Here are some notes from another of Pierre Boyé's evocative studies, this time concerning King Stanislas's relationship with his grandchildren, the offspring of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska. Boyé's article was originally published in the Mémoires of the Lorraine Archaeological Society in 1922 where it prefaces a collection relevant documents, and letters from Stanislas's copious correspondence.
Births
"If ever anyone, after the marriage of a cherished child, was eager to become a grandparent", writes Pierre Boyé, "that person was was Stanislas". Clearly, apart from any personal considerations there were huge political and dynastic interests at stake.
The marriage between Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska took place on 5th September 1725. At this time Stanislas, and his consort Catherine Opalińska were resident at Chambord. "Astonishing notes" from the duc de Bourbon and Cardinal de Rohan made Stanislas privy to the intimate secrets of the royal wedding night. After months of false alarms and anxiety, in March 1727 he was finally able to announce with joy his daughter's first pregnancy. His correspondents were treated to bulletins on the most private details of her condition - Pierre Boyé found himself "embarrassed to follow the King of Poland into such territory"(p.219-220).
On 7th May he reported that she has felt the first movements of her "precious fruit"; on 25th that she has her first milk. On 1st June he announces that a pastoral instruction had been issued, by order of Louis XV, to implore divine mercy for a safe delivery.
On morning of 14th August 1727, Marie Leszczynska gave birth to twin girls, Louise-Élisabeth and Henriette. A courier hurried with the news to Dyé-sur-Loire where the Polish royal couple were taking refuge from the malaria-ridden swamps of Chambord. On the 23rd, Stanislas visited his new granddaughters in Versailles, and pronounced himself enraptured by the two "little dolls".
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| Madame Louise-Élisabeth of France and her twin sister Henriette. Attributed to Pierre Gobert. Château de Versailles (Wikimedia) |
With the rest of France, Stanislas eagerly anticipated the birth of the longed-for male heir. His disappointment increased with the appearance of a third daughter, Louise, born 28th July 1728. But finally, on 4th September 1729, came the birth of a Dauphin, and, on 30th August 1730, that of a Duke of Anjou: "Happy days, when Stanislas found on his visits to Versailles, his family 'in perfect health', the Queen 'cherished by the King and respected by all honnêtes gens'" (p.224).
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| Alexis-Simon Belle, Marie Leszczynska, Queen of France with her son the Dauphin Château de Versailles (Wikimedia) |
This optimistic vision was not destined to last for long. By the time of the arrival of "Madame Quatrième", Adélaïde, on 23rd March 1732, the illusion of marital harmony had faded. Coffins replaced cradles: Madame Troisième, "the most loveable infant that nature has ever produced", died on 19th February 1733, followed on 9th April by Philippe, the little Duke of Anjou. Marie Leszczyńska, already once more heavily pregnant, bore her loss with resignation, whilst Stanislas's attention was diverted by the affairs of Poland: "The death of M. le duc d'Anjou, coming on top of my agitation over present events, has overwhelmed me more than I can express". His hope that God would "make good our loss" was to be disappointed by the birth of Victoire, Madame Cinquième, on 11th March 1733.
For a while, Stanislas continued to hope for a new grandson. His imagination was fired by the historical association between Anjou and the rulers of Poland (Louis I of Poland and Henri de Valois had both been of the House of Anjou) Denied the restoration of his throne, he dreamed of reforging the link. He interrogated his daughter shamelessly about her latest "petit paquet". But, despite astrological predictions to the contrary, there were only yet more girls: Sophie, Madame Sixième, born 27th July 1734 and Thérèse, Madame Septième, born 16th May 1736.
