Marie Hortense Victoire de La Tour d'Auvergne

## Biography

"Hortense de La Tour d'Auvergne" par Jean-Marc Nattier (c. 1741)

**Hortense de La Tour d'Auvergne** (Marie Hortense Victoire de La Tour d'Auvergne; born 27th January 1704) was a Vasttairian noblewoman, botanist, and hostess. Upon her marriage to Duc de Thouars, Charles Armand René de La Trémoïlle, which produced children Charlotte Hortense Victoire de La Trémoïlle and Jean Bretagne Charles de La Trémoïlle, she assumed the title of **Duchesse de Thouars**. After emerging out of mourning for her late husband, a victim of smallpox, much of her time she elected to remain distant from the court, to it preferring floriculture, before rejoining it as Dame d'Honneur to Charlotte Christine d'Anjou in 1752.

## Early Life

### Lineage

Marie Hortense Victoire de La Tour d'Auvergne was born on Sunday, 27th January 1704, at No. 17 Quai Malaquais, Hôtel de Bouillon, Paris, Vasttaire, to parents Emmanuel Théodose de La Tour d'Auvergne and his first wife Marie Armande de La Trémoille. She was preceeded in birth by four siblings; Armande de La Tour d'Auvergne (1697-1717), Marie Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne (1698 — 1699), Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne (1701 — 1705), and Frédéric-Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne (1702 — 1723).

Her father, Emmanuel Théodose de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duc de Bouillon, was married 4 times; to her mother, Marie Armande Victoire de La Trémoille (1677 — 1717), and stepmothers; Louise Françoise Angélique Le Tellier (1698 — 1719), Anne Marie Christine de Simiane (1683 — 1722), Louise Henriette Françoise de Lorraine Harcourt (1707 — 1737). Notably, the lineage of the La Tour d'Auvergne family could be traced back to the Dutch Princes of Orange, boasting direct descendance from William the Silent, the main leader of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs.

### Childhood and Education

Enjoying a relatively unremarkable unbringing in the family's ancestral Duchy of Bouillon, as a child Hortense developed a close-knit and affectionate relationship with both of her parents. Her mother's premature passing in 1717 introduced a twinge of suffering and despondency into the lives of her and her siblings. Hortense, who had just made an entrance into her teenage years at the time, however, dealt with it with "remarkable aplomb", albeit was not convinced when her father opted to remarry in the same year to a granddaughter of Secretary of State for War, Marquis of Louvois, reportedly refusing to call her 'mere'. At any rate, this budding boycott was short-lived, as she also died the following year.

For the next two of her father's wives Hortense managed to muster at least some amount of affection, particularly his fourth and final wife, who, ironically, was two years younger than Hortense herself. The two formed a close companionship, but, tragically, the streak of deaths of her stepmothers continued, and she died in 1737. Deeply disturbed by this, she resolved that she "would not pass prematurely" — a vow she made to herself that she supported with frequent prayers and good care of her physical well-being. Furthermore a student of striking academic intelligence, she excelled at botany and harpsichord.

## Marriage and Family

### Marriage

Hortense de La Tour d'Auvergne was twenty when she was introduced to her first cousin, Charles Armand René de La Trémoïlle, Duc of Thouars. Though initially dubious about the likelihood of a marriage between them, her being four years senior René, she found herself taken by his chivalrous poise and eloquence, and conceded. The nuptials were held on January 29, 1725, when the doting newlyweds were aged seventeen and twenty-one respectively. Following the wedding, she was styled as Duchesse de Thouars. Despite the adoration the couple shared, their marriage would remain childless for over a decade.

During this time, the Duchess became active at court, while her husband embarked onto a career of a military officer, serving in the War of the Polish Succession. In 1734, during an ambush, René was forced to usher his regiment into hiding following an ambush, for which he was sharply criticized by fellow commanding officers and accused of cowardice. After being notified of such, the Duchesse, intent on warding off gossip spawned by this, approached the Prime Minister of Vasttaire himself and complained on behalf of herself and her husband, whose names, according to her, were being tarnished by those "unfounded assumptions".

The return of René from war was followed by favorable news. The long-awaited delivery of a healthy child, that came in 1737 with the birth of their son, Jean Bretagne Charles Godefroy de La Trémoïlle, was a cause for considerable celebration within the family. A daughter, Charlotte Hortense Victoire de La Trémoïlle, followed three years later. Familial bliss, however, was not destined to last for long, as in 1741 the Duchess became stricken with an illness that was identified as smallpox. While the children were immediately isolated, her husband, seeing how terrified his wife was at the prospect of possible death, insisted that he never left her bedroom and became her "guard".

### Duc de Thouars' Death

This decision resulted in him getting the malady from his wife. Hortense was able to overcome the disease, and despite the effect it left on her health insisited that she nursed her husband back to health, as she implied that it was her fault that he had it in the first place. The Duc, however, was unable to recover, and passed away on May 23rd, 1741, at age 33. On the 26th of May his body was taken to Saint-Sulpice, and, after the funeral service which took place the next day, transported to Thouars, where he was buried in the chapel of the castle, the burial place of his family.

