Marie-Amélie de Boufflers, duchesse de Lauzun (5 May 1751 – 27 June 1794) was a French noblewoman and heiress who was one of the influential princesses combinées at the court of Louis XVI. She was imprisoned and guillotined during the Reign of Terror.[1]
Marie-Amélie de Boufflers | |
|---|---|
| Duchesse de Lauzun, Duchesse de Biron | |
 Amélie de Boufflers | |
| Born | 5 May 1751 Paris, Kingdom of France |
| Died | 27 June 1794 (aged 43) Paris, French First Republic |
| Buried | Picpus Cemetery, Paris |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Father | Charles-Joseph de Boufflers, duc de Boufflers |
| Mother | Marie Anne Philippine de Montmorency-Logny |
Early life
editDe Boufflers was born in Paris, the only daughter of Charles-Joseph de Boufflers, last duke of Boufflers, and Marie Anne Philippine de Montmorency-Logny.[2][3] Her mother was a Dame du Palais to Marie Leszczyńska, while her paternal grandfather was the senior army officer Joseph Marie de Boufflers. De Boufflers was the heiress of her very wealthy paternal grandmother Madeleine Angélique Neufville de Villeroy, who helped to raise her at the Château de Montmorency following her father's premature death.[4]
At the age of ten, she was introduced by her grandmother to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who recorded the encounter in Confessions and described the young girl as "...a charming person. She really had a face, a sweetness, a virginal shyness. Nothing more amiable and more interesting than her face, nothing more tender and more chaste than the sentiments which she inspired".[5][6]
Marriage and court life
edit
On 4 February 1766, at the age of just 14, she married Armand Louis de Gontaut, Duke of Lauzun at the Hôtel de Luxembourg.[7][3][8][9] The marriage was a failure; after only a few months of marriage, Lauzun had left his wife to pursue other women and the couple never had any children.[10]
Despite the failure of her marriage, the new Duchess of Lauzun became known throughout French high society for her intelligence, prettiness and charmingly shy manners. She was befriended by Béatrix de Choiseul-Stainville, while her enormous personal wealth ensured that she became a leader of high fashion, particularly the Pouf style. De Boufflers followed the Encyclopédistes and, like other princesses combinées, was known at court for her discretion and intellectual insight as a salonnière. Her rooms at Versailles contained a collection of rare books and manuscripts.[1] From 1788, she held the additional title Duchess of Biron following her husband's elevation to the dukedom and lived at the Hôtel Biron in Paris.
French Revolution and death
editOwing to her intimate association with the royal court, de Boufflers became a subject of suspicion after the French Revolution in 1789. She escaped to England for her safety, arriving on 4 November 1789 and being received by Queen Charlotte.[11] In 1791–1792 she spent several months in Lausanne.[12] In England she lived with the Princess of Hénin, wife of Charles-Alexandre de Hénin-Liétard d'Alsace.
The duchess, however, returned to Paris in August 1792 after the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 out of fear that her extensive property would be confiscated by the revolutionary authorities. She was immediately arrested, but soon released owing to the influence and intercession of her husband, who had supported the revolution from its inception. However, following his resignation in disgrace from the French Revolutionary Army and arrest in 1793, de Boufflers was arrested a second time in October 1793 during the Reign of Terror. The Duke of Lauzun was executed in December 1793. After being condemned by Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville alongside the dowager duchesse de Biron, de Boufflers was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal and guillotined at the Barrière du Trône on 27 June 1794, before being buried in the Picpus Cemetery.[3]
References
edit- ^ a b Moorehead, Caroline (22 Jun 2010). Dancing to the Precipice: Lucie de la Tour du Pin and the French Revolution. Random House. ISBN 978-1409088929.
- ^ "Amélie de Boufflers (1751-1794)". Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
Fille de Charles Joseph Marie de Boufflers et de Marie Anne Philippine Thérèse de Montmorency-Logny (1730 ou 1732-1797). - Épouse en 1766 Armand-Louis de Gontaut Biron, duc de Lauzun (1747-1793). - Le journal "Le Correspondant" indique 1750 comme date de naissance
- ^ a b c "Amélie de Boufflers". British Museum. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
Daughter of Charles Joseph de Boufflers (1731-1751) and Marie Anne Philippine de Montmorency-Logny (1732-1797). In 1760 she met Jean-Jacques Rousseau; the encounter is recorded in 'Les Confessions'. In 1766 married Armand Gontaut-Biron, Duke of Lauzun. She emigrated in 1792 but returned to France in order to protect her properties from being confiscated, and was arrested and guillotined.
- ^ Courchamps, comte de; Renée Caroline de Froulay Créquy, Marquise de; Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy, de 1710 à 1803.; Troisième Tome, Chapitre VI; Paris, H.L. Delloye, 1840.
- ^ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1833). Les Confessions (Part II). Firmin Didot Frères. p. Livre X, p.400.
- ^ "Amélie de Boufflers walking up a stair and meeting Jean Jacques Rousseau". British Museum. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
- ^ Armand Louis duc de Lauzun, général Biron, Mémoires suivis de lettres adressées à l’auteur par sa femme Amélie de Boufflers, Aimée de Coigny, duchesse de Fleury, et par la marquise de Coigny, Paris, H. Jonquières, 1928
- ^ Craveri, Benedetta (2020). The Last Libertines. New York: New York Review of Books. p. 12. ISBN 978-1681373416.
- ^ Maugras, Gaston (1895). The Duc de Lauzun and the Court of Louis XV. Osgood, McIlvaine & Company. pp. 62–64.
- ^ Bodinier, Gilbert. Dictionnaire des officiers de l'armée royale qui ont combattu aux États-Unis pendant la guerre d'Indépendance: 1776-1783. Service historique de l'armée de terre; Versailles : Éd. Mémoire & documents, 2005
- ^ Kassler, Michael (2021). The Diary of Queen Charlotte, 1789 and 1794: Memoirs of the Court of George III, Volume 4. Routledge. ISBN 978-1000419832.
- ^ Gibbon, Edward (2017). Edward Gibbon: History Books, Essays & Autobiographical Writings. e-artnow. ISBN 978-8075835673.