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Louis, le Grand Dauphin, only legitimate son of Louis XIV, remarried morganatically after the death of his first wife, to former Huguenot, the buxom Marie Émilie de Joly de Choin. There was a son born in 1695, but he died in 1697. But say that the child had survived or that there had been other kids (he married her in 1695, when she was 25, and died sixteen years later, when she would’ve been 43). How would these children have been regarded? They’re a touch better than royal bastards, since mom and dad were actually married (albeit in private). But the French succession also doesn’t acknowledge morganatic marriages AFAIK, which means that this/these kid(s) would have a claim to the throne in the event of the dauphine’s line dying out. The marriage was supposedly never recognized and she never received the title of dauphine or took part in court life, and yet, Mlle de Choin was regarded as much the dauphin’s wife as everyone ‘knew’ Madame de Maintenon was Louis XIV’s.


So how might the situation develop if the Dauphin has a surviving kid(s) by Mlle de Joly? What might the future of these children be?
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