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Princess Thérèse of France

1736–1744

Born
16 May 1736, Versailles
Country of birth
Kingdom of France, today France
Died
28 Sep 1744, Royal abbey of Fontevraud
facts
7
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

  • Birth16 May 1736, VersaillesProbable1 source
  • Death28 Sep 1744, Royal abbey of FontevraudProbable1 source
  • ParentLouis XV of FranceConfirmed1 source
  • ParentMarie LeszczyńskaConfirmed1 source

A life in time

  1. Born · Versailles

    Birth, Versailles

  2. Died · Royal abbey of Fontevraud

    Death, Royal abbey of Fontevraud

What was it like?

The world around Versailles, 1736: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Princess was born the same year as Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, and James Watt.

Born the same year

  • Joseph-Louis Lagrange

    Mathematician and astronomer (1736–1813)

  • Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

    French physicist (1736-1806)

  • James Watt

    British engineer (1736–1819)

  • Patrick Henry

    American Founding Father, orator and politician (1736 – 1799)

  • James Macpherson

    British writer, poet, translator and politician (1736-1796)

  • Jean Sylvain Bailly

    French astronomer, mathematician, freemason, and political leader (1736-1793)

Fashion

Basic Attire of Ordinary People

Ordinary French men typically wore a simple shirt, a frac, breeches, stockings, and leather shoes. Ordinary women wore a shirt under a corset, a skirt, an apron, a fichu, and a bonnet.

Carefully Patched Clothing

Respectable poor individuals often wore carefully patched cast-off clothing, where the patches were chosen to match the original faded fabric.

Music

Public concert series started in Paris

Starting in 1725, Parisians could attend public concerts organized by the Concert Spirituel society, which performed in the Tuileries Gardens when the Opéra was closed for religious festivals.

Getting around

Sledding down the Alps

Adventurous travelers crossed the snowy Mont-Cenis pass in winter using a sled called a ramasse, which could slide down the slope in just fifteen minutes.

Travel by mule

A trip between San Remo and Genoa over 90 miles could take three days on muleback due to narrow, rugged mountain paths.

Daily life

Daily struggles for light and water

Domestic lighting relied on oil lamps, tallow candles, or wax candles, which were expensive and labor-intensive to manage. Families often had to fetch water manually from communal fountains, as running water in homes was not available.

Limited schooling for rural children

Many rural parishes lacked schools entirely, and for those that existed, instruction was often limited to basic reading, writing, and the catechism. It was common for the local parish priest to conduct classes, though schooling for girls was significantly rarer than for boys.

Food

Bread as the Foundation of Daily Meals

The staple of the ordinary diet was bread, often consumed as a soup by soaking pieces in water, broth, or vegetable mixtures. This meal structure, centered on a starchy base accompanied by secondary savory foods, remained remarkably stable for centuries.

Scarcity and Alternative Food Sources

Ordinary families consumed very little meat, typically limited to pork, lard, or sheep tripe. During harsh times or shortages, the rural poor were forced to supplement their diet with wild plants like ferns, acorns, or grass.

Prices and wages

Daily wages for ordinary workers

In the mid-18th century, a rural laborer typically earned about 16 sols per day, while city workers could earn between 10 and 30 sols. A full day's work was often required just to afford bread for the family.

High cost of basic food

Meat was a luxury item; a single kilogram of beef, veal, or mutton could cost two days of labor for an ordinary worker. In 1725, due to shortages, the price of bread rose significantly, sometimes costing up to four days of work to afford a kilogram.

Work

Common Work for Day Laborers

Day laborers, known as manouvriers, were common and performed arduous rural tasks like harvesting, plowing, and ditch-digging for roughly 7 to 9 sous a day.

News and letters

Mail delivery times from Marseille

From Marseille, it took about one week for mail to reach Paris, Bordeaux, or Lille in the late reign of Louis XV.

Postage paid by recipients

In the eighteenth century, the recipient of a letter typically paid the postage upon arrival, with the rate varying based on the letter type and distance traveled.

During their lifetime

  1. 1738

    Introduction of road labor corvee

    In 1738, the crown introduced the corvee, a system of forced labor requiring peasants to build and maintain the royal roads.

Family

Parents

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.