Talk:Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

message: "...she became known as the First Lady of the Kingdom" Is this good history? Or an Americanization of her position?  And do we really mean "costumes" instead of "customs"? --Wetman 29 June 2005 18:24 (UTC)
:This is quite right. I believe the user who wrote that meant to say "customs". As for First Lady, I don't know who wrote that. What's true is that when her son became regent her position in France increased a lot. She had sort of fallen out of favor at the court of Versailles. Louis XIV did not talk to her anymore, she was not in the inner circle of the king anymore, and so courtiers considered her sort of fallen from rank. But when her son became regent she found herself at the center of all attentions again. A comeback in the limelight in her old age... although she had no influence on her son's policies. She writes about that unexpected comeback in her letters, with a lot of humour and irony. If I remember correctly, during the Regency the regent paid her visit everyday. She was living in Paris, but I can't remember where. Whether she received an informal title or not, I don't know. Première Dame du Royaume? I don't know if she was ever called that way during the Regency, although this is not totally impossible. Before the Regency, she was known as "Madame", become she was the wife of "Monsieur", the brother of the king. In Louis XIV's days, a courtier asking another courtier: "Savez-vous comment se porte Madame?" would have been specifically understood as inquiring about the Princess Palatine's health. During the Regency, I don't know if she was still called Madame. Hardouin 2 July 2005 20:17 (UTC)
:Why not just put most of that right into the article? Much more evocative and accurate a representation of her position. How does does Saint-Simon style her? Was she still simply "Madame" as a widow? We may follow his usage  and never err. --Wetman
:No one else was going to, so I deleted this. Première Dame de France: that would be the title. A fantasy. --Wetman 05:13, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: First lady

message: A brief comment: the duchy of Montpensier by no means passed to Liselotte by inheritance.  This should be investigated.  Her husband Monsieur was La Grande Mademoiselle's heir (one of them).
As for the other discussion thread, I would only add that Madame did signify roughly First Lady of the kingdom, but implied that this was one step down from the Queen.  After 1682 the Queen was dead, and the Dauphine became the primary woman at court.  After 1690 she too was dead and so Madame was indeed the first lady at the court in terms of rank, until 1697 when the Duchesse de Bourgogne arrived.
:Agreed that Elisabeth Charlotte did not inherit the dukedom or revenues of the duchy of Montpensier, but the article's text claims, rather, that she was the heiress of the duchesse de Montpensier. But I don't see how that is possible either, as she was only very distantly related to La Grande Mademoiselle, who had several younger half-sisters. It is, of course, possible that the revenues of Liselotte's household as a dowager were paid out of her late husband's inheritance from La Grande Mademoiselle, but that would have been an administrative detail hardly worth noting. 
:I disagree that the title "Madame" implied first lady of the court in any sense except, now and then, coincidentally. In fact, this Madame never enjoyed that position. The title simply meant "wife of the King's eldest brother". True, she should have ranked as la première dame between 1690 and 1697, but did not becaue the King's morganatic wife, madame de Maintenon, held that position de facto. In fact, IIRC, Madame was so offended by the elevation of "a former governess" to the rank of France's first lady that she dared refuse La Maintenon's offer of an armchair when she was obliged to pay her a visit, since in the proper scheme of things Mme de Maintenon should not have even been allowed to sit in the presence of Madame at all! 
:Finally, the title "Princess Palatine", while commonly accorded in France to Elisabeth Charlotte during her betrothal was not used in that form, and was not used after her marriage. The reason is quite simple: "The Princess Palatine" was, in France, the title accorded to Anna Gonzaga (1616-84, of the French Nevers branch of the Dukes of Mantua), wife of Liselotte's uncle, the Prince Palatine Edward. This aunt, a famous Parisian hostess, conceived and negotiated Liselotte's 1671 marriage to Monsieur and was the couple's close friend in France umtil her death. Usually, therefore, prior to her marriage Liselotte was referred to in France as "the Princess Palatine Elisabeth Charlotte", and after marriage as "Madame" (the style, once obtained, was retained for life, like the title Princess Royal in Britain; even if a new king acceded to the throne, his sister-in-law could not become Madame until the previous one died, although during the lifetime of Liselotte, no one else ever qualified for her style). Lethiere 20:47, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Titles

