PIONTPENSIER, ANNE MARIE LOUISE D'OR LEANS, DUCHESSE DE (1627-1693), French was born at the Louvre on May 29, 1627. Her father was Gaston of Orleans, "Monsieur," the brother of Louis XIII. Her mother was Marie de Bourbon, heiress of the Montpensier family. "La grande mademoiselle" was encouraged to look forward to the throne of France as the result of a marriage with Louis XIV. Ill-luck, or her own wilfulness, frustrated numerous plans for marrying her to persons of exalted station, including Charles II. of England, then prince of Wales. She sympathized with the Frondeurs, and in the new or second Fronde she took nominal command of one of the armies on the princes' side, and in her own person took Orleans by escalade. She had to retreat to Paris, where she practically commanded the Bastille and the adjoining part of the walls. On July 2, 1652, the day of the battle of the Faubourg Saint Antoine, between the Frondeurs under Conde and the royal troops under Turenne, Mademoiselle saved Conde and his beaten troops by giving orders for the gates under her control to be opened and for the cannon of the Bastille to fire on the royalists. She then installed herself in the Hotel de Ville, and played the part of mediatrix between the opposed parties.
She was for some years in disgrace, and resided on her estates. In 5657 she reappeared at court. She was now nearly forty, when a young Gascon gentleman named Puyguilhem, afterwards celebrated as M. de Lauzun (q.v.), attracted her attention.
In 1670, Mademoiselle demanded the king's permission to marry Lauzun. Louis at first gave his consent, but other members of the royal family prevailed on him to rescind it. Not long afterwards Lauzun, for another cause (see LAuzuN) was im prisoned in Pignerol, and it was years before Mademoiselle was able to buy his release from the king by settling no small portion of her estates on Louis's bastards. They were then secretly mar ried. But Lauzun tyrannized over his wife, and they were sep arated. She lived for some years afterwards, gave herself to religious duties, and finished her Memoires, which extend to within seven years of her death (April 9, 1693). These Memoires (Amsterdam, 1729) are to be found in the collection of Michaud and Poujoulat. Her Eight Beatitudes were edited by E. Rodo canachi as Un Ouvrage de piete inconnu (1908).
See the series of studies on La Grande Mademoiselle, by "Arvede Barine" (1902, 1905).