Marriages
The duke was such a renowned womaniser that it is said Choderlos de Laclos based the character Valmont in Les Liaisons dangereuses on him.
He was married three times. At the age of fourteen, against his will, he was forced to marry Anne Catherine de Noailles. In 1734, as a result of the intrigues of Voltaire, he married Marie Élisabeth Sophie de Lorraine, the daughter of Anne Marie Joseph de Lorraine. She became the mother of his heir, Louis Antoine Sophie de Vignerot du Plessis. When he was eighty-four years old, he married as his third wife an Irish lady.
Mme de Polignac and the Marquise de Nesle fought a duel over him. In 1729, he began an affair with Émilie du Châtelet, and although it ended, they continued to be frequent correspondents for over a decade.
He was also the lover of the famous courtesan and novelist Claudine Guérin de Tencin, and of Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, Duchess of Berry, elder daughter of the regent of France, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, a very ambitious and powerful young widow who was infamous at the time for her alleged large sexual appetite. He then had an affair with Berry's younger sister Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans, and with her first cousin Louise Anne de Bourbon. Another mistress was Marie Sophie de Courcillon, wife of Charles François d'Albert d'Ailly and later Hercule Mériadec de Rohan, Duke of Rohan-Rohan.
Read more about this topic: Armand De Vignerot Du Plessis
Famous quotes containing the word marriages:
“If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few marriages such as we witness would ever have taken place!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“Women have entered the work force . . . partly to express their feelings of self-worth . . . partly because today many families would not survive without two incomes, partly because they are not at all sure their marriages will last. The day of the husband as permanent meal-ticket is over, a fact most women recognize, however they feel about “women’s liberation.””
—Robert Neelly Bellah (20th century)