Skip to content
VitrineRoyal Houses of Europe
Sign in

Louise Adélaïde de Bourbon

1696–1750

Born
2 Nov 1696, Hôtel de Nevers
Country of birth
France
Died
20 Nov 1750, Paris
facts
7
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Hôtel de Nevers

    Birth, Hôtel de Nevers

  2. Died · Paris

    Death, Paris

What was it like?

The world around Hôtel de Nevers, 1696: 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.

Shoes for men were a significant expense, as they could cost twice as much as those worn by women.

Fashion

Cost of Footwear

Shoes for men were a significant expense, as they could cost twice as much as those worn by women.

Essential Women's Clothing

Urban working women typically wore a five-item ensemble: a top (casaquin or corset), a skirt (jupe or jupon), an apron for work, a shawl or neckerchief, and a cloak for cold weather.

Music

Dancing and Music in Court Apartments

At the royal apartments in Versailles, ordinary court life included regular music and dancing in the Grand Apartment, where attendees could freely enjoy playing games, eating snacks, and dancing to violins and oboes.

Sunday Dancing and the Pipe and Tabor

In the late 17th century, peasants often enjoyed dancing to the pipe and tabor on the Sabbath, an amusement that was sometimes tolerated by church officials as a necessary relief from a week of hard labor.

Getting around
Around 1698–1699

Parisian carriage hire options

In Paris, travelers could hire a private carriage known as a Remise for about three crowns per day. For budget travelers, the vinegrette was a peculiar two-wheeled vehicle dragged by a man and pushed by a woman or boy.

Barque de poste canal travel

In 1674, the barque de poste service was introduced, allowing passengers to travel from Toulouse to Castelnaudary in one day. The journey included scheduled stops for meals and overnight rests.

Daily life

Crowded and multi-purpose living spaces

Ordinary homes were often crowded, with a single room used for cooking, eating, sleeping, and child care, requiring furniture to be rearranged throughout the day.

Demanding daily household labor

Water had to be hauled manually from fountains or courtyards, and heating required constant manual labor to manage wood, fire, and ash disposal.

Food

Daily Bread Consumption Requirements

To meet daily calorie needs, men typically consumed three pounds of bread per day, while women consumed two pounds and children one pound.

Family Budget Spent on Bread

During the Old Regime, expenditures on bread accounted for 50 to 60 percent of a family's total budget.

Prices and wages
Around 1700–1707

Worker wages in the early 1700s

In the early 18th century, a rural manual worker earned about 9 sols per day, but could only find work for about 180 days out of the year.

Cost of shoes and bread

A servant paid 10 livres and 5 sous for a new pair of shoes in May 1703, while bread prices fluctuated significantly, such as when he paid 7 livres 9 sous 9 deniers for bread in May 1705.

Work

Common jobs in 17th-century France

Common occupations in 17th-century France included artisans like bakers, tailors, and masons, as well as day laborers, domestic servants, and various river workers like boatmen. These individuals often worked in small shops, homes, or on the streets rather than large centralized workplaces.

Memorable facts of everyday work life

Laborers commonly adopted coffee with milk for breakfast as an economical way to sustain energy until the evening. Additionally, many workers in that era enjoyed about 80 to 85 days of complete rest per year due to various religious and local feast days.

News and letters

Encryption slowed down letter delivery

Diplomatic and private letters were often encrypted to ensure confidentiality, though coding and decoding the messages added significant time to the delivery process.

Travel time from Paris to Grignan

Letters from Paris to Montélimar, near Grignan, typically took about twelve days to arrive in the best conditions.

During their lifetime

  1. 1709

    The Great Winter of 1709

    The Great Winter of 1709 brought extreme cold and severe famine to France, marking one of the century's worst economic crises.

  2. 1716

    Foundation of Law's Bank in 1716

    John Law established the Banque Générale in 1716, which later issued paper bank notes guaranteed by the king to stimulate the economy.

  3. 1720

    The Great Plague of Marseilles

    The Great Plague of Marseilles, the last major plague epidemic in France, devastated the region between 1720 and 1721.

  4. 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.

  5. 1748

    Abolition of the royal galleys

    In 1748, King Louis XV abolished the galleys, transferring convicts to coastal prisons or ships, ending a long-standing form of harsh penal servitude.

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.