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Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans

Paris, 9 Dec 1709 – Paris, 16 Jun 1742

10 facts3 sources

Facts and their sources

  • Born9 Dec 1709, Parisnot verified1 source
  • TitleQueen Consort of Spainnot verified1 source
  • TitleQueen Consort of Spain, 1724not verified1 source
  • Died16 Jun 1742, Parisnot verified1 source
  • MotherFrançoise Marie de Bourbonnot verified1 source
  • FatherPhilippe II, Duke of Orléansnot verified1 source

A life in time

  1. 9 Dec 1709

    Born in Paris

  2. 1724

    Queen Consort of Spain

  3. 16 Jun 1742

    Dies in Paris, aged 32

Family

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Parents

Partner

During her lifetime

She lived through 5 decades. Pick one to hear and see what it was like around Paris.

General history, not a record about the family: each item says where it comes from.

The 1700s · Louise is born in Paris

In the news1709–1710

The Great Winter of 1709

The Great Winter of 1709 brought extreme cold and severe famine to France, marking one of the century's worst economic crises.

Getting around

Travel times between major French cities

Traveling between cities often involved water coaches (coches d'eau) for rivers or road carriages, with a journey from Lyon to Paris taking six days at a slow pace or three days at a faster pace in 1742.

At the table

Famine food made of fern

During the 1709 famine, bread became so expensive that people made desperate loaves out of fern, which turned their skin yellow and left them too weak to stand.

The Great Northern War. Russia, Denmark and Saxony fought Sweden for the Baltic; Peter the Great won and built St Petersburg on the conquered coast.In Europe · 1700–1721

The Great Northern War. Russia, Denmark and Saxony fought Sweden for the Baltic; Peter the Great won and built St Petersburg on the conquered coast.

Imonoz · CC BY-SA 4.0

What people wore

Origin of the term Grisette

The term grisette described poor working-class women, named after the simple gray woolen cloth used to make their dresses.

Music

Teaching Dance via Written Notation

Dance masters used specialized choreographic notation created by Raoul Auger Feuillet to distribute and teach new dance steps between Paris and the provinces. By 1721, collections contained dozens of dances composed by masters like Pécour and Balon for the French court.

Daily life

Intense use of single-room dwellings

Ordinary homes often consisted of a single room used for all daily activities, including cooking, sleeping, and childcare, with furniture rearranged throughout the day. In rural areas, houses were typically made of wattle and daub with thatched roofs, often lacking glass windows and floorboards.