Marie Charlotte de La Tour d'Auvergne

Marie Charlotte de La Tour d'Auvergne (Marie Sophie Charlotte; 20 December 1729 – 6 September 1763.^[1]) was a French noblewoman and member of the House of La Tour d'Auvergne. Married into the House of Beauvau, a powerful family originating in Anjou, she had a daughter aged twenty and died of smallpox^[2] at the age of thirty three. The present Duke of Mouchy line of the Noailles family are descended from her and her husband.^[1]

Biography

Born at the Hôtel de Bouillon in Paris^[3] to Emmanuel Théodose de La Tour d'Auvergne (1668–1730), Duke of Bouillon and his last wife Louise Henriette Françoise de Lorraine, she was the couple's only child. Her mother was a daughter of Joseph de Lorraine, Count of Harcourt.

Her father was a son of Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne and Marie Anne Mancini, the latter was a niece of Cardinal Mazarin and a famous and scandalous hostess in her day.

Marie Charlotte was styled as Mademoiselle de Château-Thierry from birth. When her older half sister Anne Marie Louise, Mademoiselle de Bouillon was married to Charles de Rohan, Prince of Soubise in 1734, as the most senior unmarried princess of the La Tour d'Auvergne family, she was styled as Mademoiselle de Bouillon till her marriage.

A first cousin included Antoine de Vignerot du Plessis, son of her aunt Élisabeth Sophie de Lorraine and the famous womaniser Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu.

Her father died in 1730,^[1] leaving her mother a widow at twenty-three. Her mother died in 1737.^[1] As such she became the ward of her uncle Louis Henri, known as the comte d'Évreux.

In 1741, her maternal uncle the Prince of Harcourt^[4] was a prosed candidate for the 12 year old (1741). Again, the marriage never materialised and the Prince of Harcourt died in 1747 childless.

She married Charles Juste de Beauvau, a member of the wealthy Beauvau family of Lorraine. They were married on 3 April 1745.^[1] Her sister in law (her husbands sister) was the famous marquise de Boufflers. Her daughter married Philippe Louis de Noailles, son of Philippe de Noailles and Anne d'Arpajon, lady in waiting to Marie Antoinette victim of the revolution.^[1]

She died of Smallpox^[2] at the Hôtel de Beauvau-Craon, her husbands town house in Lunéville, Lorraine. She and her daughter were heading to Paris from Lorraine when Marie Charlotte caught the illness. Notwithstanding the utmost care,^[2] she succumbed to the illness; at the time she was arranging the proposed marriage between her daughter Louise and Armand Louis de Gontaut, the Duke of Lauzun.

Lauzun and Louise never married and were both greatly affected by the death of Marie Charlotte – the two were in love – and with the death of Marie Charlotte, Lauzun lost his most valuable ally,^[2] regarding a union with Louise and himself. Her daughter was placed in the Abbey of Port Royal^[2] in Paris where she remained till her marriage in 1767.

After her death, her husband married again in 1764 to Marie Charlotte Sylvie de Rohan-Chabot, a cousin of the Prince of Soubise.^[5] Marie Charlotte Sylvie had had a liaison which had began in 1750. The couple had no issue.^[1]

Issue

• Anne Louise Marie de Beauvau, Mademoiselle de Beauvau (1 April 1750 – 20 November 1834) married Philippe Louis de Noailles, prince de Poix, later Duke of Mouchy and had issue.

Ancestry

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 20 December 1729 – 29 December 1734 Her Highness Mademoiselle de Château-Thierry
• 29 December 1734 – 3 April 1745 Her Highness Mademoiselle de Bouillon
• 3 April 1745 – 6 September 1763 Her Highness the Princess of Beauvau

References and notes

See also