At the end of the War of Polish Succession, Stanislas, absent since 1733, returned to Versailles where he now reported indefatigably on the progress of his grandchildren. The twins, "Madame" and "Madame Henriette", now nine years old, conducted themselves with pleasing decorum at court ceremonies. The Dauphin was well-instructed and already conscious of his status as heir presumptive. Victoire toddled around and chatted... And here was baby Sophie, escaping from her wrappings.... Whilst he was at Meudon, awaiting the conclusion of the negotiations which would install him as the nominal Duke of Lorraine, Stanislas found no greater pleasure than to visit his family: "In the course of these ten months, the King of Poland discovered the art of being a grandfather" (p.228)
It was on 1st April 1737 that Stanislas entered his new duchies. On 15th July, a final daughter, Madame Louise, "Madame Dernière", was born to Marie Leszczynska. There were acclamations of joy when the child was at first thought to be a boy; according to Narbonne, this misinformation had been put about maliciously by King Louis himself. Stanislas rapidly renounced his plan to return to Versailles "to greet the arrival into the world of M. le duc d'Anjou". By the time Leszczynski made his next trip in the summer of 1738, the little girl, with her three youngest sisters, had already departed for the Abbey of Fontevraud. He was not see this granddaughter, later to be venerated as Thérèse de Saint-Augustin, for another thirteen years.
Marriages and Funerals
Stanislas's ambitions to regain Poland for his dynasty were briefly rekindled when his aid was solicited to promote the marriage of Prince Frederick-Christian, son of Augustus of Saxony, to one of the twins. These plans came to nothing. Negotiations with Spain were to prove more fruitful, resulting in the marriage of Madame, aged just twelve, to her cousin the Infante Don Philip in August 1739 and the betrothal of the Dauphin to the Spanish Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela.
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| Louis Tocqué, The Dauphin, Louis of France, in 1739, aged nine. Château de Versailles (Wikimedia) |
At the end of 1737 the Gazette de Holland reported from Lunéville that Stanislas had received the gift of a "premier ouvrage" from the eight-year-old Dauphin (who was later to produce a much more vaunted picture for the little Infanta). The ink drawing, representing a deer hunt, was originally in a magnificent gilded frame.
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| Illust. from Boyé, p.235. The picture apparently still exists in the collections of the musée Lorrain; it was exhibited in 2004, but I can't find a newer digital image. |
The unions were duly celebrated at Lunéville. On 26th August 1739, the day of the marriage by proxy of Louise-Élisabeth with Don Philip, the Polish royal couple inaugurated the théâtre de verdure in the Parc des Bosquets: there was a magnificent open air production, then a supper and ball illuminated by 50,000 pots-à-feu. For the marriage of the Dauphin in 1744 the festivities were still more extravagant. Stanislas sought to rival the great celebrations that had attended the marriage of Duke Francis to the Imperial Archduchess Maria Theresa. A huge temporary edifice, 60 feet high, representing a temple to Hymen, was erected in the courtyard of the château, decorated with all manner of trophies, bas-reliefs and paintings. It was a "machine" packed with literally thousands of fireworks which were set off in a loud and extravagant display. For three days, tables were set for three hundred diners and fountains of wine flowed freely. The houses in the town were all elaborately illuminated (p.240)
The distraught Dauphin had little time to mourn before he was betrothed again, this time to Maria Josepha of Saxony, sister to Frederick-Christian and daughter of the hated King of Poland. Informed only tardily, Stanislas was prepared to congratulate the young couple wholeheartedly, but the union met with bitter opposition from both Catherine Opalińska and Marie Leszczyńska. As a precaution the cortege bringing the new Dauphine to Versailles avoided passing through Lorraine. This time there was to be no rejoicing in Lunéville.
Fortunately, Maria Josepha mollied her mother-in-law with a famous conciliatory gesture. The story is a nice one. Three days after the marriage, according to protocol, she was obliged to sport a bracelet bearing a portrait of her father. When the Queen asked to see it, the portrait proved to be not of Augustus of Saxony but her own father, good King Stanislas.
Catherine Opalińska died on 19th March 1747.
It was a psychologically challenging time for the young people. According to the duc de Luynes, the Dauphin and his sisters developed a morbid preoccupation with death. With the château draped in black for his grandmother, Louis sent for his sisters and his wife and had them performed a quadrille by flickering candlelight in the darkness beneath the funeral dais where, only a few months earlier, the body of the deceased Dauphine had lain in state. The duc remarks that it was not that he had not loved his first wife; but childishness had got the better of reflection. (Luynes Mémoires, VIII, p.368, cited, Boyé, p.244)
The wretched boy was still only seventeen. Pierre Boyé notes that Louis had already, two years previously, taken part in the Flanders Campaign, sending Stanislas excited bulletins; but he remained fundamentally still a child.
