Louise Marie-Therese (The Black Nun of Moret)
Encyclopedia
Moret-sur-Loing
Moret-sur-Loing is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.The town was a source of inspiration for Monet, Renoir and Sisley.-Twin towns:...
) was a French nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
, the object of a gossip story in the 18th century, where she is pointed out as the daughter of the Queen of France, Maria Theresa of Spain
Maria Theresa of Spain
Maria Theresa of Austria was the daughter of Philip IV, King of Spain and Elizabeth of France. Maria Theresa was Queen of France as wife of King Louis XIV and mother of the Grand Dauphin, an ancestor of the last four Bourbon kings of France.-Early life:Born as Infanta María Teresa of Spain at the...
. Her existence is mentioned in several different sources.
Life
The Black Nun of Moret, Louise Marie-Thérèse (1664–1732) was a BenedictineBenedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
nun in the abbey of Moret-sur-Loing
Moret-sur-Loing
Moret-sur-Loing is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.The town was a source of inspiration for Monet, Renoir and Sisley.-Twin towns:...
. She was called the "Mauresse de Moret", and a portrait of her exists in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève in Paris. The research done by the Société de l'histoire de Paris et d'Ile-de-France, published in 1924 by Honoré Champion éditions, concluded that this pastel portrait was painted around 1680 by the same hand which painted the series of twenty-two pastel portraits of Kings of France, from Louis IX
Louis IX
Louis IX may refer to:* Louis IX of France .* Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria "the Rich" * Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt ....
to Louis XIV, between 1681 to 1683 on the initiative of Father Claude Du Molinet (1620–1687), librarian of Sainte Geneviève abbey.
No less than 6 memorialists have devoted paragraphs to her: she is mentioned in the memoirs of Madame de Maintenon, the Grande Mademoiselle, Madame de Montespan (whose so-called memoirs were written by Philippe Musoni years after Montespan's death), Duke of Saint-Simon, Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
and Cardinal Dubois
Guillaume Dubois
Guillaume Dubois was a French cardinal and statesman.-Early years:Dubois, the third of the four great Cardinal-Ministers , was born in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Limousin...
(who is probably not the author of his own Memoirs).
Shortly after the death of the French Queen Maria Theresa of Spain
Maria Theresa of Spain
Maria Theresa of Austria was the daughter of Philip IV, King of Spain and Elizabeth of France. Maria Theresa was Queen of France as wife of King Louis XIV and mother of the Grand Dauphin, an ancestor of the last four Bourbon kings of France.-Early life:Born as Infanta María Teresa of Spain at the...
in 1683, wife of Louis XIV, courtiers pointed out this woman as the black daughter the Queen allegedly once gave birth to.
La Grande Mademoiselle tells that the child could be of the black page
Page (servant)
A page or page boy is a traditionally young male servant, a messenger at the service of a nobleman or royal.-The medieval page:In medieval times, a page was an attendant to a knight; an apprentice squire...
Nabo, of whom the Queen was very fond. The adultery thesis is not considered likely, as the Queen was a very pious woman, and there is no knowledge of even the slightest mistake of hers. It would be very difficult in Versailles to have a liaison and even to give birth in secret. Every Royal birth happened in public, in the Queen's bedchambers, with all courtiers present as witnesses. The little princess Marie-Anne was born (16 November 1664) with a dark skin caused by cyanosis, and died shortly after birth (26 December 1664). Some say that the baby remained black, and had been changed with a dead girl, to avoid scandal.
According to Madame, wife of Louis XIV's brother, her husband said that the child was not black at all but very ugly. In any case, although the story about the black daughter of Maria Theresa is unconfirmed, it was still persistent and believed by many.
Saint-Simon mentions that her convent was visited sometimes by the Queen and later by Madame de Maintenon, he also mentioned that they didn't always see her but always watch over her welfare. The nun however seemed convinced of her Royal birth, and it is told by Saint-Simon that she once greeted the Dauphin as "my brother". A letter sent on June 13, 1685, by the Secretary of the House of King to Mister De Bezons, general agent of the clergy, and the pension's patent of 300 pounds granted by King Louis XIV to the nun Louise Marie-Thérèse on October 15, 1695, "to be paid to her all her life in this convent or everywhere she could be, by the guards of the Royal treasure present and to come" confirm this opinion.
Historical notes on the exhumations made on 1793 in the abbey of Saint-Denis where Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses of France are buried, published by the French national museum of monuments, reveal the following: "The same day October 14, after the workmen's dinner, around 3 PM, we continued the extraction of the other coffins of the Bourbons; instance Louis XIII, died in 1643, 42 years old; Louis XIV, died in 1715, 76 years old; Marie de Médicis, second wife of Henri IV, died in 1642, 68 years old; Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, died in 1666, 64 years old; Maria Theresa of Spain
Maria Theresa of Spain
Maria Theresa of Austria was the daughter of Philip IV, King of Spain and Elizabeth of France. Maria Theresa was Queen of France as wife of King Louis XIV and mother of the Grand Dauphin, an ancestor of the last four Bourbon kings of France.-Early life:Born as Infanta María Teresa of Spain at the...
, wife of Louis XIV, died in 1683, 45 years old; Louis, Dauphin, son of Louis XIV, died in 1711, 49 years old. Note: some of these bodies were well preserved, especially the one of Louis XIII; but Louis XIV skin was black like ink."