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Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 31 March 1670 - Sceaux, 14 May 1736) was a legitimised son of the French king Louis XIV and his official mistress, Madame de Montespan. The king's favourite son, he was the founder of the semi-royal House of Bourbon-Maine named after his title and his surname. ==Biography== Louis-Auguste de Bourbon was born at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 31 March 1670. He was named ''Louis'' after his father〔''Athénaïs:The Real Queen of France'' by Lisa Hilton, p.153〕 and ''Auguste'' after the Roman Emperor Augustus〔 Immediately after his birth, Louis-Auguste was placed in the care of one of his mother's acquaintances, the widowed Madame Scarron, who took him to live in a house on rue de Vaugirard, near the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. His siblings, Louis-César, Louise-Françoise and Louise Marie Anne de Bourbon were also brought there after their births. Their mother, living with the king at Versailles, rarely saw her children, and Madame Scarron took the place of mother in Louis-Auguste's affections. One of his legs was shorter than the other and Scarron took him to consult, first, a famous quack at Antwerp and later to the waters of Bareges, a small town near the Pyrenees, whither they traveled incognito (she as the marquise de Surgeres). On 19 December 1673, when Louis-Auguste was three years old, Louis XIV legitimised his children by Montespan by letters patent registered by the Parlement de Paris. At this time, Louis-Auguste received the title of ''duc du Maine''. In 1674, at the age of four, Louis-Auguste and his siblings were officially introduced to the court at Versailles. In the same year, he was made a colonel-general of the Swiss Guards. Du Maine's greatest enemy at court became his father's sister-in-law, the duchesse d'Orléans, known at court as ''Madame''. In her famous correspondence describing life at Versailles, ''Madame'' claimed that du Maine was not the son of the king:
Louis XIV showered him with gifts and titles, and hired the best tutors for him. The maréchal du Luxembourg, a famous military strategist, was put in charge of the child's military training. Despite this, Louis-Auguste never became more than a mediocre soldier. He was made ''Grand Maître de France''. The king also blackmailed his cousin, the wealthy ''La Grande Mademoiselle'', into ceding some of her estates to du Maine in return for the liberation of her imprisoned lover, Antoine Nompar de Caumont, Duke of Lauzun. As a result, Louis-Auguste became the ''comte d'Eu'', sovereign Prince of the Dombes, and ''duc d'Aumale''. He also received the governorship of Languedoc and was awarded the ''Order of the Holy Spirit''. In April 1684 du Maine represented the king at the wedding of the Duke of Savoy to du Maine's cousin, Anne Marie d'Orléans. In 1688, Louis Auguste was made a ''capitaine général des galères'' (General of Galleys). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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