Stanislas "Grand Papa"
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| Anon, Louis, Dauphin of France Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery [Wikimedia] |
As he approached his twenties, the Dauphin failed to fulfil his earlier promise. The happy, fun-loving child had given way to a heavy, apathetic adolescent: "He is extremely stout, dislikes all motion and all exercises, is without passions, without even tastes; everything stifles him, nothing animates him; if the mind still sparkles with a few flashes it is a dying fire, which fat and piety will soon extinguish."(d'Argenson, Mémoires I, chpt. x). Pierre Boyé notes, more charitably, that Louis had not, as yet, adopted the sullen indifference and glacial reserve of his father; he could still show intellectual curiosity, flitting from one idea to another; fundamentally he remained "bon et sensible". Louis XV saw his son's tendency to torpor as a Polish inheritance; other commentators too, noted the Dauphin's likeness to Stanislas: according to the abbé Proyart, there were "greatest traits of ressemblance" (Vie du dauphin, p.392.)
Of his granddaughters, it was Henriette, delicate in health and obliging in disposition, who lavished most affection on Stanislas: "I love you madly ("à la folie"), as does everyone; one cannot know you and do otherwise. But no-one else can equal the tenderness I feel towards you. Since everyone loves you, you may judge how much you are loved and respected by your granddaughter. (Letter 20 - cited p.246)
Madame Henriette was to die of a fever in February 1752, aged only twenty-four. According to Nicolas Durival, news of her death was concealed overnight from Stanislas, who reported next day to the Duke Ossolinski, that he had encountered her mysteriously in his sleep and embraced her repeatedly in his dreams.
If Henriette was Louis XV's favourite daughter, Leszczynski himself probably secretly preferred Adélaïde, who, like himself, was "brusque et fantasque"(p.247). She inherited her grandfather's high colour and, like the Dauphin, his loud voice. She also resembled him in personality - impulsive, by turns hyperactive and lazy, easily enthused or discouraged, vivid in imagination. She shared his insatiable curiosity, practised clockmaking. She sought to impose her dominant personality. By comparison the other granddaughters, who returned from Fontevraud in 1748 seemed colourless. But Stanislas had room in his heart for them all, and for the second Dauphine as well.
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| Madame Adélaïde, study by Nattier, c. 1750 Château de Versailles (Wikimedia) |
The children's relationship with the King, and with their mother, with her interminable games of cavagnole, was distant. They were close to one another, tending to divide into two groups headed by the Dauphin and Madame Victoire. Stanislas had the privilege of enjoying everyone's confidence and, during his short stays at Versailles, acted as peacemaker. He went from one to another asking them about their health, their interests, their education; he also interrogated their governors, tutors and familiars: he later recalled (in the preface to his Réflexions sur l'éducation) having reproached the Dauphin's valet for leaving the young man almost smothered in his bed.
He would go from the Trianon to see the Mesdames dance, or walk with the Dauphin on the parterre. They in turn would seek him out and listen solemnly to his advice, be it on military matters or painting. Nor did he neglect to bring along his flute, to join his grandchildren in impromptu concerts. He played draughts and chess with the girls, and Louis found him a formidable adversary at billiards.
When he departed the young people felt his loss. The fifteen-year-old Adélaïde, wrote to lament the brevity of his stays: "Scarcely do I have the pleasure of seeing you again, before I suffer the pain of your departure". Louis in turn expressed his "tender friendship and respectful attachment" and complained that his grandfather had left at nine in the morning, without goodbyes, whilst he was still dressing.
As Pierre Boyé points out, the relationship was not without constraints. In public, a rigid etiquette had to be observed. Mesdames were obliged to kiss the hand of their father, the King, but were forbidden to extend the same courtesy to Stanislas. Nor was Lescscysnki allowed into to his grandchildren's private apartments. The duc de Luynes reported that, when the Dauphin was eleven, Stanislas met with his governor, the duc de Châtillon in an antechamber, but was barred from Louis's inner cabinet by the usher (Mémoires III, p.201, Boyé p.250)
Despite his dislike of formality, these restrictions served to remind the exuberant Leszczyński that his grandchildren were princes and princesses by divine right, born of the royal line of France. In contrast to Louis XV, who had pet-names for all his children, Stanislas always maintained a certain awed respect. The young people themselves were not always so reserved. The Mesdames happily addressed a stream of letters to their "cher grand Papa". The Dauphin, though obliged by protocol to refer to "Monsieur mon Frère et très cher Grand-Père", also showed his genuine affection.
