French Nobility. Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, daughter of Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre, and his wife Maria Teresa Felicitas d'Este, was born at the Hôtel de Toulouse in Paris. She was the descendant of King Louis XIV of France and his mistress Madame de Montespan on both sides of her family. Her father was their grandson, and her mother was their great-granddaughter. However, her mother died in childbirth when she was just one year old, and she was raised in a convent for twelve years. After the 1768 death of her only surviving sibling, the Prince of Lamballe, Marie Adélaïde became heiress to what would eventually become the largest fortune in France. A marriage to her cousin Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Chartres, was arranged. While Marie Adélaïde was in love with her cousin, King Louis XV warned her father of the duke's reputation as a libertine. Despite this, a lavish wedding ceremony took place at the Palace of Versailles on April 5, 1769. Six children were born of this marriage. One of her ladies-in-waiting became governess to her children. Not only did she have an affair with Marie Adélaïde's husband, the governess also managed to alienate her charges from their mother due to her liberal political views. Subsequently, her oldest son joined a revolutionary club in 1790. And her relationship with her husband deteriorated to the point that they only communicated through letters. Her father-in-law died in 1785 and her husband became Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. In 1791, the duchess left her husband and went to live with her father at Château de Bizy in Normandy. After siding with revolutionary forces, her husband was elected in 1792 under the name Philippe Égalité to the National Convention. In March 1793, her eldest son "Général Égalité" defected from the Revolution and sought political asylum in Austria. The following month, remaining royal family members in France were arrested. Marie Adélaïde was allowed to stay in France, under guard. Her inheritance was confiscated. Although he had sided with the revolution, voted for the death of his cousin Louis XVI, and denounced his son's defection, her husband was guillotined on November 6, 1793. The Duchess was imprisoned, first at the Luxembourg Palace and then at the Pension Belhomme. Meanwhile, the widow had fallen in love with a former member of the National Convention, Jacques Marie Rouzet. With his political affiliation, he was able to secure her release, and that of her sons Antoine Philippe and Louis Charles, in 1796. She was exiled to Spain in 1797. She and Rouzet returned to France in 1814 at the time of the Bourbon Restoration. In 1816, she arranged to have a new chapel built over the mass family grave that was the result of the desecration of her family's graves in 1793. She buried the "love of her life" Rouzet there in 1820. After protracted legal battles, most of her inheritance was recovered. She died at her castle at Ivry-sur-Seine in 1821. Nine years later, her son Louis Philippe d'Orléans became "King of the French." He made improvements to the chapel that his mother had built and renamed it "Chapelle Royale de Dreux."