Françoise Marie de Bourbon
Françoise Marie de Bourbon was the youngest illegitimate daughter of King Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan. At the age of 14, she married her first cousin Philippe d'Orléans, the future regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. Through two of her eight children, she became the ancestress of several of Europe's Roman Catholic monarchs of the 19th and 20th centuries—notably those of Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France.
Pierre Gobert, "Portrait of the Duchess of Orléans Françoise Marie de Bourbon", 1700
Portrait of Françoise Marie (by François de Troy, ca. 1692)
Mademoiselle de Blois as Galatea Triumphant (by Pierre Gobert, 1692)
Françoise Marie with her son (by Pierre Gobert)
Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan
Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise of Montespan, commonly known as Madame de Montespan, was a French noblewoman and the most celebrated royal mistress of King Louis XIV. During their romantic relationship, which lasted from the late 1660s to the late 1670s, she was sometimes referred to as the "true Queen of France" due to the pervasiveness of her influence at court.
Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs, c. 1660, when Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente
Henrietta Anne of England, to whom Madame de Montespan was a lady-in-waiting
Madame de Montespan and four of her children: Mademoiselle de Nantes; Count of Vexin; Mademoiselle de Tours; Duke of Maine
Madame de Montespan by unknown artist, c. 1675