Letters did not only come from Versailles; Louise-Élisabeth also wrote assiduously from Castille and, after 1748 when Don Philip became Duke of Parma, from Italy. Before proceeding to Parma, she was able to visit the French Court after an absence of nearly ten year. She arrived at the end of December 1748. Stanislas was unable to travel to meet her in the the dead of winter and illness curtailed his plans. There are extant letters - from the Dauphin, the Dauphine, Madame Infante, Henriette and Adélaïde - all expressing their concern, then their relief at his recovery. (Boyé remarks that the stray capitals and wandering apostrophes of Adélaïde's note "give a poor idea of the education received by this girl of seventeen years" (p.253)).
On 14th April 1749, Stanislas finally arrived at Versailles, and the next day, grandfather and granddaughter were emotionally reunited. He found her tanned by the Spanish sun and grown fat.
Louise-Élisabeth was ambitious for her husband, and outdid all her siblings in energy and intelligence. Stanislas happily shared her abortive intrigues, especially when the failing health of Augustus III rekindled his hopes to regain the throne of Poland. Neither Stanislas, nor the King and Queen, ever met the Duke of Parma in person, though his emissaries came to Lorraine and his portrait is known to have hung Stanislas's grand cabinet at Lunéville.
In 1752 the Duchess returned for a second sojourn in France. This time Leszczynski was at Montargis to greet her; unfortunately the happiness of this visit was marred by the recent death of her twin sister Henriette.
Finally, in September 1757 the Duchess travelled to Versailles for a third and last time. Once again Stanislas was on hand to meet her. But relations were now troubled. Louise-Élisabeth had set her sights upon trading her husband's Italian dukedom for Stanislas's duchies. The old man was feeble, his eyesight failing; she pledged to the Duke that she would work for Lorraine "à la mort de Papinio". In the event these schemes too came to nothing. It was Élisabeth-Louise herself that death claimed first: she succumbed to smallpox at the Palace of Versailles on 6th December 1759. The Duke of Parma also predeceased Stanislas, in 1765. There were further early bereavements in this branch of the family. Élisabeth-Louise's elder daughter Isabella, consort of the future Emperor Joseph II, died in 1763, again within Stanislas's lifetime. (To Joseph's lasting sorrow, the couple's only child, the little Archduchess Maria Theresa - Stanislas's great-great grandaughter - was to follow her mother to the grave in 1770, aged only seven.)
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| Marie-Louise-Élisabeth of France, Duchess of Parma Posthumous portrait by Nattier Château de Versailles [Wikimedia] |
The Great-grandchildren
Isabella of Parma was the oldest of Stanislas's great-grandchild, born on 31st December 1741. She accompanied her mother, the Duchess of Parma, to Versailles on the first of her visits. One afternoon in April 1749 the little girl encountered Stanislas in the park. She recounted charmingly to him how she had seen the famous rhinoceros Clara. Her great-grandsire saw her only on this one occasion, and never met her younger siblings.
Stanislas's principal preoccupation, however, was with the children of the Dauphin. Like the courtiers at Versailles, he was well aware of Louis's youth and inertia and, after his first marriage, awaited news with "a sort of anxiety". He was among the first to hear of Maria-Teresa's pregnancy, rapidly transferring his anxiety to the gender of the child. A firework display was already prepared in the gardens, when couriers arrived at La Malgrange with the sad news of the Dauphine's death. Pierre Boyé spares a word for the the forgotten baby, a girl named Marie-Thérèse, who died aged twenty-one months.
The wait for a male heir which followed the Dauphin's second marriage was also long and tense. On 28th August 1750 Stanislas was hunting at Einville when the birth of a new Madame, Princess Marie Zéphyrine, was announced. The frail child survived only to the age of five. On the night of 1st-2nd September 1755, Stanislas was staying in Versailles, this time in the main palace, when he heard the guards take out the little body. He returned to Lunéville on 4th September, with a heavy heart.
