GONTAUT, MARIE JOSEPHINE LOUISE, DUCHESSE DE (1773-1857), was born in Paris on Aug. 3, 1773, daughter of Augustin Francois, comte de Montaut-Navailles, who had been governor of Louis XVI. and his two brothers when children. Jose phine de Gontaut shared the lessons given by Madame de Genlis to the Orleans family, with whom her mother broke off relations after the outbreak of the Revolution. Mother and daughter emi grated to Coblenz in 1792; thence they went to Rotterdam, and finally to England, where Josephine married the marquis Charles Michel de Gontaut-Saint-Blacard (d. 1822). They returned to France at the Restoration, and resumed their place at court. Madame de Gontaut became lady-in-waiting to Caroline, duchess of Berry, and later governess to the children of France. She remained faithful to the Bourbon cause all her life. In 1827 she was created duchesse de Gontaut. She followed the exiled royal family to Prague, but in 1834 Pierre Louis, duc de Blacas, thought her comparatively liberal views dangerous for the prince and princess and she received a brusque conge from Charles X. Her twin daughters, Josephine (1796-1844) and Charlotte married respectively Ferdinand de Chabot, prince de Leon and afterwards duc de Rohan, and Francois, comte de Bourbon Busset. She wrote in her old age some naïve memoirs. She died in Paris in 1857.
See her Memoirs (Eng. ed., 2 vols., 1894) , and Lettres inedites (1895).