Anne Charlotte of Lorraine (17 May 1714 – 7 November 1773) was the
Abbess of Remiremont
Remiremont Abbey was an abbey that was founded as a house of nuns near Remiremont, Vosges, France. It later became a community of secular canonesses.
History
It was founded about 620 by Romaric (580–653), a lord at the court of Chlothar II, w ...
and
Mons. She was the thirteenth of fifteen children of
Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, and his spouse
Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans
Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans (13 September 1676 – 23 December 1744) was a ''petite-fille de France'', and Duchess of Lorraine and Bar by marriage to Leopold, Duke of Lorraine. She was regent of Lorraine and Bar during the minority (1729– ...
. Her mother was the niece of
Louis XIV of France
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of ...
and sister of
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (Philippe Charles; 2 August 1674 – 2 December 1723), was a French prince, soldier, and statesman who served as Regent of the Kingdom of France from 1715 to 1723. He is referred to in French as ''le Régent''. ...
and Regent of France during the minority of
Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...
.
Family
Anne Charlotte was born at the
Château de Lunéville because the Capital of Lorraine,
Nancy, was occupied by French troops of Louis XIV due to the
War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phil ...
. She was given her mother's name of Charlotte. At the time of her birth, she had three brothers and a sister alive:
Léopold Clément, born in 1707 and heir of the Duchy as the eldest surviving son;
Francis Stephen born in 1708;
Élisabeth Thérèse born in 1711; and then
Charles-Alexandre born in 1712. In 1718, her mother had a stillborn daughter in her last recorded pregnancy.
In 1719 the Château de Lunéville where Anne Charlotte was born was damaged greatly by a fire.
Anne Charlotte was seven and a half when she went to the French court of her maternal family, the Royal
House of Bourbon. She met her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Orléans, the ''
Princess Palatine'' for the first and last time; the occasion was for the coronation of
Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...
at the
Cathedral of Notre-Dame in
Rheims
Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne.
Founded by ...
. Her grandmother said that Anne Charlotte was a "little beauty" and that she and her siblings had been brought up well; her mother would always be praised for her maternal instinct. Uncommon for the time, Anne Charlotte's mother insisted that she raise her children, and had a close and affectionate relationship with them.
Marriage negotiations with the King of France
In 1723 Anne Charlotte's father, Léopold, disappointed with his relations with France, decided to send his heir to finish his education in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
under the supervision of
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor. Léopold had been secretly hoping to have his son marry the Emperor's heiress,
Archduchess Maria Theresa.
The young prince of 16 years died the same year and as a result his brother
Francis Stephen became the heir to Lorraine and left Lunéville for Vienna. Francis Stephen later married Maria Theresa and became Holy Roman Emperor upon her accession, the couple having sixteen children. Anne Charlotte's younger sister Marie Louise also died on the same day.
Two years later, the Ducal couple hoped and tried fiercely to get Anne Charlotte to marry the King of France Louis XV who at the time was just 15 years old. The intrigues of the Prime Minister, the
Duke of Bourbon, ''
prince of the blood'', head of the
Condé family and great rival of the
House of Orléans
The 4th House of Orléans (french: Maison d'Orléans), sometimes called the House of Bourbon-Orléans (french: link=no, Maison de Bourbon-Orléans) to distinguish it, is the fourth holder of a surname previously used by several branches of the Ro ...
also fought fiercely to stop the marriage as it would have decreased their influence over the young king. This did not stop the Duke of Bourbon and his mistress the
marquise de Prie, from suggesting the king marry the sister of the Duke,
Henriette Louise de Bourbon
Henriette Louise de Bourbon (Henriette Louise Marie Françoise Gabrielle; 15 January 1703 – 19 September 1772) was a French princess by birth and a member of the House of Bourbon. She was the abbess of Beaumont-lès-Tours Abbey.
Biography E ...
.
Despite the plans of the Prime Minister,
Marie Leszczyńska
Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczyńska (; ; 23 June 1703 – 24 June 1768), also known as Marie Leczinska, was Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XV from their marriage on 4 September 1725 until her death in 1768. The daughter of Stanis ...
, a poor and plain catholic princess who was the second daughter of
Stanislaw I of Poland was chosen as the bride of the monarch. Anne Charlotte's parents were greatly insulted that the daughter of an exiled Pole was to become Queen and not someone who was brought up as French.
Marriage negotiations with the Duke of Orléans
In 1726, the
son
A son is a male offspring; a boy or a man in relation to his parents. The female counterpart is a daughter. From a biological perspective, a son constitutes a first degree relative.
Social issues
In pre-industrial societies and some current c ...
of the now dead Regent, nephew of the Duchess of Lorraine, became a widower aged 23; his wife
Margravine Auguste Marie Johanna of Baden-Baden
, spouse = Louis, Duke of Orléans
, issue =
, house = House of Zähringen
, father = Louis William of Baden-Baden
, mother = Sibylle of Saxe-Lauenburg
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Schloss Johannisburg, Bava ...
had died in Paris in childbirth. The Duchess of Lorraine once again tried to get her daughter a husband; it failed; The Duke of Orléans refused all offers of marriage, the last one being made in 1729 when Anne Charlotte was 15.