By this time, however, his sorrow was muted, for his line was now guaranteed. 1751 saw the birth of no less than three great-grandchildren: Don Ferdinand of Parma in January and Dona Luisa in December; and at long last, on 13th December 1751, a Duke of Burgundy.
Stanislas declared this last birth to be the "greatest joy of his life". He rushed from La Malgrange to Lunéville to attend a service of thanksgiving in the chapel, then returned to see the fabulous façade en faïence at a Malgrange illuminated by a thousand lights. He then travelled to Versailles, arriving on 20th December, just before midnight, inopportunely in the middle of a masked ball.. The next day he was introduced to the newborn by the Duchesse de Tallard. Stanislas no doubt witnessed the festivities in Versailles, though in Paris enthusiasm was more muted. It was in Lorraine, however, that celebrations were most prolonged. Church services followed one another and it was not until the 22nd December that the final Te Deum was sung in front of the Château.
In September 1753 there was more joyous news - another great-grandson! The marquis de Boufflers, commander of the guards, hurried to Versailles to deliver his Stanislas's congratulations. The only disappointment was that, since Louis XV superstitiously refused to revive the title of Anjou, the new infant was to be Duke of Aquitaine. In the event, the child lived less than six months and Stanislas saw him only once.
In 1754 and 1755 the succession was finally secured by the births of two further, this time robust, male infants, the Duke of Berry and the Count of Provence.
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| François-Hubert Drouais, The duc de Berry and the comte de Provence in 1757. São Paulo Museum of Art (Wikimedia) |
The respective godfathers of the new arrivals were the two rival kings of Poland, Augustus of Saxony and Leszczyński, happily now reconciled (Letter 68). Pierre Boyé remarks that the two boys owed their grandsire and great-grandsire more than just their respective Christian names, Auguste and Stanislas. In this last generation of Bourbons the German and Polish inheritance was to weigh heavily. No member of his family was to resemble Leszczynski more fully, both physically and in life experience, than the future Louis XVIII:
More great-grandchildren followed. In 1757 a letter from Marie Leszczyńska, annotated on the envelope "garçon" , announced the arrival of the Count of Artois. For the next birth, the Stanislas was, for once, personally in Versailles. This child was Clotilde, later the Queen of Sardinia, who was to be declared "venerable" by Pope Pius VII in 1808. Pierre Boyé notes that her birth, like that of her aunt "Madame Dernier", was without fanfare: "On their arrival on this earth, the saints of the family, did not find a warm welcome"(p.268). It was on his final trip to Versailles, in September 1764, that the aged Stanislas was taken by his grandson to see the ninth and last child, the ill-fated Madame Élisabeth.
By this time Stanislas was already receiving letters from his older great-grandchildren. From the time that they could hold a pen, they habitually sent little notes to their Polish great-grandfather. The Duke of Berry, the future Louis XVI, declared that he longed to see his grandfather and that he loved him "with all his heart": "You are the delight of the human race, my dear Grand-Papa; how should I not have for you the most tender attachment?" Similar affectionate notes survive from both Provence and Artois.
Death continued to stalk the French royal family. The heir to the throne, the Duke of Burgundy died aged nine in 1761, after terrible suffering bravely borne.
Stanislas's correspondence preserves only one brief note from this great-grandson, written, poignantly, on a medical bulletin forwarded by the Dauphin: the boy thanks Stanislas for his concern over his health and wishes him a continued long life (p.271)
Stanislas had known this child as a baby. The Gazette de Hollande for 22nd September 1752 reports that the King of Poland had just returned from Versailles, where he often dined with the Queen and had sometimes had the pleasure of seeing the Duke of Burgundy (p.271 nt.1). Later the doting great-grandfather admired the little boy in his pink and gold hussar's uniform. Far from the patient martyr of his last years, the child he depicts in his letters was spirited, proud, and given to fits of temper.
