Louis, Grand Dauphin
Louis, Dauphin of France (1 November 1661 – 14 April 1711), commonly known as Grand Dauphin, was the eldest son and heir apparent of King Louis XIV and his spouse, Maria Theresa of Spain. He became known as the Grand Dauphin after the birth of his own son, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the Petit Dauphin. He and his son died before his father and thus never became king. Instead, his grandson became King Louis XV at the death of Louis XIV, and his second son inherited the Spanish throne as Philip V through his grandmother.
Louis was born on 1 November 1661 at the Château de Fontainebleau, the eldest son of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Austria (who were double first-cousins to each other). As a Fils de France ("Son of France") he was entitled to the style of Royal Highness. He was baptised on 24 March 1662 at the chapel of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and given his father's name of Louis. At the ceremony, the Cardinal de Vendôme and the Princess of Conti acted as proxies for the godparents, Pope Clement IX and Queen Henrietta Maria of England. The latter was Louis's great-aunt. It was for this occasion that Jean-Baptiste Lully composed the motet Plaude Laetare Gallia.
He was initially under the care of royal governesses, among them being Julie d'Angennes and Louise de Prie de La Mothe-Houdancourt. When Louis reached the age of seven, he was removed from the care of women and placed in the society of men. He received Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier, as his governor and was tutored by Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, the great French preacher and orator, without positive result:
Louis XIV secretly nursed the same suspicious jealousy of the Grand Dauphin that Louis XIII had once shown to himself. No prince could have been less deserving of such feelings. Monseigneur, as the heir to the throne was now known, had inherited his mother's docility and low intelligence. All his life he remained petrified with admiration of his formidable father and stood in fear of him even while lavish proofs of 'affection' were showered upon him. The best way for Monseigneur to do someone an injury was to commend him to the royal favour. He knew it, and did not conceal it from his rare petitioners.
Louis XIV saw to it that his son's upbringing was quite the opposite of his own. Instead of a devoted mother and an affectionate and likeable tutor, the Dauphin had the repellent and misanthropic Duc de Montausier, who ruthlessly applied the same methods that had so disturbed Louis XIII. They annihilated his grandson.
[...] Bossuet overwhelmed his backward pupil with such splendid lessons that the Dauphin developed a lasting horror of books, learning and history. By the age of eighteen, Monseigneur had assimilated almost none of the knowledge amassed to so little purpose, and the apathy of his mind was second only to that of his senses.[1]
It was said that when Louis was an adult, he could pass a whole day simply tapping his cane against his foot in an armchair. Nonetheless, his generosity, affability, and liberality gave him great popularity in Paris and with the French people in general. Louis was one of six legitimate children of his parents. The others all died in early childhood; the second longest-lived, Marie Thérèse of France, died at the age of five when Louis was 11.
Alive especially to political considerations, the King considered various European royal daughters as possible wives for his heir, such as Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici and Louis' own cousin Marie Louise d'Orléans, daughter of Philippe, Duke of Orléans and Princess Henrietta of England. According to various reports, Marie Louise and Louis were in love, having grown up with each other. However, Louis XIV decided to use Marie Louise to forge a link with Spain and forced her to marry the invalid Charles II of Spain, the Dauphin's own half-uncle.
