Charlotte de La Trémoille

## Charlotte, Comtesse Douairière de Champagne

La Comtesse Douairière de Champagne, peinte en 1654

### Tenure

Comtesse de Champagne (1624 – 1646)Comtesse Douairière de Champagne (1646 – Present)

## Biography

### House

La Trémoïlle (by birth)Blois (by marriage)

### Born

9th January 1599 (age 55)Château de Thouars, Poitou, Grandelumière

### Spouse

Philippe III François de Blois, Comte de Champagne †

### Issue

Philippe IV, Comte de Champagne
François Valentin Xavier, Comte de Brie

Isabelle Laurène Victoire, Mademoiselle de Brie

Françoise Olympe Augustine, Duchesse de Moncontour

Henriette Catherine Béatrice, Mlle. de Sancerre

Nicolas Frédéric Alexandre, Comte de Châteaudun

### Mother

Charlotte Brabantina de Nassau, Duchesse de Thouars †

### Siblings

Henri III, Duc de Thouars
Élisabeth, Mademoiselle de Thouars †

Frédéric de La Trémoille, Comte de Laval †

### Religion

Roman Catholicism

Signature de la Douairière de Champagne

**Charlotte, Comtesse Douairière de Champagne** (Charlotte de La Trémoille; born 9th January 1599) was a Grandelumièrian noblewoman, foreign princess, and wife to Philippe II, Comte de Champagne. Though the aforementioned would make her a woman of great admiration at French court, Charlotte had a gentle upbringing in her natal home at the Château de Thouars. As the daughter to the Duke de Thouars and Comtesse Charlotte Brabantina, who came to be monikered as 'La Belle Brabantine', Charlotte inherited a strong-willed personality and a certainly pleasing face. Her match to her husband, the late Philippe II, was seen as a triumph, for her parents had the means and resources to plant their daughter as wife to Grandelumière's most capable peer.

After her marriage, Charlotte, then the Comtesse de Champagne, would make her courtly debut at the side of the Comte. She was since known to be a most allusive woman, choosing her friends based on their personality and guts as opposed to their rank or beauty. Being that she was a foreign princess as the grand-daughter of William, Prince de Orange and his esteemed wife, Charlotte de Bourbon, the Comtesse would never wish for any more than she had, which made her different to her soaring adversaries. Since her husband's death, Charlotte had taken a doting role in the family, overlooking her 6 children with great ambition for their futures.

### Appearance and Personality

Charlotte had always been regarded as a pretty woman. Since her childhood she was said to be the exact image of her mother, which garnered her many respectable suitors in her younger years. Her bosom, pale and noble, sat perfectly even after various years of child-bearing, whilst the skin on her neck had only slightly dropped by 1954 as a sign of gracious ageing. Her face remained round, with kind eyes, a straight nose, and a heart-shaped pout that was always dusted in a light pink colour. She was known for her dislike of the ageing process and had sworn to give into the various cosmetic treatments that her grandmother and mother would pass down to her. At court, she styled herself in the Empire's latest fashions but managed to keep her accessories, such as her small pearl earrings, more classic and refined.

Her character, however, was very different than the comely looks put forward. La Comtesse Douairière had always been adamant in the success of her family. She grew up just as strong-willed as her father, pushing her siblings to achieve their full potential at all times. This almost motherly, overbearing behaviour was carried into her married life, and later onto her own children. As the Comtesse de Champagne, Charlotte ensured that her husband's rage never outmatched her own, and that they continued to put on a shining display of how the Grandelumièrian noblesse *should* act. Never one for failure, Charlotte instilled the same virtues in all of her children, specifically the future Comte de Champagne. Were another noblewoman to rain on her parade, Charlotte would dig her claws into whatever information she could find and distribute around the court, for the protection of her family would always be her number one priority.