duc de Bourgogne’, the traditional title of the eldest son of a dauphin, and this would serve as his name until his formal baptism some ten years later [2].

Madame de Tallard’s service as governess would be brief and she would die just three years after his birth, her post being inherited by her niece, the comtesse de Marsan. In a time when the children of the aristocracy saw very little of their parents, it was Madame de Marsan who was in every sense of the word the maternal figure of the duke’s early life. Accordingly, she lavished the majority of her attentions on the boy, whom she called her propre petit roi for his tendency to rule over his siblings; it was she who took care of him, dressed him and comforted him, shaping his earliest development. Bourgogne was soon joined in the royal nursery in quick succession by the duc d’Aquitaine in 1753 (who died the following year), the duc de Berry in 1754, the comte de Provence in 1755, the comte d’Artois in 1757 and two sisters, Mesdames Clotilde and Élisabeth, in 1759 and 1764 respectively. In appearance, Bourgogne grew to take after his Bourbon forbearers more than any of his brothers (save perhaps Artois), sharing the dashing good looks and tall, lithe frame of the king—though like all of the dauphin’s children (with the exception of Berry), he would also inherit the handsome dark eyes of his Polish grandmother. In character he was known to be a precocious and determined child, if also somewhat haughty and conscious of his dignity; that famed literary gazette, La Mercure de France, which reported eagerly on the duke’s development throughout his early years, noted in 1755 that Bourgogne ‘had an admirable firmness for one of such tender years’ and also ‘a decided taste for arms’. The duke was the undisputed favourite of his parents, who showered the boy with their affections and admiration, almost to the total exclusion of his siblings; this was especially true of the dauphine, who referred to her eldest son exclusively by the pet name of mon chou d’amour.

Upon attaining his seventh birthday in 1758, the duc de Bourgogne ‘passed into the care of men’ as was the custom amongst boys of the aristocracy. The duke thus exchanged the gowns and bonnets of infancy for the breeches and diamond buckled shoes of adulthood. His first proper household was also established at this time, consisting of some thirty persons, including six menins, or gentilshommes de la manche of his own age to serve as companions, three valets de chambre, three garçons de garde robe and a private chaplain. As his son’s governor, the dauphin selected the duc de La Vauguyon, his personal friend and a former menin of his own childhood establishment; this man, as Governor of the Sons of France, would be responsible for his upbringing and education from henceforth. Over the course of the next few years, Berry, Provence and Artois would also join their brother in his new household, sharing in his instruction. La Vauguyon, however, despite the confidence of the dauphin, was ill equipped for his task. A pious man of dévot sympathies, La Vauguyon was primarily a career soldier; though brave and virtuous, he was also vain and narrow-minded, distrusting not only his former enemies, the British and the Austrians, but also the rationalism of the encyclopédistes and the other lumières. The duc de La Vauguyon concentrated the majority of his efforts on moulding Bourgogne into an accomplished general and a strong willed prince, seeking to correct the indecision that plagued his grandfather’s reign.

In their daily upbringing, the dauphin’s sons were largely left to their own devices by their handlers. The majority of the servants of the household of the Sons of France were chosen purely on the bases of royal favour and family connexions. These men, mostly courtiers occupied with their own advancement, ensured that the boys’ childhood was occupied by a curious environment of fawning adulation and benign neglect. Each responded differently to this arrangement; Bourgogne, naturally independent and aware of his importance, was able to thrive; so too was Provence, whose charm and wit served him well in gaining the attention of his peers. Berry and Artois, however, were not so fortunate; the former became increasingly reserved and he was often the subject of ridicule by the court for his interest in rustic pursuits; Artois, in turn, occupied himself with both personal extravagance and womanising.

