Louis de Pardaillan de Gondrin (9 November 1707 – 9 December 1743), Duke of Antin, was a French courtier, freemason and male-line great-grandson of Madame de Montespan.

Early life

He was born at Versailles in 1707, the elder of the two children of Louis de Pardaillan de Gondrin, marquis de Gondrin, and his wife, Marie Victoire de Noailles. His father was a member of the House of Pardaillan de Gondrin, an old noble family of Gascon origin. His mother was one of twenty children born to Anne Jules de Noailles and Marie Françoise de Bournonville. Among his large extended family were maternal cousins, Adrien Maurice, Duke of Noailles (who married Madame de Maintenon's heiress) and the Duke of La Vallière.

Career

Louis was known as the marquis de Gondrin from 1712 when his father died unexpectedly at the age of 23. In 1722, his grandfather, Louis Antoine, the only legitimate son of Madame de Montespan, resigned the Duchy of Antin and gave it to his grandson who was fifteen at the time. Louis's mother remarried on 2 February 1723 to Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse, the youngest child of Louis XIV and Louis's great-grandmother : Mme de Montespan in a secret ceremony. The marriage was announced only after the death of the Régent in December of the same year. As such, his half-brother was Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, the duc de Penthièvre and single richest man in France prior to the revolution. His nephews included the prince de Lamballe (husband of the murdered Maria Teresa Luisa of Savoy).

Personal life

On 29 October 1722, he married Françoise Gillonne de Montmorency (1704–1768), a granddaughter of François Henri de Montmorency, Duke of Luxembourg and Marshal of France. The couple had four children, one son (born in 1727) and three daughters. He died at the age of 36, and was succeeded as Duke of Antin by his only son Louis. His wife outlived him by 25 years.

Ancestry