Philippe of Lorraine, known as the Chevalier de Lorraine, was a French nobleman, descendant of the Dukes of Elbeuf, member of the House of Guise, cadet branch of the House of Lorraine. He was the renowned lover of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIV.

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.