September 5, 1725

The lady in red in this painting (1748) was a Polish princess, Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczynska (June 23, 1703 to June 24, 1768).  On September 5, 1725 she married Louis XV, and became the Queen of France. Since her father was an exiled King of Poland, she did not fit the model of arranged marriages --she brought no wealth to the throne nor could she leverage strategic alliances. At that era the idea of a love match was never considered an explanation for the marriage. What happened was the young King, only 15, became ill, and the prospect of his dying without an heir, prompted his advisers to arrange a marriage with someone of noble blood and of child bearing age, right away. Had there been no heir, then power would have been inherited by the King's brother. But the plans for an heir worked quite well.

She had ten children in quick succession. They were happy together for years, until Louis began a series of affairs. She maintained a dignified pliability, being of a temperamentally sweet nature. Talleyrand said of her that "“her virtues had something sad about them that failed to inspire sympathy.” But virtue was not his forte. She is said to have been very popular with the common people of France, for her generosity. And we love to remember she was very fond of cats. The ladies of the court could take advantage of her meekness. An incident is recalled where her white satin cloak was left on a stool. Dressing and undressing the Queen was a ritual and many ladies helped according to their rank. The Queen could not handle her wardrobe at all. But there was an accident with the cloak. And her cat damaged it. It was enough of an incident to have come down in the historical record. The source of most of the information above is a blog, where there are also several pictures of the Queen.

There is not much left now to attribute to this queen. One source says, "Her private apartments at Versailles were destroyed during Marie-Antoinette’s remodeling of that part of the palace." And we read that the Queen's library had books bound with the Polish and French arms both. Three of her daughters had their own books distinguished because they each picked a different color of binding for their personal books. And the Queen liked to paint, and dance and sing.

We are reminded  in The Bibliographer, (Paul Leicester Ford, 1903)  that "it was not long before all the large libraries were dispersed or confiscated, the bindings and the ex-libris scratched, and the arms of the nobility concealed under revolutionary emblems."