page_title: Bathilde d'Orléans
section_title: Marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Bathilde d'Orléans / Marriage
caption_attribution_description: English: Arms of Bathilde d'Orléans (known as the Duchess of Bourbon) as Princess of Condé
context_page_description: Bathilde d'Orléans was a French princess of the blood of the House of Orléans. She was sister of Philippe Égalité, the mother of the Duke of Enghien and aunt of Louis Philippe I, King of the French. Married to the young Duke of Enghien, a distant cousin, she was known as the Duchess of Bourbon following the birth of her son. She was known as Citoyenne Vérité during the French Revolution.
context_section_description: Initially, Bathilde was considered as a possible bride for a distant cousin, Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, the favourite grandson of King Louis XV of France. However, that marriage never materialised. She first met her future husband, the Duke of Enghien, the son and heir of the Prince of Condé and Charlotte de Rohan, at the Palace of Versailles when attending the wedding of her brother in July 1769. The young duke also held the rank of prince of the blood, however he was descended from a younger branch of the House of Bourbon. His sister Louise Adélaïde attended the same convent as Bathilde, which gave the Duke a pretext to visit the convent and see Bathilde. Still just thirteen years old, the Duke asked for her hand and their parents agreed to the marriage. Bathilde's reservations about marrying someone so young were overcome by her desire to leave the convent, return to the bosom of her family and marry into such a prestigious family.
  The couple married on 20 April 1770 at the Palace of Versailles in front of the court. Bathilde was nineteen and her husband was fourteen. Due to the age of the groom the marriage was not consummated and Bathilde returned to her convent. Before long, her husband had carried her off from the convent. After only six months he began to tire of marriage and turned his attention to other women. The periodic reconciliations between Bathilde and her husband eventually allowed her to give birth to their only son, Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, in August 1772. From marriage until the birth of her son, she was known as the Duchess of Enghien; after the birth she was known as the Duchess of Bourbon.
  Both husband and wife had lovers, and in 1776 Bathilde gave birth to a daughter Adelaïde-Victoire. Her father was a young naval officer, Alexandre Amable de Roquefeuil. The relationship ended in tragedy when de Roquefeuil drowned in Dunkirk harbour in 1786. The scandal of the duke's adultery came out in 1778, and the consequences fell entirely on Bathilde's shoulders; she was believed to have commissioned a play from Pierre Laujon which featured a thinly disguised Duke of Bourbon and his mistress. The couple formally separated in 1780. 
  As a separated spouse, the duchess was never received at court, although she visited Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon at Versailles. She lived for a time with her father and his second wife, Madame de Montesson, at their château de Saint-Assise. When her father died, in 1785, her brother Philippe, became the Duke of Orléans. It was around this time that Bathilde bought a house in Paris called the Hôtel de Clermont and the château de Petit-Bourg. She was able to see her son once a week, and kept her daughter with her.
  In 1787, she purchased the Élysée Palace from Louis XVI and had a hamlet constructed there; inspired by the Hameau de Chantilly at the Château de Chantilly. She became interested in the occult, studying the supernatural arts of chiromancy, astrology, dream interpretation, and animal magnetism. Her salon was renowned throughout Europe for its liberty of thought and the brilliant wits who frequented it. Bathilde was the Grand Mistress of the French Masonic Lodge of Adoption, in parallel to her brother Philippe being the Grand Master of the male Freemasons in France.
  During the French Revolution, just like her brother Philippe Égalité, Bathilde discovered democracy. Her royalist husband and son both left France after the storming of the Bastille. As the Ancien Régime crumbled, she took the name, Citoyenne Vérité (Citizeness Truth). She offered her wealth to the First French Republic before it could be confiscated. In April 1793, her nephew, the young Duke of Chartres (future Louis Philippe, King of the French), fled France and sought asylum with the Austrians.  In retribution, the National Convention decreed the imprisonment of all Bourbons remaining in France.
  While other members of the Orléans family still in France were kept under house arrest, Bathilde, Philippe Égalité and his sons were imprisoned in the Fort Saint-Jean in Marseille. Badly rewarded for h
caption: Arms of Bathilde as Duchess of Bourbon, Princess of Condé
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