Early years Princess Victoire was born at the
Palace of Versailles on 11 May 1733. She was the seventh child and fifth daughter of King
Louis XV and Queen
Maria Leszczyńska. Unlike the older children of Louis XV, Madame Victoire was not raised at the Palace of Versailles. Rather, she was sent to live at the
Abbey of Fontevraud with her younger sisters in June 1738.
Cardinal Fleury, Louis XV's chief minister, had deemed that the cost of raising them at Versailles with all the status entitled to them would be too expensive. She remained there until 1748, when she was aged 15. According to
Madame Campan, the
Mesdames had rather a traumatic upbringing at Fontrevraud and were not given an education befitting their status, and would have preferred them to be schooled at
Saint-Cyr, which was much closer to the palace.
Madame Louise claimed that she had not been able to read the entire alphabet at twelve years old, and could not read fluently until returning to Versailles. Victoire was traumatized by the punishments she underwent, and thereafter experienced "
paroxysms of terror" that she was unable to overcome.
Reign of Louis XV in 1751, now in the
São Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil. On 24 March 1748, being fifteen and no longer regarded a child, Victoire wrote to her father and successfully asked permission to return to court. Louis XV appointed three maids-of-honour to attend her, and sent Marie-Angélique-Victoire de Bournonville, Duchesse de Duras, to collect her and meet her with her brother the
Dauphin at Sceaux. In November 1750, she was joined by her sisters
Sophie and Louise. While their education had been neglected in the convent, they reportedly compensated for this and studied extensively after their return to court. They learned how to write French properly, learned English and Italian, and educated themselves in history and math. Their endeavors were encouraged by their brother
Louis, with whom they immediately formed a close attachment. Victoire followed her sister Madame Adélaïde in her campaign against the increasing influence of her father's mistress
Madame de Pompadour, and later
Madame du Barry. She also had a close friendship with her favourite lady-in-waiting the Marquise de Durfort, who "afforded to Madame Victoire agreeable society. The Princess spent almost all her evenings with that lady, and ended by fancying herself domiciled with her." However, the close relationship between Marie Antoinette and
Mesdames was discontinued in 1772, after an attempt to entice Marie Antoinette to humiliate
Madame du Barry was thwarted— a plan which had been led by Madame Adélaïde with support of Madame Victoire and Madame Sophie.
Reign of Louis XVI |left|281x281px From April 1774, Madame Victoire and her sisters attended to their father Louis XV on his deathbed until his death from
smallpox on 10 May. Despite the fact the sisters had never had smallpox, and the male members of the royal family, as well as the dauphine, were kept away because of the high risk of catching the illness, the
Mesdames were allowed to attend to him until his death, being female and therefore of no political importance because of the
Salic law. After the death of Louis XV, he was succeeded by his grandson Louis-Auguste as
Louis XVI, who referred to his aunts as
Mesdames Tantes. The sisters were infected by their father and fell ill with smallpox and were kept in quarantine at a little house near the
Château de Choisy until they recovered. Their nephew the King allowed them to keep their apartments in the Palace of Versailles, and they kept attending court for special occasions, such as the visit of
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. However, they distanced themselves from court and often preferred to reside in their own
Château de Bellevue in
Meudon; they also travelled annually to
Vichy, always with a retinue of at least three hundred people, and made vacationing there fashionable. The
Mesdames continued to be the confidants of Louis XVI, and they also maintained a good relationship with their niece,
Princess Élisabeth, and often visited her in her retreat at the
Domain of Montreuil. During this period, the
Mesdames did not get along well with Marie Antoinette. When the Queen introduced the new custom of informal evening family suppers, as well as other informal habits which undermined formal court etiquette, it resulted in an exodus of the old court nobility in opposition to the Queen's reforms, whom then gathered in the
Mesdames' salon. They entertained extensively at Bellevue as well as at Versailles; their salon was reportedly regularly frequented by minister
Jean Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas, whom Adélaïde had elevated to power; by
Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé a member of the anti-Austrian party; and
Pierre Beaumarchais, a playwright. The Austrian Ambassador
Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau reported that their salon was a centre of intrigues against Marie Antoinette, where the
Mesdames tolerated poems satirizing the queen. The
Mesdames gathered the extreme conservative
Dévots party of the nobility that opposed the
philosophes, the
Encyclopédistes, and the economists. == Revolution and later life ==