Madame Victoire (EN)

Biographical article

Victoire de France was the seventh child, and fifth daughter, of Louis XV (1710-1774) and Marie Leszczyńska (1703-1768). Unlike her older siblings, Madame Victoire was not raised and educated at Versailles, but rather was sent, with her younger sisters, to the Abbey of Fontevrault, from June 1738 until 1748. This was due to the fact that the cost of raising her and her sisters at Versailles was determined to be too expensive by Cardinal Fleury (1653-1743), Louis XV’s chief minister. According to Madame Campan, this resulted in an insufficient education for Victoire and her younger sisters: ‘Cardinal Fleury, who in truth had the merit of re-establishing the finances, carried this system of economy so far, as to obtain from the King the suppression of the household and education of the four younger princesses. They were brought up as mere boarders, in a convent, eight leagues distant from the coast. […] He preferred intrusting the education of the princesses to a provincial sisterhood. Madame Louise often assured me, that at twelve years of age she was not mistress of the whole alphabet, and never learned to read fluently until after her return to Versailles. Madame Victoire attributed certain paroxysms of panic terror, which she was never able to conquer, to the violent alarms she expeienced at the Abbey of Fontevrault, when she was sent, by way of penance, to pray alone, in the vault where the sisters were interred.’ (CAMPAN, J.-L.-H., 1854, p. 57).

On 24 March 1748, aged fifteen, Madame Victoire wrote to her father and was granted permission to return to Versailles. In November 1750 she was joined by her sisters Sophie (1734-1782) and Louise (1737-1787). They did not join the household of their older sisters, the Household of the Mesdames aînées, but were given their own Household of the Mesdames cadettes (« Younger Mesdames »), overseen by Marie-Angélique-Victoire de Bournonville, duchesse de Duras (1686-1764). To make up for their mediocre convent education, upon their return to Versailles Madame Victoire and her sisters dedicated their time to study: ‘They devoted themselves ardently to study, and gave up almost the whole of their time to it; they enabled themselves to write French correctly, and acquired a good knowledge of history. […] Italian, English, the higher branches of the mathematics, tuning and dialling, successively filled up the leisure moments of the princesses.’ (Campan J.-L.-H., 1854, pp. 58-9). Following the visit of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) to Versailles from 24 December 1763-8 January 1764, Mozart dedicated opus I (K6-7) of his sonatas for keyboard with optional violin accompaniment, published in spring 1764, to Madame Victoire.

Madame Victoire was successful at court due to her charming personality, as Madame Campan attested, ‘Madame Victoire was handsome, and very graceful; her address, mien, and smile, were in perfect accordance with the goodness of her heart.’ (CAMPAN, J.-L.-H., 1854, p. 59). Unlike her sister Adélaïde, who had a harsher demeanour, Victoire was described as,‘good, sweet-tempered, and affable, lived with the most amiable simplicity in a society wherin she was much caressed: she was adored by her household.’ (Campan J.-L.-H., 1854, p. 62). In 1753 it was suggested she marry her brother-in-law, Ferdinand VI of Spain (1713-1759), as his wife Barbara of Portugal (1711-1758) was seriously ill, however she survived her illness and no other suitor of sufficient status and religion was available, so Victoire remained unmarried. In time she became rather overweight and so King Louis XV affectionately called her ‘Coche’, meaning ‘Piggy’.

Madame Victoire followed her elder sister, Madame Adélaïde, in her plots to overthrow Madame de Pompadour (1721 – 1764) and later Madame du Barry (1743 – 1793). When Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793) became the Dauphine in 1770, and during her first years in France, she became close with the Mesdames due to their close relationship with their nephew, the Dauphin Louis. Madame Adélaïde, with the support of Mesdames Victoire and Sophie, worked to gain Marie Antoinette’s support against Madame du Barry and frequently encouraged the Dauphine to rebuff Madame du Barry. By 1772 this had created a rift in the relationship between the King and Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette’s mother, Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780), and her ambassador, concerned for the political consequences for the relationship between France and Austria, forced her to speak to Madame du Barry, thus throwing off Madame Adélaïde’s plot and ending the close friendship between the Mesdames and the Dauphine.

