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Anne Marie d'Orléans (Saint-Cloud, 27 August, 1669 – Turin, 26 August, 1728), was the Queen consort of Sardinia and the maternal grandmother of Louis XV of France. She was the first Queen consort of Sardinia under the House of Savoy.

Among her descendents are Prince Henri, Count of Paris, the present Orléanist pretender to the French throne, Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma, pretender to Parma. She is also an ancestor of Juan Carlos I of Spain, Albert II, King of the Belgians, Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg and Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, the pretender to the Italian throne. Another is Queen Anne of Romania.

Biography

Anne Marie d'Orléans was born in the Château de Saint-Cloud. Her parents were Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, and Henrietta Anne of England. Her paternal grandparents were Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria, so she was petite-fille de France. Her maternal grandparents were Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France.

Her elder surviving sister was Marie Louise d'Orléans, who became the Queen of Spain when Anne Marie was ten years old. Their mother died at the Château de Saint-Cloud ten months after Anne Marie's birth. Her mother had collapsed at Saint-Cloud and died at the age of 26;

At the time of her death, it was widely believed that Henrietta-Anne had been poisoned by friends of her husband’s jealous lover and exiled favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine. An autopsy was performed, however, and it was reported that Henrietta-Anne had died of peritonitis caused by a perforated ulcer.^[1]

Despite these allegations, a year later, her father married Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate who became very close to her stepdaughters. The plain looking German women was 21 at the time of the marriage. Like Anne Marie's mother, Elizabeth Charlotte would be known as Madame. Three children were born from that marriage.

• Alexandre Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Valois (2 June 1673 – 16 March 1676);
• Philippe Charles d'Orléans (2 August 1674 – 2 December 1723);
• Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans (13 September 1676 – 24 December 1744).

Baptised in the private chapel of the Palais Royal on 8 April, 1670 by Louis de La Vergne de Tressan, Bishop of Vabres, later Bishop of Le Mans, first chaplain of Monsieur. Present were the king, queen, Monseigneur le Dauphin and la Grande Mademoiselle. The latter pair were Anne Marie's god parents. Also present were the princes of the blood, the Princes of Condé, Conti, Duke and Duchess of Enghien and the Dowager Princess of Carignan.

After her sister Marie Louise was married by proxy 30 August, 1679 at Fontainebleau, Anne Marie was addressed to as Mademoiselle. This denoted her status as the most important unmarried lady at Court. Anne Marie was also known as Madame Royale and Mademoiselle de Valois.

Though not as beautiful as her older sister, she was still attractive; At the time of her marriage, when she was within a month of completing her fifteenth year, she is described as tall and graceful, with black hair falling in long curls upon white and shapely shoulders, an oval face, a high forehead, an aquiline nose, smiling lips, and " an air of dignity tempered by an expression of goodness." Her countenance did not belie her character, for her stepmother, the second Madame — no mean judge of her own sex by the way — describes her as one of the most amiable and virtuous of women.^[2]

Marriage

The contract of marriage between Anne Marie and the Duke of Savoy was signed at Versailles on 9 April; On 10 April, 1684, Anne Marie was married at Versailles, by proxy, to Víctor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy and future king of Sicily (1713) and Sardinia (1720), and the only son of Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy and his second wife, Marie Jeanne of Savoy.^[3]. Her husband to be was represented by her cousin, the legitimised duc du Maine as her brother had not reached his age of majority to carry out official acts.

Unfortunately, both the courts of France and Savoy were in mourning for the French-Savoyard Queen of Portugal - the Duke of Savoy's aunt and granddaughter of Henry IV of France.

Her father accompnanied his daughter as far as Juvisy-sur-Orge not far from Paris. She was accompanied by the comtesse de lillebonne to Savoy where she met her husband at Chambéry on 6 May of the same year to have another marriage ceremony at the Castle of Chambéry, the ceremony being carried out by the Archbishop of Grenoble. Two days later, at two o'clock in the morning, they made their entry into Turin, amid great rejoicings.

Known as Anna Maria de Orleans in Savoy, at first the arranged marriage was a happy one; the couple were devoted to each other and her husband had conquered her heart as soon as they had met. Things soured when her husband became overly involved in state affairs, forgetting about his devoted wife. He was also unfaithful to her within the first two weeks of their marriage with a lady in waiting to her mother in law Marie Jeanne of Savoy.

They had eight children, two of them stillborn. The first of these children, named Maria Adelaide nearly cost Anne Marie her life - her condition was at one time so critical that the viaticum was administered.^[4]

Anne Marie was a devoted mother; She insisted on nursing her daughters with her own hands in all their childish ailments, and once, when one of the young princesses had contracted some contagious malady, she shut herself up with her, and would not permit even Madame Royale to enter the sick-room. Nevertheless, despite the care and affection which she lavished upon the girls, there was little of that intimacy between her and her children. Her eldest daughter Marie Adelaide would always be closer to her paternal grandmother Marie Jeanne of Savoy.

