128 - Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, known as the Grande Mademoiselle, 1627–1693.

Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, known as the Grande Mademoiselle, 1627–1693. Autograph letter signed “Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans,” St. Denis, July 21, 1669, 3 pp., in-4, to Colbert (traces of a black wax seal bearing the coat of arms on pale pink silk). An interesting letter to Colbert regarding the Grande Mademoiselle’s disputes with her mother-in-law, Marguerite de Lorraine, Dowager Duchess of Orléans. Having arrived in Saint-Denis the day before, Mademoiselle is surprised to find there “President Peletier de Saint-Mesme and people of the Dowager Duchess” and denies having promised the king to comply entirely with the latter’s wishes. While forcefully proclaiming her submission to Louis XIV—“[…] the king is absolutely master of my will […]”—she asks that “what has been settled” be upheld and fears above all that the sovereign might appear publicly to take sides against her: “[...] the public must not see that he is offering my mother-in-law his protection against me; this would drive me to despair." She thus sought Colbert’s mediation, while Claude Le Peletier, then President of the Investigations and future Controller-General of Finances, also intervened in this delicate family matter. Accompanied by its original cultural property export certificate from the Ministry of Culture.