Childhood , , the year of her marriage Elisabeth was born at
Château de Fontainebleau on 22 November 1602, the eldest daughter of King
Henry IV of France and his second wife,
Marie de' Medici. According to the court, her mother showed a cruel indifference to her, because she had believed the prophecy of a nun who assured her that she would give birth to three consecutive sons. Shortly after her birth, she was betrothed to
Philip Emmanuel, Prince of Piedmont, son and heir of
Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, by
Catherine Michaela, daughter of King
Philip II of Spain. However, Philip Emmanuel died of smallpox in 1605. As a daughter of the King of France, she was born a
Fille de France. As the eldest daughter of the king, she was known at court by the traditional
honorific of
Madame Royale. The early years of
Madame Royale were spent under the supervision of the
royal governess Françoise de Montglat at the
Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a quiet place away from the Parisian court, in which she shared education and games with her legitimate siblings, as well as illegitimate half-siblings; children who were the result of her father's constant love affairs. After her death, her husband married his niece
Mariana of Austria. Elisabeth's last child, Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain, would later become queen of France as the wife of her nephew, the future
Louis XIV. Unlike her husband and sister-in-law, she would not see the wedding that cemented the peace between her homeland and adopted country, Spain; the countries would be
at war until 1659. One of her great-grandsons, Philip,
Duke of Anjou, became King
Philip V of Spain, and through him, Elisabeth is an ancestor of the subsequent Spanish monarchs. ==Issue==