For Stanislas the loss was double, since it was presumed that the Duke would marry his cousin Dona Luisa of Parma, who would thus have become Queen of France. In the event, Stanislas lived long enough to see her instead marry the Prince of Asturias, later Charles IV of Spain. He also had the brief consolation of Princess Isabella's marriage to the Archduke Joseph of Austria in 1760. (It may be noted that the Polish and Imperial lines were later united as Stanislas had hoped - by the marriage of the Archduchess Maria-Amelia to Don Ferdinand of Parma in 1769 and that of her sister Maria-Antonia to the future Louis XVI in 1770.)
As a hereditary prince, the Infante Ferdinand also occupied Stanislas's thoughts; he followed his progress eagerly and concerned himself with his education. Louise-Élisabeth was hostile to the idea of a Jesuit tutor for her son, and instead it was Condillac who was appointed. The Duchess shared with her grandfather a mock confession made by the child; the indulgent Stanislas laughed and professed himself astonished at Ferdinand's precocious knowledge of sins, even those that he had not himself committed. It was reported to him that the boy was "un prodige d'esprit", but in this, comments Pierre Boyé, he was sadly mistaken; Condillac, who visited Lunéville in 1765, was perhaps able to disabuse him.
Stanislas and the Dauphin
Conformity of character, inclinations and sentiments, as much as ties of blood, united the Dauphin in the most intimate manner with King Stanislas. The grandson admired in his grandsire a model of virtue, which, besides increasing his esteem and fondness, excited his emulation; the grandfather discovered with pleasure in his grandson another version of himself. They found consolation in their letters for the fact that they could not see each other more often. And when circumstances did allow them to be together, they regretted it could not be for longer. (Proyart, Vie du Dauphin, quoted Boyé, p. note 1)
Even as the gulf between the Dauphin and Louis XV widened, Stanislas and his grandson found themselves attracted more closely to one another. In 1752 the Dauphin contracted smallpox; Stanislas pledged two million livres toward the new church of St Geneviève should he recover. (Whether he honoured the pledge is not recorded!) Their correspondence became more copious and, during Stanislas's sojourns in Versailles, the two spent many hours closeted together in the Dauphin's private cabinet. They found themselves in accord, particularly in their demonstrative piety. Louis aligned himself with the dévot party and, like his grandfather, pledged support for the Jesuits. Pierre Boyé comments that, should he ever have reigned, Louis might well have proved more intellectually able than his reputation generally allowed.
Leszczynski would seek positions for his protegés from Louis rather than from his son-in-law the King. And conversely the Dauphin would ask Stanislas for favours. He adored his grandsire and respected his opinions. When Stanislas fixed his thoughts on paper, his grandson covered the numerous notebooks with scribbled reflections. When sent a plan for the architectural work in Nancy, Louis gushed compliments: "You are yourself a living monument and eternal example of everything that love of religion, good order, equity, continual occupation with making the people happy, can conceive to be great, just and worthy of respect." (Letter 49, quoted p.277)
There is no greater proof of the Dauphin's sincerity than his request for guidance from the "patriarch of the family" in the education his children. The Dauphine can instruct them in religion, wrote Louis, but it is Stanislas who must teach them "le catéchisme de l'amour des peoples". Such an invitation could not fail to appeal to Stanislas's vanity. The result was his Réflexions sur l'éducation, written in collaboration with his secretary Solignac, who edited a version for the 1763 Oeuvres du philosophe bienfaisant. Stanislas's recommendations are sensible, but unoriginal: fresh air, exercise, simple diet; and study of modest range of subjects, particularly modern history.
Visits to Lorraine
Pierre Boyé comments that those of his grandchildren who knew their Polish grandfather only at Versailles, had only an imperfect idea of his character: "The childish and pompous setting which the king created for himself in Lorraine harmonised perfectly with his personality and set it truly in true relief.... In order to recall his origin and adventures, the exile had hurried to impose an amusing note of exoticism on noble architecture and regular parterres. He needed his mock turqueries, his chinoiseries and automatons, the company of his monkey and his dwarf."(p.385)
When they were still teenagers the Dauphin, Henriette and Adélaïde had the chance to experience this charming but idiosyncratic world at first hand. It was 1744. Louis XV was in Metz, supposedly on his deathbed. M. de Châtillon took it upon himself to bring the Dauphin to his bedside. Mesdames also arrived, under the supervision of Mme de Tallard. When it was clear that the danger had passed, the prince and princesses were given permission to visit their grandfather. First the brother, then the sisters arrived at Lunéville, each staying two nights and spending the intervening day with Stanislas. The Bosquets, with their exotic pavilions, the Salon at Chanteheux in all its novelty, the villa at Jolivet, Einville with its beautiful trees - the happy host omitted nothing. However used they were to the splendours of the French court, the three adolescents were greatly impressed by all that they saw.