From April 1774 until the death of King Louis XV on 10th May 1774, Madame Adélaïde and her sisters attended to their father through his illness with smallpox. The sisters caught smallpox and were quarantined near the Palace de Choisy but later recovered. From around this time Victoire and her sister Adélaïde distanced themselves from court and preferred to spend time in their own Château de Bellevue at Meudon. Following the disintegration of their relationship with Marie Antoinette, the salon of the Mesdames became a hotspot for nobility in opposition to the Queen; it was frequented by the minister Maurepas (1701-1781), whom Adélaïde had supported for his position, the Prince de Condé (1727-1776) and the Prince de Conti (1717-1776), both members of the Anti-Austrian party, and Beaumarchais, who read aloud his satires of Austria.

Madame Victoire and her sister Adélaïde were present at Versailles during the Parisian women’s march on 6 October 1789, and amongst those gathered in the King’s apartment on the night of the attack on Marie Antoinette’s bedroom. When leaving Versailles for the Tuileries in Paris, their wagon separated from the procession and headed instead to the Château de Bellevue. Upon obtaining their passports to leave for Rome, Victoire and Adélaïde were due to leave on 3 February 1791. However, an anonymous tip-off of their intention to leave caused a protest at the National Assembly, and on 19 February a crowd of women gathered at the Palais Royal and intended to march to Bellevue to prevent the Mesdames’ departure. Nonetheless, they departed on 20 February 1791. The Mesdames were temporarily halted by a protest against their departure in Moret, and detained for several days from 21 February in Arnay-le-Duc. Back in Paris, riots continued against the Mesdames’ departure, and protestors marched on the gardens of the Tuileries demanding the King order his aunts’ return. Following a debate in the National Assembly it was decided that the Mesdames’ departure had little consequence for the overall cause of the Revolution. Whilst protests at Arnay-le-Duc further delayed their departure, the Mesdames eventually left on 3 March and headed to Savoy, where the King of Sardinia installed them at the Château de Chambery. Adélaïde and Victoire arrived and were welcomed in Rome on 16 April 1791, where they remained for five years. When Italy was invaded by Revolutionary France in 1796, the Mesdames left for Naples, and when Naples was invaded by France in 1799 they left for Corfu, eventually settling in Trieste. Madame Victoire died there from breast cancer on 7 June 1799. Her body, along with that of her sister Adélaïde who died in 1800, were ordered back to France by Louis XVIII during the Bourbon Restoration, and buried at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

The collection

Patronage Activities

The inventories of the collections of Madame Victoire taken during her lifetime focus on furniture and furnishings, which could lead to the assumption that she had little interest in the visual arts, like painting and sculpture, and objets d’art. However, despite this absence from the record, we know that Madame Victoire engaged in patronage activities alongside her sister Madame Adélaïde. They were both enthusiastic patrons of the woman painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (1749-1803). Whilst Marie-Antoinette patronised Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744-1818) and Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), Mesdames Adélaïde and Victoire were determined to construct a separate identity, holding their court at the Château de Bellevue away from Versailles and patronising Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (Sprinson de Jesús M., 2008, p. 157). In 1787 Labille-Guiard produced pastel portrait preparatory studies of the Mesdames Adélaïde and Victoire, which are now housed, along with the finished portraits, in the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. Upon hearing that Vigée Le Brun had been commissioned to paint a portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children for the Salon of 1787, Marie Adélaïde, determined to not be overshadowed, commissioned Labille-Guiard to paint full-length portraits of herself, her sister Madame Victoire, and her niece Madame Elisabeth, to be exhibited alongside that of Marie Antoinette at the Salon (the portrait of Madame Victoire was not finished until 1788 and was exhibited at the Salon of 1789). The Mesdames were so pleased with the result that they requested Louis XVI grant the artist the title 'premier peintre des Mesdames’ to appear alongside Labille-Guiard’s name in the Salon livret (Sprinson de Jesús M., 2008, p. 162). This display of portraiture represented the division present in the Royal Family in the lead-up to the Revolution. According to Jean Cailleux, ‘In opposition to the Queen’s extravagance, to her capricious nature, to her friends, in opposition to the feebleness of the King who yielded to the demands of his wife, there was the coalition of the daughters of Louis XV, Mesdames. The latter represented the spirit of the old Court, the rigid moral and Christian principles of their mother and of the Dauphin, their brother.’ (Cailleux J., 1969, p. iv).

