Louis Victor, Prince of Carignano
| Louis Victor | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prince of Carignano | |||||
 | |||||
| Born |
25 September 1721 Hôtel de Soissons, Paris, France | ||||
| Died |
16 December 1778 (aged 57) Palazzo Carignano, Turin, Italy | ||||
| Spouse | Christine of Hesse-Rotenburg | ||||
| Issue Detail |
Victor Amadeus II, Prince of Carignano Leopoldina, Princess of Melfi Gabrielle, Princess of Lobkowicz Marie Louise, Princess of Lamballe Caterina, Princess of Paliano Eugenio, Count of Villafranca | ||||
| |||||
| House | House of Savoy-Carignano | ||||
| Father | Victor Amadeus I, Prince of Carignano | ||||
| Mother | Maria Vittoria of Savoy | ||||
Louis Victor of Savoy (25 September 1721 – 16 December 1778) was a northern Italian nobleman and the Prince of Carignano from 1741 till his death. He was the great-grandfather of King Charles Albert of Sardinia. His great-great-grandson Victor Emmanuel II of Italy became King of Italy.
Biography
Louis Victor was born at the Hôtel de Soissons[1] in Paris to the Prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy and his wife Maria Vittoria of Savoy. His father was a grandson of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano and thus a descendant of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain. He was doubly descended from the latter pair due his mother being an illegitimate daughter of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia and his mistress Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes.
One of five children, he was the second son of his parents; his older brother Joseph Victor Amadeus died in 1716 aged 5 months. Louis Victor was thus the heir to the so-called House of Savoy-Carignano from birth. His older sister Anne Thérèse married the Frenchman Charles de Rohan and was Princess of Soubise by marriage. Anne Thérèse was the mother of Madame de Guéméné, governess to the children of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI.
Louis Victor grew up in Paris, his father was an inveterate gambler. Heavily in debt, and sued by his sisters whose dowries he had gambled away, he fled to France where he lived such a luxurious life that his son was forced to sell the great fortune he owned in that country. He later moved to Piedmont, between Turin and Racconigi, where his father would establish relations with the greatest European families, such as the Bourbon, the Rohan and the Lorraine Armagnac in France, the Lobkowicz in Bohemia, and the Colonna and Doria Pamphili in Italy. Many of his daughters would later marry into these families.
On 4 May 1740 Louis Victor married the Landgravine Christine of Hesse-Rotenburg; she was a Princess of Hessen-Rheinfels-Rotenburg and was the sister of the then Kings deceased wife Polyxena Christina of Hesse-Rotenburg (1706–1736). The couple would have many children; eight in total.
Their most famous child was Princess Maria Teresa Louisa of Savoia, better known as the princesse de Lamballe and best friend of Marie Antoinette.
Maria Teresa married in 1767 to the Louis Alexandre, Prince of Lamballe, heir to one of the largest fortunes of the era and great grandson of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. Widowed the next year, Louis Victor's daughter was given a large fortune making her an extremely wealthy women in her own right.
In 1741, he lost his father and thus became the Prince of Carignano. The fief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, and the fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty km south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance.[2]
Louis Victor lost his wife in September, 1778. Louis Victor would follow on 16 December 1778 dying at the Palazzo Carignano, the Turin residence of the Savoy-Carignano family. Since 1835 his wife's grave has been in Turin's Basilica of Superga, as is that of Louis Victor.
His present descendants include the pretending cousins Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples and Amedeo, 5th Duke of Aosta. There is also Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este.
Issue
- Princess Charlotte Maria Luisa of Savoy (Turin, 17 August 1742 - 20 February 1794) died unmarried; was a nun;
- Victor Amadeus II, Prince of Carignano (Turin, 31 October 1743 - September 1780) married Princess Joséphine of Lorraine and had issue;
- Princess Leopoldina Maria of Savoy (Turin, 21 December 1744 – Rome, 17 April 1807) married Prince Andrea IV Doria Pamphili Landi, 8th Prince of Melfi and had issue;
- Princess Polyxena Teresa of Savoy (Turin, 31 October 1746 - 20 December 1762) died unmarried;
- Princess Gabrielle of Savoy (Turin, 17 May 1748 - Vienna, 10 April 1828) married Ferdinand Philipp Josef, Prince of Lobkowicz and had issue currant House of Lobkowicz descend from her;
- Princess Maria Teresa Luisa of Savoy (Turin, 8 September 1749 – Paris, 3 September 1792) married Louis Alexandre Joseph de Bourbon, prince de Lamballe; murdered in the French Revolution;
- Prince Tommaso of Savoy (Turin, 6 March 1751 - 23 July 1753)
- Prince Eugenio of Savoy (Turin, 21 October 1753 - 30 June 1785) married Elisabeth Anne Magon Boisgarin and had issue;
- Princess Caterina Maria Luisa Francesca of Savoy (Turin, 4 April 1762 - 4 September 1823) married Don Filippo Giuseppe Francesco Colonna, 9th Prince of Paliano, descendant of Marie Mancini;[3] had issue from which the present Princes of Paliano descend;[3]
Ancestry
References
- ↑ Once home of his ancestor Marie de Bourbon
- ↑ "Carignano". Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition. 1911. Retrieved 2008-03-31.
- 1 2 van de Pas, Leo. "Landgräfin Christine von Hessen-Rheinfels-Rotenburg". Genealogics .org. Retrieved 2010-03-01.