Louise's birth and her gender was seen as a disappointment and caused her paternal grandmother to lament that "It is unfortunate that all of my son's bastards are boys and his legitimate children are girls."
Jean Baptiste Santerre (Museo del Prado)
Françoise Marie de Bourbon by Pierre Gobert
Louise's parents relationship was not a harmonious one, with her father nicknaming her mother "Madame Lucifer" because of her haughty manner. They lived mostly separate lives, with the duchess living at the Palais-Royal with their children, while the duke lived at the Petit Palais while pursuing a dissipated life and openly flaunting his mistresses in front of his wife. Despite their marital discord they would go on have eight children.
Louise received her early education from the same governess as her aunt Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans[2], but due to their unruliness and their mother, the duchess's, laxness in supporting the governess and disciplining her children,[2] it seems Louise and her sisters' education was severely neglected. Eventually, the sisters would be sent to the Convent of the Visitandines to receive education from the nuns there.
Louise's personality was described by her contemporaries very sensitive, and she was considered to be of the most beautiful daughters of the regent.
Until her marriage, Louise was known as Mademoiselle de Chartres.[3] The style of Mademoiselle de Chartres had been used by her elder sister Adélaïde, who, by the time of Louise Diane's birth, was a nun at Chelles. Her aunt Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans also used the title.
Louise grew up in an era when her father, known as Philippe d'Orléans, or simply le Régent, was the de facto ruler of France, as he had been in charge of the affairs of the state since the death of Louise's maternal grandfather King Louis XIV. The Palais-Royal was where the régent held his court and lived openly with his mistress Marie Thérèse de Parabère.[4] Her mother later acquired the Château de Bagnolet, where she lived quietly and without scandal.
In her youth, she was said to have been a very sensitive child and would grow up to be one of the more beautiful of the regent's daughters. As she was another girl (1 of 7 overall), her birth was not necessarily greeted with the joy that had met that of her brother, Louis, Duke of Orléans. Upon the death of her father in 1723, at Versailles, at the age of forty-nine, her only brother inherited the title of Duke of Orléans and, in 1724, he married Margravine Johanna of Baden-Baden.
After the marriage, she became known at court as Her Serene Highness, the Princess of Conti. Her husband had succeeded to the Conti title in 1727 upon the death of his father Louis Armand II, Prince of Conti. In 1734, Louise gave birth to a son, heir to the Conti name, and, in 1736, to a second child who died at birth.
Bryant, Mark (2004). "Mme de Maintenon: Partner, Matriarch, and Minister". In Orr, Clarissa Campbell (ed.). Queenship in Europe 1660-1815: The Role of the Consort. Cambridge University Press.
Lever, Evelyne (2002). Madame de Pompadour: A Life. Translated by Temerson, Catherine. St. Martin's.
Powell, Lawrence N. (2012). The Accidental City. Harvard University Press.
* princess of the Blood in her own right as well as wife of a prince of the Blood
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