message: I think there has to be a better title for this article. Liselotte was not the Princess of anything, let alone of a county palatine. Princess Palatine Elizabeth Charlotte might be better or even Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. Charles 17:32, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the simplest way to correct the implication that she was "the" Princess Palatine, is to use it as a prefix rather than a suffix to her Christian name. But "Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate" is the clearest style, and is less inaccurate by avoiding a title. Her legal pre-marital title was "Countess Palatine Elizabeth Charlotte (at Simmern)" but this title was considered insultingly inadequate even before her marriage, because she was the daughter of one of the five hereditary Prince Electors of the Empire, the highest-ranking princes in Europe below emperors and kings. The difficulty is that "elector" is the holder of an hereditary office, rather than of an hereditary title: children of an elector did not, properly, derive any title or rank from the paternal position (that's why the Holy Roman Emperor's children were not "Imperial Highness"). Informally, she and others in her position were sometimes called "Electoral Princess of the Palatinate (Kurprinzessin von der Ffalz"), but this title is little-known outside of German history books. I thought that the latest decision is that the "most common name used in English" must be used, regardless of the naming conventions worked out with royalty specifically in mind. By that standard, she should simply be listed at "Madame" ("Madam" if all titles are to be translated into English), or at her marital rather than maiden name, "Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans". She was and is better known in English by either of those titles than by her pre-marital title. Lethiere 20:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the comprehensive reply, Lethiere. There is still much debate (and indeed, reverting) about moves to marital names when the naming conventions prescribe something else. Indeed, you raised the point why I asked, the fact that the name "(Countess Palatine) Elizabeth Charlotte of Simmern" is basically unknown to all but a few hardcore genealogical purists. If the "spirit" of this name is to be preserved, I would make a move for Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, at least until naming conventions change (if they do). Given that, I will start a RM now and see how it goes. Charles 01:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Better title

message: Please note the conversation on this page just above this RM between Lethiere and me. Charles 01:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be more than happy to help disambiguate in the case of a move. As it is, Liselotte is much more famous through her letters recording French court life than the Duchess of Prussia and Electress of Brandenburg. The Duchess-Electress can be disambiguated with her birth and death dates. Charles 02:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

text: It would seem that Charles has unilaterally moved the older lady to Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate (1597-1660). Noel S McFerran 03:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: I came across this character while looking up a fictional character's full name Charlotte Orléans, also part of a french royal family in an anime. Do you guys think this person may have inspired this character? Tyciol (talk) 04:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Inspired character?

message: This article is not about the Duchesss of Berry. The morality, children & deaths of her other grandchildren aren't recited in Elisabeth Charlotte's article, but in their own articles. That's where this info belongs, properly sourced. FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This woman had 21 grandchildren and I daresay most grandmothers grieve the death of a grandchild -- but that doesn't make it encyclopedic information, nor justify inclusion of the details of one grandchild's death but not those of the other 20. FactStraight (talk) 01:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extranea on granddaughter 

message: Substituted at 18:01, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: On reading this page I found many issues:
1- Language about Madame de Maintenon is not neutral
* Liselotte couldn't accept the social position and the lust for power of this woman
* under the influence of the bigoted Madame de Maintenon
2- Other mistakes
* “the King and the Maintenon found out about this and this, of course, had an adverse effect on Liselotte's once good contact with Ludwig” Ludwig who?
3- Grammatical mistakes
* after his mother leave the court to become a nun
* whom she increasingly controlled him
* At the instigation of the Maintenon
* he became from a former philanderer
There are others and also many were corrected by other users over the last months. All the problematic sentences seem to be around pieces of text quoted from a book in German by Dirk Van der Cruysse (I don’t know German). It's also weird that I tried several footnotes randomly and they were all broken links.
I'm happy to correct the grammatical mistakes, but before I did, wanted to ask if this is the best course of action especially given the unneutral language. Egwazna (talk) 17:01, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple grammatical mistakes and broken-link references 

message: I just went through and corrected much of the grammar and spelling errors and attempted to fix some stylistic issues but I still think the entire page is excessively detailed and feels overly subjective in tone. I would attempt to fix it myself, but I'm still unfamiliar with Wikipedia's preferred stylistic guidelines. 
As Egwazna noted above, many sentences appear to be taken from a single German biography and come across as biased, and many of the links are broken. As well, the direct quotes pulled from her letters appear to have been originally written in French or German and poorly translated into English. I haven't touched those, as I am afraid of altering the original meaning. I think this page would benefit from a German speaker finding the references by Dirk Van der Cruysse (Madame sein ist ein ellendes Handwerck) and Helmuth Kiesel (Briefe der Liselotte von der Pfalz) and re-sourcing and re-translating the information.Asiaperdue (talk) 05:12, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style, sourcing and translation 

message: This painting is listed with the date 1673, however from the fashion style of this painting, I would say 1683 would be more accurate. Two factors especially point to this. First, the large size and number of the ribbon loops under the neck, Second, the style of the wig with its middle part also more point to the 1680s. ElkandAcquerne (talk) 16:27, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The 1673 date for the painting Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans, in hunting dress by Elle the Elder