Her husband had two further children with Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, his mistress from 1689 till 1700 when she fled the court. Jeanne Baptiste and the maréchal de Tessé helped to bring about the marriage of her daughter in the French court. After her multiple pregnancies, her beauty faded.

At the age of ten, Anne Marie's eldest child, Marie-Adélaïde, was betrothed to the son of her cousin Louis, Dauphin of France; the eldest son of Louis was the Duke of Burgundy. This match was decided as part of the Treaty of Turin, which ended Franco-Savoyard conflicts during the Nine Years' War, and Marie-Adélaïde was sent to Versailles in order to learn her role as the future Dauphine and eventual Queen. By 1711 Marie-Adélaïde was the Dauphine of France but she died in 1712 of smallpox.

In June 1701 her father died at Saint-Cloud; her half brother and his wife Françoise-Marie de Bourbon thus became the new Duke and Duchess of Orléans. In the same year on 2 November, Maria Luisa, (Anne Marie's third daughter) then barely thirteen years old, married the French born prince Philip, duc d'Anjou who had just become Philip V of Spain. The young princess would become Regent of Spain while her husband was away campaigning in Italy; she was a favourite with the Spanish court and would make Anne Marie the maternal grandmother of the Louis I of Spain and Ferdinand VI of Spain.

In 1706, Anne Marie's uncle, Louis XIV of France (along with Spanish forces from Anne Marie's second cousin Philip V of Spain) besieged Turin during the Battle of Turin. French troops were under the control of Anne Marie's half brother, the Duke of Orléans. She and her sons, Victor Amadeus and Carlo Emanuele, were forced to flee Turin.

The Savoyard consort had the use of the Royal Palace of Turin and the vast Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi outside the capital.

As a result of his aid in the War of the Spanish Succession Victor Amadeus II was made King of Sicily in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht which ended the war. When her step mother Madame heard of the news back in France, she wrote:

I shall neither gain nor lose by the peace, but one thing i shall enjoy is to see our Duchess of Savoy become a queen, because I love her as though she were my own child...

Victor Amadeus was forced to exchange Sicily for the less important kingdom of Sardinia in 1720 after objections from an alliance of four nations, including several of his former allies. The kingdom of Sicily went to Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor - father of Maria Theresa of Austria. Due to this rise of rank, Anne Marie and her husband became entitled to the style of Your Majesty.

A favourite haunt for the consort was the Vigna di Madama.^[6] This had been used by a previous French consort, Anne Marie's great-aunt Princess Christine Marie of France (1606-1663), and later on, her daughter, Maria Adélaïde recreated this little hideaway by having the Ménagerie at Versailles remodelled

Anne Marie later changed the name of Vigna di Madama to the Villa della Regina which was named after the Queen Anne Marie herself.

Anne Marie died at the Royal Palace of Turin on 26 August 1728, the day before her 59th birthday. Her husband, Víctor Amadeus II, abdicated in favour of his son in 1730, and died two years later in Moncalieri. She was buried at the Basilica of Superga in Turin; all her children except Marie-Adélaïde and Maria Luisa can be found there.

Her husband outlived her till his 66th year dying in 1732 having married morganatically.

Jacobite succession

From 1714 to 1720, Anne Marie was the heiress presumptive to the Jacobite claim to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which was held at the time by James Francis Edward Stuart, styling himself "James III and VIII". She became his heir on 1 August 1714, upon the death of his aunt Anne, and was displaced as his heir by the birth of the Old Pretender's son, Charles Edward Stuart, on 31 December 1720.

Through Anne Marie descend the current post-Stuart legitimist claims of the Jacobites to the English and Scottish thrones.

In 1807, almost eighty years after her death, Cardinal Henry Benedict Stuart died. He was the last of the descendants of her uncle, King James II of England. The Jacobites viewed the legitimate succession to the English and Scottish thrones as devolving upon the senior living descendant of King Charles I. In 1807, the Jacobite pretender became Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia, the great-grandson of Anne Marie d'Orléans and Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia.^[7]

Issue

• Princess Maria Adelaide of Savoy (1685-1712); married Louis, Duke of Burgundy and was the mother of Louis XV of France;
• Princess Maria Ana of Savoy (1687-1690);
• Princess Maria Luisa Gabriella of Savoy (1688-1714); first wife of Philip V of Spain;
• Princess X of Savoy (stillborn child, 1691);
• X of Savoy (stillborn child, 1697);
• Prince Victor Amadeus John Philip of Savoy (1699-1715), Prince of Piedmont;
• Prince Carlo Emanuele of Savoy (1701-1773); the next Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia.
• Prince Emanuele Philibert of Savoy (1705-1705) Duke of Chablais.^[8]

Ancestors

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 27 August, 1669 – 30 August, 1679 Mademoiselle de Valois
• 30 August, 1679 – 10 April, 1684 Mademoiselle
• 10 April, 1684 - April, 1713 Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Savoy^[9]
• April, 1713 - 1720 Her Majesty the Queen of Sicily
• Post 17 February, 1720 – 26 August, 1728 Her Majesty the Queen of Sardinia (see the Treaty of The Hague (1720))

References

Titles