page_title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine
section_title: The Régence. Death
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine / Life / The Régence. Death
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate (1652-1722), Duchess of Orléans Français&#160;: Portrait de la Palatine, dans un oculus
context_page_description: Princess Elisabeth Charlotte, was a German princess member of the House of Wittelsbach and, as Madame, the second wife of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans and mother of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, France's ruler during the Regency. She gained literary and historical importance primarily through her correspondence, which is of cultural and historical value due to her sometimes very blunt descriptions of French court life and is today one of the best-known German-language texts of the Baroque period.
  Although she only had two surviving children, she not only became the ancestress of the House of Orléans, which came to the French throne with Louis Philippe I, the so-called "Citizen King" from 1830 to 1848, but also became the ancestress of numerous European royal families, so she was also called the “Grandmother of Europe”. Through her daughter she was the grandmother of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, the husband of Maria Theresa, and great-grandmother of Joseph II and Leopold II and Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France before the French Revolution.
context_section_description: Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715 after a reign of 72 years and 110 days; one of the last people he summoned to his deathbed was Liselotte, saying goodbye to her with noble compliments. In his will, the deceased monarch divided the regnal prerogatives among relatives and courtiers, allocating to his legitimised son, the Duke of Maine, guardianship of the new monarch, Louis XV, who was 5 years old. The Parlement of Paris overturned the will's provisions at the request of Liselotte's son, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who, being the only legitimate agnate of the royal family in France, became in the Regent of the Kingdom for the still underage sovereign, beginning the time known as the Régence. Now, Liselotte became in the first lady of the court; she had been at least officially once before, between the death of Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria, Dauphine of France (20 April 1690) and the marriage of Marie Adélaïde of Savoy with Louis, Duke of Burgundy (7 December 1697).
  The court at Versailles dissolved until the new King came of age, as the late Louis XIV had ordered, and Liselotte was soon able to return to her beloved Saint-Cloud, where she from then on spent seven months of the year, with her old ladies-in-waiting keeping her company: the "Marschallin" Louise-Françoise de Clérambault and the German Eleonore von Venningen (by marriage von Rathsamshausen). She didn't like to spend the winter in the Palais Royal (the official residence of her son and his family) because of the bad Parisian air from the smoke from many chimneys (and "because in the morning you can only smell empty night chairs and chamber pot") and the bad memories of her marriage:
  Unfortunately I have to go back to morose Paris, where I have little rest. But one must do one's duty; I am in the Parisian grace that it would sadden you if I should no longer live there; must therefore sacrifice several months for the good people. They deserve (it) from me, prefer me to their born princes and princesses; they curse you and give me blessings when I drive through town. I also love the Parisians, they are good people. I love it myself that I hate your air and home so much.
  — Liselotte von der Pfalz: Letter to her half-sister Raugräfin Luise from 28 November 1720.
  Although she had made it her pattern not to interfere in politics, only one month after the Louis XIV's death, Liselotte successfully campaigned for the release of Huguenots who had been sent on the galleys for many years because of their beliefs: 184 people, including many preachers, were released; two years later she managed to get 30 galley prisoners released again.
  However, Liselotte didn't feel the sigh of relief that went through the country after the long rule of Louis XIV; she "was unable to decipher the signs of the times; she saw nothing but the decline and decline of morality, where in reality a new society was born, lively, disrespectful, eager to move and live freely, curious about the joys of the senses and the adventures of the spirit". For example, she strictly refused to receive visitors who were not properly dressed in courtly regalia:
  Because the ladies cannot resolve to wear body pieces and to lace up...over time they will pay dearly for their laziness; because compt once again a queen, you will all have to be dressed like before this day, which will be an agony for you; - "You don't know anymore what was farm"...there is no more farm in all of France. The Maintenon invented that first; because, as she saw that the King didn't want to declare her before the queen, she had the young Dauphine (prevented) to hold a court, as keep yourself in your chamber where there is neither rank nor dignity; yes, the princes and the Dauphine had to wait for this lady at her toilet and at the table on the pretext that it was going to be a game.
  — Liselotte von der Pfalz: Letter to her half-sister Raugräfin Luise from 23 May 1720.
  Most of all, Liselotte was worried about the intrigues and conspiracies against her son. She loathed the foreign minister and later prime minister, Father Guillaume Dubois (ca
caption: Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans. Posthumous portrait from the workshop of Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1723.
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