L’« étiquette royale » : Marguerite-Louise d’Orléans à l’épreuve de Florence

The marriage between Marguerite-Louise d’Orléans, daughter of Gaston of France, Duke of Orléans and Marguerite de Lorraine, and Cosimo III de’ Medici, son of Ferdinand II and Vittoria della Rovere, falls within a long list of unhappy unions to which historiography has reserved a marginal position, except in terms of family history, on which the English historian Lawrence Stone worked extensively (Stone 1973, 1977 et 1990). Marguerite-Louise’s story is part of the history of women who were members of the high aristocracy and princesses of royal blood, the latter playing an even more important role in the balance of power between dynasties and nations, acting as valuable bargaining chips in matrimonial negotiations. Knowledge of such deliberations was part of the education acquired by a princess during her training at court. To it was added etiquette and protocol, not merely as a formal framework but as the substance of a female sovereign’s life. The eldest daughter of the Duke of Orléans (from his second marriage) had acquired and integrated this education when she arrived at the court of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, and in her own way overcame the test of rigid Florentine etiquette