[3] One of the reasons as to why the expense of her younger sisters at Versailles was regarded as too high, was that the royal children were allowed to participate in court life at a very young age.

[4][page needed] In 1761, long after she passed the age when 18th-century princesses usually wed, she was reportedly suggested to marry the newly widowed Charles III of Spain.

[9][page needed][10][11][12][13][14] Like their mother, the well loved Queen Marie Leszczyńska, Adélaïde and her siblings were actually very charitable as noted by Charles Philippe d'Albert, 4th Duke of Luynes in his memoirs and often gave money using their allowances in supporting workhouses for the poor as well as given alms to regions struck by calamity.

She is described as an intelligent beauty; her appearance an ephemeral, "striking and disturbing beauty of the Bourbon type characterized by elegance", with "large dark eyes at once passionate and soft", and her personality as extremely haughty to her father's debauched circle of friends but was actually friendly towards the common people of France during public ceremonies in Paris as described by the Duke of Luynes, with a dominant and ambitious character with a strong will, who came to dominate her younger siblings: "Madame Adélaïde had more mind than Madame Victoire; but she was altogether deficient in that kindness which alone creates affection for the great, abrupt manners, a harsh voice, and a short way of speaking, rendering her more than imposing.

"[9][page needed] A childhood anecdote mentions how she, at the age of eleven, expressed her desire to defeat the English by the method described in Judith And Holofernes in the Bible.

In the early 1750s, when the health of Madame de Pompadour was deteriorating, Adélaïde, who was a good rider, became the favorite and close companion of her father, during which she often accompanied him during his riding and amused him with conversation.

After the death of their mother Queen Marie Leszczyńska in 1768, the King wept and was deeply sad and depressed as he had never stopped loving his wife in spite of his numerous mistresses.

She reportedly preferred a queen who was young, beautiful and lacked ambition, as she could distract her father from state affairs, leaving them to Madame Adélaïde herself.

This latter lady was deformed and very short; the poor Princess used to run with all her might to join the daily meeting, but, having many rooms to cross, she frequently, despite her haste, had only just time to embrace her father before he set out for the chase.

Despite the fact that the sisters never had the disease and the male members of the royal family, as well as the Dauphine, were kept away because of the high risk of catching the illness, the Mesdames were allowed to attend to him until his death, being female and therefore of no political importance because of the Salic law even if they died.

The sisters had in fact been infected by their father and fell ill with smallpox (from which they recovered), and were kept in quarantine on a little house near the Palace of Choisy, to which the court evacuated after the death of the king until their recovery.

[4][page needed] Their nephew the King allowed the sisters to keep their apartments in the Palace of Versailles, and they kept attending court at special occasions - such as for example at the visit of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, who reportedly charmed Adélaïde.

However, they distanced themselves from court and often preferred to reside in their own Château de Bellevue in Meudon; they also traveled annually to Vichy, always with a retinue of at least three hundred people, and made the waters there fashionable.

[20] The Mesdames continued to be the confidants of Louis XVI, and they also maintained a good relationship with their niece, Princess Élisabeth of France, and often visited her in her retreat at Montreuil [fr].

[17][page needed] When Victoire de Rohan resigned as Governess of the Children of France, the King, who maintained a good relationship with his aunts, wished to give Madame Adélaïde the responsibility for the upbringing of his children, as she shared his views on religion, but this was rebuked by the Queen, who stated that she could not bear to give the position to someone who had made her first years in France so difficult.

[20] The Austrian Ambassador Mercy reported that their salon was a center of intrigues against Marie Antoinette, where the Mesdames tolerated poems satirizing the queen.

"[21][page needed] Madame Adélaïde, reportedly, did not regard the convocation of the Estates General of 1789 as a prelude to a revolution, only as a grand state occasion.

The Mesdames were warned and left the château in the carriage of a visitor before having the time to bring their baggage wagons, which were, however, protected and sent after them by General Louis-Alexandre Berthier.

The Chroniqle de Paris wrote: "Two Princesses, sedentary by condition, age, and taste, are suddenly possessed by a mania for travelling and running about the world.

Already the Grand Master of Malta has caused Madame Adélaïde to be informed that he will give her his heart and hand as soon as she has quitted France, and that she may count upon the assistance of three galleys and forty-eight cavaliers, young and old.

"[22][page needed] They were temporarily stopped by a riot against their departure in Moret, and on 21 February, they were detained for several days at a tavern in Arnay-le-Duc, where the municipality wished to affirm their permission to leave from the National Assembly before allowing them to continue.

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau convinced the National Assembly that "The welfare of the people cannot depend on the journey the Ladies undertake to Rome; while they are promenading near the places where the Capitol once stood, nothing prevents the edifice of our liberty from rising to its utmost height.

[...] Europe will doubtless be much astonished, when it learns that the National Assembly of France spent four entire hours in deliberating on the departure of two ladies who would rather hear Mass in Rome - than in Paris.

[22][page needed] They were exposed to public demonstrations in several occasions between Lyon and the border before they finally left France on the bridge of Beauvoisin, where they were hooted from the French shore, while salvos of artillery from the Italian shore welcomed them to Piedmont, where they were welcomed by a royal guard of escort and the chief palace officials of King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia, who installed them in the Château de Chambery.

[17] They continued to visit their niece Clotilde at the royal court of Turin, but stayed only a fortnight: "not even the touching and gracious welcome offered to them by the royal family, the affection shown to them by the Count of Artois and the Prince and Princess of Piedmont, their nephew and niece, could make them forget the anguish and perils they had left behind them, and which encircled their family and country with gloom.

[3] In the Friday receptions of Cardinal de Bernis, Cornelia Knight described them: "Madame Adélaïde still retained traces of that beauty which had distinguished her in her youth, and there was great vivacity in her manner, and in the expression of her countenance.

They were highly respected by the Romans; not only by the higher orders, but by the common people, who had a horror of the French revolution, and no great partiality for that nation in general.

[17] Upon the invasion of Italy by Revolutionary France in 1796, Adélaïde and Victoire left Rome for Naples, where Marie Antoinette's sister, Maria Carolina, was queen, and settled at the Neapolitan royal court in the Palace of Caserta.

Queen Maria Carolina found their presence in Naples difficult: "I have the awful torment of harboring the two old Princesses of France with eighty persons in their retinue and every conceivable impertinence...

"[24] When Naples was invaded by France in 1799, they left in a Russian frigate for Corfu, and finally settled in Trieste, where Victoire died of breast cancer.