The duc de Bourgogne was fortunate, however, in that his father took a eager interest in his children’s education. The dauphin personally selected his sons’ tutors and supervised their lessons, examining the boys’ progress every Wednesday and Saturday in his apartments. Special attention was paid to Bourgogne, who Louis-Ferdinand was happy to report to his confessor in 1763, ‘Bourgogne has all the makings of an accomplished prince; just yesterday, we discussed Plato and Aristotle in my cabinet for three hours and I must confess that for a time I quite forgot that he was not my companion in letters, but rather my son.’ The post of Bourgogne’s chief preceptor went to Monseigneur de Coëtlosquet, formerly Bishop of Limoges, though he was chosen more for his modesty and dévot sympathies than his intellectual abilities. Thus it was the deputy preceptor, the abbé de Radonvilliers, who was charged with the daily education of the duke and his brothers. The abbé was, to quote the Prussian chargé d’affaires, ‘a learned man of subtle and shrewd understanding’; he was also an historian of some accomplishment, a keen linguist and, perhaps most importantly of all to the dauphin, a Jesuit. Under the careful tutelage of Radonvilliers, Bourgogne received a sound education in the classics, diplomacy, history, logic and mathematics, as well as instruction in geography, law, physics, rhetoric and theology; by the time that he was fourteen, the duke was also fluent in Italian, Latin and Spanish, with an understanding of German and Greek. Though the works of Hume and Montesquieu formed part of his son's lessons from the beginning, the dauphin forbid the inclusion of many of the compositions of the philosophes, whose impiety he distrusted. Despite the best efforts of his governor and tutors, however, Bourgogne was able to illicitly procure the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and d'Alembert and in his early adolescence fell under the influence of the encyclopédistes and the other philosophes. While these new sentiments were disliked by his parents, their intense favouritism for Bourgogne largely blinded them to the extent to which the duke had come under the sway of the philosophiques and as a result, they made no real effort to discourage him.

Bourgogne was formally baptised before the court by Cardinal de Soubise and made his first communion on the 18th of October 1761 in the Royal Chapel of Versailles, with the king and queen as his sponsors at the font. In this ceremony, he received the Christian names of ‘Louis-Joseph-Xavier’. The first of these was customary of all firstborn sons of the House of Bourbon since the seventeenth century and was in honour of the family’s revered ancestor and patron saint, King Louis IX. The additional inclusion of the names of ‘Joseph’ and ‘Xavier’ were selected to appropriately pay homage to the dauphin’s Guelph in-laws in Saxony. The duke’s siblings, Berry, Provence, Artois and the elder Madame were also christened in this ceremony, receiving the names of ‘Louis-Auguste’, ‘Louis-Stanislas-Xavier’ 'Charles-Philippe' and ‘Marie-Adélaïde-Clotilde-Xavière’ respectively.

Less than four years later, his father died.

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Monseigneur le Dauphin and Madame la Dauphine[FONT=&quot].
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The dauphin fell ill in the autumn of 1765 while the court was at the Château de Fontainebleau, having been suffering for some time from consumption. As his condition grew worse, the fact that the dauphin was dying could no longer be ignored. The rigid etiquette and court ceremonial of Versailles, however, could not be avoided, even in the most delicate of situations; a Son of France was born beneath the public gaze and died just as openly. The dauphin’s final confession was made to the abbé de Callet and the sacrament administered on the 9th of November, with the Archbishop of Reims, Monseigneur de La Roche-Aymon, saying mass in the crowded bedchamber while both the duc d’Orléans and the prince de Condé held the communion cloth; the devastated king could only kneel humbly in the doorway looking on. For weeks thereafter, the dauphin continued to waste away in agony, shutting himself off from most visitors save only his wife, his mother, his sisters and his confessor, the abbé de Callet, who were continually at his side. Throughout this time, the dauphin remained in the best humour that he could manage, tenderly assuring his family with the words, ‘I cannot tell you how glad I am to be the first to go; I shall be sorry to leave you, but I am well pleased not to be left behind all of you in the end.’ His final words to Bourgogne were no less sagely, ‘My son, one day you will be king. Do not be dazzled by the splendour of the throne to which you have been summoned, as so many others have before you, for it is accompanied by many formidable duties and perils. I thank God that in his infinite mercy I have been allowed a better soul than that. A sovereign ought to be delighted only with happiness he gives his subjects. Serve them always, but above all, serve God, who has called you to your station in his wisdom. As for the rest, have a care for your mother and your brothers and sisters, for they will soon be alone in this world without you.’ On the 20th of December 1765, the dauphin died in the arms of his wife, aged only thirty-six. The scene at his bedside was both pathetic and tragic, with the hysterical dauphine refusing to let go of her husband’s lifeless body. As court etiquette neither allowed any of those present from forcibly removing her nor allowed any of inferior rank from departing the room before her, the situation soon became rather awkward and it was only with the intervention of the queen and Madame Adélaïde a full hour later that the matter was resolved and Marie-Josèphe was coaxed into retiring.
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The death of his father left the fourteen year old duc de Bourgogne as the Dauphin of France and heir apparent of his grandfather. The reality of this situation, in all of its severity, is best illustrated in the events immediately surrounding the death of Louis-Ferdinand. As the frantic dauphine was being escorted from the bedchamber, Bourgogne stepped aside to allow his mother to leave. Her dame du palais, the Comtesse de Lorge, however, sensing a breach in etiquette, moved to block her exit. Reminding her mistress that her son now outranked her and must depart first, she bowed to Bourgogne and said rather timidly, 'Passez, Monseigneur le Dauphin.' The protocol of the court did not allow for sentimentality.