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| Engraving by Dominique Collin in 1759 after the portrait by Girardet, Bibliothèques de Nancy [Wikimedia] |
Pierre Boyé summarises the available details:
The Dauphin arrived at Lunéville on 21st September at seven-thirty in the evening, having first dined at La Malgrange with Stanislas and toured the gardens. He made a diversion on the way to see the saltworks at Rosières. We learn that he travelled in a berline with his governor, the duc de Châtillon, and his tutor Boyer, the former bishop of Mirepoix. His retinue followed in six chaises de poste, with eight bodyguards. On the following day, the 22nd, the prince visited the pavilion at Chanteheux, then attended mass in the main palace, after which he threw silver out of his window to the crowd gathered o the terrace. In the afternoon he was taken to Einville, where he went hunting in the park; on his return he admired the Rocher . In the evening, there was a theatrical performance (Le Jeu de l'amour et du hazard by Marivaux , followed by L'Apparence trompeuse and a ballet) On 23rd, at nine in the morning he left for Nancy.
That same day, the 23rd, the cortege of Mesdames arrived from the opposite direction, with six berlines and ten guardsmen. They traversed Nancy at three o'clock in the afternoon, where they were received by a company of two hundred girls dressed in white with blue sashes. The next day, according to Durival: "Mesdames went to Chanteheux. Mass, music, diner at the Kiosque; in the afternoon: Einville, Jolivet, le Rocher; comédie: Le Philosophe marié (Destouches) and Le Français à Londres (L.de Boissy)". On the 25th the princesses dined at La Malgrange and slept at Toul.
These visits were not as serene and carefree as they might have been. Disgrace hung over the imprudent duc de Châtillon who had taken it upon himself to make the journey to Metz contrary to instructions. Mesdames were still reeling from their recent fears for their father - on leaving for Verdun, Henriette had frightened Adélaïde by her display of hysteria, rolling on the ground, making awful cries. Stanislas, moreover, tensely awaited a stopover by the King himself. Marie Leszczynska arrived from Metz on 28th September, followed by Louis the following day. The visit was not a success. Though briefly impressed by the marvels of Chanteheux and the Rocher, the King was uncommunicative; he evidently already regretted the mistresses he had so recently dismissed; the Queen too was subdued, depressed by the latest downturn in her marital relations.
Marie Leszczynska was still at Lunéville on the morning of Saturday 3rd October when she was brought the painful news of the death at Fontevraud, on 28th September of Thérèse-Félicité, Madame Septième, who had been aged just eight. After mass in the chapel, the bereaved mother shut herself away in her chamber. In the afternoon Stanislas took her out for a walk, to the Cascade, to Jolivet, and, having no better distraction, stopped off at the Rocher. Pierre Boyé again spares a thought for this child, said to be the sister who looked most like her grandfather: sent away aged less than two, she had not received a single demonstration of affection from her family; now she lay in the cold Abbey beside the tombs of the Plantagenets (p.387)
Neither the Dauphin nor Henriette were destined ever to visit their grandfather again; the Duchess of Parma also regretted her lack of opportunity. However, Adélaïde, this time accompanied by Madame Victoire, was permitted to return to Lorraine in 1762, and again in 1763, in order to take the waters at Plombières. Stanislas had the good fortune to possess them to himself for an entire fortnight between the two traditional "seasons" of the cure. These visits seem to have been genuinely happy and carefree. Stanislas, now in his mid-eighties, threw all his remaining energies into welcoming his granddaughters. Not just at his residences, but at Épinal, Remirement, Rambervillers, Gerbéviller, in every locality along all the route, there were flattering displays of rejoicing. Festivals, spectacles, ballets, illuminations succeeded one another; speeches, songs, guards of honour, flower-bedecked floats, troops of Vestals and Nymphs - nothing was neglected to gratify and entertain the princesses.
