Princess Sophie of France Forums and Files

  Posthumous portrait of Princess Thérèse, by Jean-Marc Nattier (1748). Princess Thérèse of France was born on 16 May 1736 at the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, Yvelines, France. She was the seventh daughter and ninth child of King Louis XV of France and his wife, Queen Maria Leszczyńska. King Louis XV was the son of Louis, Duke of Burgundy, and Marie Adélaïde of Savoy. Maria Leszczyńska was the daughter of Stanisław I Leszczyński and Countess Catherine Opalińska. Since birth, Thérèse had six siblings: Élisabeth, Henriette, Louis, Adélaïde, Victoire, and Sophie. Two siblings, a sister and a brother, died in childhood before the birth of Thérèse: Marie Louise and Philippe. In 1737, one year after the birth of Thérèse, her mother gave birth to one more daughter, Louise. Because of the expenses of the king's official mistress, Louise Julie de Mailly-Nesle, Cardinal Fleury, the king's chief minister, sent Thérèse and her sisters Victoire, Sophie, and Louise to the Abbey of Fon

1734 : Sophie was born at the Palace of Versailles. 1736 : Sophie's younger sister, Thérèse, was born at the Palace of Versailles. 1737 : Sophie's youngest sister, Louise, was born at the Palace of Versailles. 1738 : Sophie and her sisters Victoire, Thérèse, and Louise are sent to the Abbey of Fontevraud. Sophie was three years old when they arrived at the Abbey, Victoire was five years old, Thérèse was two years old, and Louise was ten months. 1744 : Thérèse dies at the age of eight, due to smallpox, at the Abbey of Fontevraud. 1748 : Madame de Pompadour, the king's mistress, sends artist Jean-Marc Nattier to Fontevraud to paint Sophie, Victoire and Louise in secret. A posthumous portrait of Thérèse could have also been painted by Jean-Marc Nattier during this time, also. 1748 : In October, the portraits were shown to their parents. 1748 : Victoire leaves Fontevraud. 1750 : Sophie and Louise are allowed to leave Fontevraud. 1750 : Sophie and Louise return to the Palace of