The court returned to Versailles soon after in full mourning and remained so for the next six months. Neither the queen nor the widowed dauphine would ever recover from the loss; the Mesdames grieved intensely for their brother, whom they had regarded as the perfect Christian prince. In accordance with his final wishes, the late dauphin’s body was entombed several weeks later in the Cathedral of Saint-Étienne at Sens; this was a deliberate snub to tradition, as the members of the royal family were customarily interred in the Basilica of Saint-Denis [3]. The dauphine, however, was denied even the closure of a public memorial, as the royal family was prohibited by custom from attending the funeral. The new dauphin was without delay presented with the white ribbon of the Order of Saint-Louis and moved into the apartments of his late father as a matter of procedure, a move that horrified the queen, who wrote to her father in Lorraine, ‘My poor grandson has been forced to sleep in the bed of his father before the dauphin’s body is even cold.’ Marie-Josèphe, whose own rooms at Versailles remained adjacent to those of her son, soon sank into a deep depression, clinging all the more intensely to her chou d’amour. The psychological impact that this had upon the young dauphin was obvious; any vestige of his childhood was now at an end and he essentially became a surrogate husband for his emotionally fragile mother, while all the hopes of France were thrust upon his shoulders. Even his siblings, who had before viewed him with alternating jealousy and adoration, now looked to him for guidance as the head of the family, faced with the absence of their father and the neglect of their grandfather.

This situation, however, did not last long. The dauphine, her spirit crushed by the loss of her husband and her health exhausted by the stresses of caring for him in his final days, soon fell ill with the very same wasting illness. While the court physicians did their best to assist the consumptive dowager, it was evident that even her son could now no longer provide any comfort to her; she had lost the will to live. After several weeks of prolonged agony and delirium, the dauphine finally expired at Versailles in the early afternoon of the 13th of March 1767, surrounded by all of her children and friends in the very same room where she had been first put to bed with her husband some twenty years before. She was just thirty-five and had survived her husband by less than fifteen months.

The Dauphin Louis-Joseph-Xavier was now an orphan, truly alone in the world.

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[1] The rigid etiquette of the court of Versailles demanded that all Children of France be born in this room and thus it had been lent to the dauphine for the occasion by her mother-in-law.

[2] It was custom amongst the French aristocracy to baptise children quite late, the dauphin having been baptised at the age of seven with his sisters and the youngest daughter of the late Régent having not been christened until the age of sixteen, just before her marriage.

[3] In the end, a compromise was reached with the dauphine and Louis-Ferdinand’s heart was removed and laid to rest in the royal necropolis.
 
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Great start. Very interesting idea and Im looking forward to see more and what that means for France and Europe.

I'm also fascinated by Maria Josepha and her siblings, especially her sisters who seem to have been quite strong and interesting women.

Keep up the great work.
 
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