Pierre Boyé remarks that they were almost already old maids, these young women who caused their grandfather's heart to so swell with pride, who excited the enthusiasm, half-spontaneous, half-orchestrated, of the populations of the Duchies. For Stanislas, Mesdames never changed with the years. He admired Adélaïde's self-assurance, her witty repartee. She never tired of hearing compliments and willingly showed herself to the crowds; one night she took it upon herself to appear at a window, framed by candlelight. She was always ready to take a lead in opening the celebrations. By comparison her younger sister was passive, though unfailingly smiling and compliant. Her chief weakness was food. When she made herself ill by over-eating, Stanislas had a Te Deum sung for in the parish church at Lunéville for her recovery. The sisters walked back to the Château on foot, with the militia lining the route. Everyone applauded. Quite a fuss, for an attack of indigestion!
No expense or effort was too great to satisfy the princesses' every whim. In Nancy Cardinal de Choiseul even consented to furnish them with a relic of St Sigisbert; (according to the record, they were duly presented with a "portion of skin and muscle from the back of the saint's left leg"). When the entertainments began to pall, Stanislas would himself create diversions - he would dance, make faces, play the fool, laugh at his own jokes.
This visit gave the aged Stanislas some of his last moments of real pleasure and for the princesses, it represented a brief period of excitement and liberation from the narrow confines of their normal existence : "For Mesdames, surprised by an unknown freedom, showered with affection, dizzied by acclamations, these six months were the best time of their lives."(p.290).
On Stanislas's last two trips to Versailles, his granddaughters showed their sollicitude by going to meet him. On 13th September 1763 Adélaïde, this time accompanied by Madame Victoire, greeted him in Paris before an assembled crowd. On 14th September 1764 she went with the Dauphin as far as Bondy.
Even after the death of Marie Leszczynska in 1768, the Mesdames continued to cherish the memory of their grandfather and his wonderful chateaux. After the accession of Louis XVI and the first souring of relations with Marie-Antoinette, there was serious question of the sisters moving to Commercy. Before they settled at Bellevue, they also threatened on several occasions to retire to Lunéville. In Lorraine Stanislas's former servants and subjects looked to the princesses to ensure the continued payment of pensions and support them in administrative and fiscal conflicts. Adélaïde took control of the charitable foundations set up by Stanislas and Marie Leszczynska, and in the famine of 1771 arranged for 12,000 livres to be distributed to the poor of Nancy. The Academy declared her its protectress. The final dispersal of the Jesuits of Lorraine also gave her an opportunity to intervene effectively. She opposed the conversion of the Royal Mission in Nancy into a secular hospital and in 1778 secured the repayment of 50,000 livres that Stanislas had borrowed from the Jesuit colleges.
From his elder daughter the Princess Anne, who died at the age of eighteen in 1717, to the little Archduchess Theresa-Elisabeth, born in 1762, Stanislas saw the birth of twenty-four descendants, spanning four generations. Including his son-in-law, and the spouses of his grandchildren, the final count of his immediate family members was thirty-one, eighteen of whom were still alive in 1765.
It was in the winter of 1765 that Stanislas suffered the final devastating blow of his long life, when the Dauphin, who had been suddenly stricken by tuberculosis, died at Fontainebleau on the 20th December. No loss, other than that of his daughter, could have so crushed the old man. The French emissary, the comte de Lucé, reported that he at first refused to receive the official notification. Finally on 29th December Lucé met with him alone in his chamber. The trembling Leszczynski accepted the missive with its black margin, then, unable to decipher it, asked the minister to read it aloud. He sighed and lifted his hands to the sky: "This expression of most profound suffering and the cruel state of the King and his august family, was a new wound to my heart" [Letter of Lucé to Choiseul-Praslin, 30th December 1765, quoted p.293].
In accordance with Stanislas's wishes a grand memorial service was held at the cathedral in Nancy but the King of Poland himself was too frail to be present. Only a few weeks later the same vaults were to echo mournfully again, this time following Stanislas's own death.
References
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