## Widowhood

### Children's Education

The death of her husband dealt a serious blow to Hortense. She gradually withdrew her presence from court, depositing her time moreso to raising her two young children. In 1742 she elected to leave Paris, and thus moved the small family to Brittany. They took up residence in the Château des Ducs de Thouars, and moved occasionally between there and the Hôtel de Thouars in Nantes. At the same time, she began to make arrangements for the formal education of her son, which began when he was six. Through the recommendation of her brother, the Duc de Bouillon, she solicited the services of the Abbé Dupont, who was considered to be a stern but effective educator, while her daughter Victoire, whom she nicknamed affectionately 'Toire', became enrolled at the Abbaye de Maubuisson, a Cistercian monastery outside of Paris.

Hortense harbored Jansenist sentiments, an ideology that supported the reconciliation of divine grace and human freedom — this was deemed heretical by the papacy. Despite this, when her daughter turned sixteen, she secured for her the position of a canoness-countess at L'Argentière, a Burgundian chapter dedicated to unmarried women from the upper echelons of the nobility. Overcome with a sense of religious duty during her tenure as a canoness, Victoire denounced Jansenism entirely and encouraged her brother to join her rejection of this "odious fancification of Christian liberty" that had been rooted in their early education. Eventually, after a period of familial discord, Victoire and her Hortense were reconciled. Both women retained their opposing sentiments.

### Claims on the Kingdom of Naples

During the negotiations for the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, in which the great powers of Europe were redistributing considerable pieces of land to rebuild the balance of power on the continent, the Duchesse made it known to the negotiating diplomats that her eleven-year-old son Charles had a claim on the Kingdom of Naples. Although Naples was formally a possession of the Emperor of Vasttaire, both sides were conceding and swapping pieces of territory to build a new power balance - it was under these circumstances that the Duchesse Douairière came to believe that the House of La Trémoïlle may finally be able to act upon its ancestral claim to the Neapolitan crown. Needless to say, her proposals were not taken particularly seriously by any of the parties involved in the negotiations. With none of the powers willing to place a relatively unknown eleven-year-old onto the Neapolitan throne, she conceded and abandoned her efforts. Charles, at the time, remained mostly unaware of his mother's campaign.

### Return to Court

Between 1747 and 1752, the Duchesse Douairière made a return to her teenage hobby that was floriculture, busying herself with flower arranging, gardening, cataloguing various plants, and creating herbariums. Her penchant for gardening roses, her favorite being the Damask rose, saw one of the similar cultivars being coined "Hortense de La Tour" as an homage to her botanical pursuit. With her old friend, Marquise Douairière de Grenédan, the Duchesse Douairière made frequent journeys to gardens around the Empire to study, catalogue and admire the species, but as she grew older her zest for adventure subsided. Instead, in 1752, she made a long-awaited return to the Imperial Court, where she was made a Dame d'Honneur to the Dauphine, Marie-Félicitée de Savoie at age 48.

Following a prolonged period of absence from court spanning from 1753 to 1757, Madame la Duchesse Douairière de Thouars made an unremarkable and quiet return to the Château de Saint-Denis in a small carriage draped in black. She had initially left court for Château des Ducs de Thouars in late 1753 for a period of seclusion in which she produced several paintings depicting ancestors of the La Trémoïlle family. Between 1754 and 1756, Madame de Thouars made several charity trips to major Vasttairian cities, using her wealth to donate to abbeys, feed the poor, and promote goodwill. The Duchesse Douairière soon moved on to Paris in early 1756, where she made several visits to prominent members of the Vasttairian art world, including the famed and ageing Jean-Marc Nattier, who was now growing sickly and weak. She would then meet with Maurice Quentin de La Tour, whom she initially met in 1740 during his rise to fame amongst the court of Vasttaire. He was rumoured to have been romantic towards Thouars during her first widowhood, though there was no evidence to confirm that the Duchesse shared his feelings. Despite this, they maintained a pleasant friendship with a shared delight in pastel works which promoted a "lighter" aesthetic to their artworks. She would then finally return to the Château de Saint-Denis, having seemingly not aged since her departure, though now wearing full black as opposed to her usual half-mourning attire. The Duchesse Douairière still remains very fashion forward, though more "relaxed" with her personality.

Upon her return to court in 1759, Madame la Duchesse Douairière de Thouars began to serve as Dame d'Honneur to the Duchesse de Valois, Charlotte Christine d'Anjou in 1759.

## Titles and Styles

* **27th January 1704 — 23 February 1716:** *Son Altesse, Mademoiselle de Turenne*
* **23 February 1716 — 29th January 1725:** *Son Altesse, Mademoiselle de Bouillon*
* **29th January 1725 — 23rd May 1741:** *Son Altesse, Madame la Duchesse de Thouars*
* **23rd May 1741** **— present:** *Son Altesse,* *Madame la Duchesse Douairière de Thouars*

## Issue

With her husband, Charles Armand René de La Trémoïlle, Hortense de La Tour d'Auvergne bore two children:

* Charlotte Hortense Victoire de La Trémoïlle (5th March 1740 — Present)
* Jean Bretagne Charles de La Trémoïlle (5th February 1737 — Present)