In the same year Anne Charlotte lost her father Léopold. Her brother, Francis Stephen, still in Vienna returned to Lorraine. While awaiting the return of the latter, Élisabeth Charlotte seized the regency because her son was 17. In 1737, however, the Duchy of Lorraine was annexed by France in exchange for the Duchy of Tuscany in a treaty between France and Francis Stephen.
The Dowager Duchess princess now went with Anne Charlotte to Vienna. The marriage of Francis and Maria Theresa then allowed them to negotiate the marriage of Princess Élisabeth Thérèse to
Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia
Charles Emmanuel III (27 April 1701 – 20 February 1773) was Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia from 1730 until his death.
Biography
He was born in Turin to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy and his first wife the French Anne Marie d'Orléans. H ...
, his first cousin and already two times widower. The Queen of Sardinia died four years later in childbirth in
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
.
Abbess of Remiremont
By the marriage of her sister to the King of Sardinia, Anne Charlotte was aged 23. All proposals of marriage being either ignored or declined, Anne Charlotte was made the Abbess of the prestigious
Remiremont
Remiremont (; german: Romberg or ) is a town and commune in the Vosges department, northeastern France, situated in southern Grand Est. The town has been an abbatial centre since the 7th century, is an economic crossroads of the Moselle and Mosel ...
Abbey
An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns.
The conce ...
on 10 May 1738. Remiremont had previously been the "property" of her older sister
Élisabeth Charlotte (who died before Anne Charlotte was born) who was the titular abbess of the prestigious abbey which had many connections with the House of Lorraine.
Her new title caused irritation between certain sovereign princes because this abbey, composed solely of ladies of high nobility and of which the temporal domain included a big number of towns, answered only to authority of the pope.
Later on, Anne Charlotte decided to build a sumptuous abbey palace.
Vienna
In 1744 the Dowager Duchess of Lorraine, Princess of Commercy died aged 68. After her mother's death, she went to Vienna. She attended the Imperial family in
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
and witnessed the coronation of François as Emperor on 4 October 1745, feast day of Saint Francis. The Abbess was given apartments at the vast
Schönbrunn Palace
Schönbrunn Palace (german: Schloss Schönbrunn ; Central Bavarian: ''Schloss Scheenbrunn'') was the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers, located in Hietzing, Vienna. The name ''Schönbrunn'' (meaning “beautiful spring”) has its root ...
.
Brussels
In 1754 at the age of 30, Anne Charlotte was made the ''Secular Abbess of the chapter of
Noble Ladies of Saint Waltrude of Mons''; thus she went to Belgium to see her youngest brother Charles Alexander who had been the
Governor of the Austrian Netherlands since 1744. As a Secular Abbess, she could therefore manage this monastery, all the while remaining in the world. Two years later, she was again named by her sister-in-law coadjutor of the monastery of Thorn and in 1757 coadjutor of the one of Essen.
In Brussels, she enjoyed great influence over her brother and served as "first lady." Although Charles Alexander had been a widower for ten years, his wife was the youngest sister of the Empress and she reproached him about his liaison with
Madame de Meuse. In 1763, she designated as coadjutor and successor of Remiremont the
Princess Kunigunde of Saxony, sister of the
Queen of Naples and Sicily and the
Dauphine of France
The Dauphine of France (, also , ) was the wife of the Dauphin of France (the heir apparent to the French throne). The position was analogous to a Crown prince, crown princess (the wife of a crown prince and heir apparent to a throne).
List of Da ...
. In 1765, she attended the marriage of her nephew the future
Léopold II to
Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain
Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain (Spanish language, Spanish: ''María Luisa'', German language, German: ''Maria Ludovika''; 24 November 1745 – 15 May 1792) was Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Grand Duchess of Tus ...
in
Innsbrück; the same year her brother the Emperor died. From April to September 1770, Anne Charlotte made a last trip to Vienna.
On the way, Anne Charlotte crossed the path taken by her niece, the 14-year-old
Archduchess Maria Antonia towards that of her French marriage.
Anne Charlotte died in Mons in present-day Belgium at the age of 59. She was buried at the Ducal Crypt in Lorraine, the ''Église Saint-François-des-Cordelier''. She was joined by her brother Charles Alexander in 1780.
Ancestry
References and notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anne Charlotte of Lorraine, Princess
House of Lorraine
1714 births
1773 deaths
Abbots of the Austrian Netherlands
Nobility of the Austrian Netherlands
Abbesses of Remiremont
Abbesses of Essen
People from Lunéville
Princesses of Lorraine
Women of the Austrian Netherlands