Porcelain in the Collection

The Mesdames were amongst the most loyal patrons of the Manufacture royale de Sèvres, acquiring numerous pieces: Madame Victoire acquired more than 15,000 livres worth between the years 1766 and 1788 (Baulez C., 2001, p. 13). The inventory taken at the Château de Bellevue in 1786 (AN, O/1/3379) highlights some of Madame Victoire’s collection of Sèvres porcelain pieces, including vases with figures and flowers, vases with the handles formed by serpents, and several small female figures in Sèvres biscuit porcelain.

Books in the Collection

The Mesdames also owned an extensive library. The bindings of the Mesdames were differentiated by colour : Madame Victoire’s collection was bound in green, Madame Adélaïde’s in red morocco, and Madame Sophie’s in citron, with the armorial of the fille de France the same on all books. Included amongst the Mesdames’ collection of books was a copy of a well-known work by Father Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (1674-1743), Geographic, Historical, Chronologial, Political, and Physical Description of the Chinese Empire and Chinese Tartary. Enriched with General and Particular Maps of These Countries, first published in Paris in 1735 and re-edited in 1770. The work was common to the finest contemporary libraries in the eighteenth century, and included travel diaries, extensive maps, and precise descriptions of Chinese provinces and their main cities, highlighting the results of the French Jesuit missions in China, and offering a thrill for French intellectuals who showed a keen interest in China (Rochebrune M.-L. de., 2014, pp. 7-8).

Asiatic Objects in the Collection

In comparison to her sister Madame Adélaïde, Madame Victoire’s inventories show a rather extensive interest in Asiatic and Eastern-inspired furniture and furnishings. Amongst her belongings at the Château de Versailles were an Indian chair, a bed of chiné taffeta with floral garlands and an apple-green border, and a clock by Charles Baltazar (c. 1700-1773), who had received the title Horloger de Mesdames filles de France, which was adorned with a Chinese figure holding a parasol. At the Château de Choisy, Madame Victoire’s collection included a firescreen (grille à 4 branches) adorned with two Chinese men, a tapestry of Indian bazin fabric, an Indian quilted and gold-stitched toilette armchair, a stool of Indian fabric, a brocaded Siamese prie-Dieu chair, a Siamese bed and chairs, and a set consisting of a commode, a writing desk, and a corner piece (encoignure) of ancien black Chinese laquer and Breche d’Alep marble. Amongst her belongings at the Château de Bellevue were a chair with Siamese covers, a mahogany folding screen covered in Chinese paper, and a desk (secrétaire) plated with various Indian woods. At the Château de Compiegne she had a Gobelins tapestry representing Indian animals, flowers, and fruits, a bed (lit à la duchesse en impériale), armchairs and a folding screen covered in chiné taffeta with a design of bouquets of flowers, and a set including a large ottoman, an armchair, four other chairs, a footstool, and a screen, covered in chiné taffeta with bouquets of flowers, rinceau arabesque, fruits, and birds on a white background. Chiné was a fabric which used the technique of weaving pre-dyed threads or printing with the intended pattern, creating a soft, blurred effect once the threads are woven into cloth. Chiné fabric became increasingly popular in mid-eighteenth-century Europe along with the craze for all things Eastern. Although the earliest examples came from China, by the 1760s France was producing its own chiné fabric. It is not clear from the inventories if Madame Victoire’s pieces were made from original Chinese or French reproduction chiné taffeta. However, her collection highlights a clear interest in Asiatic and Eastern objects, albeit a rather eccentric melange of pieces.