In 1718, she participated in the botched Cellamare Conspiracy, during which the conspirators orchestrated to oust her husband as regent in favour of her brother Louis-Auguste, Duke of Maine.

[3] By the time of her birth, her parents' relationship was coming to an end because of Madame de Montespan's possible involvement in the Affaire des poisons.

[4] Her older siblings Louis Auguste and Louise Françoise had been legitimised on 19 December 1673 by letters patent registered at the Parlement of Paris.

She remained close to him and their older brother, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duc du Maine, for her entire life.

Later, it was joked that she would “remember she was a daughter of France, even while on her chaise percée.”[6] The Marquis d'Argenson said she was very like her mother, but had also Louis XIV's orderly mind, failing of injustice, and that of his harshness.

Then known by his father's subsidiary title, Duke of Chartres, he was the son of Philippe de France, Duc d'Orléans, known, as the king's only brother, as Monsieur.

[6] Upon learning of her son's acquiescence to the betrothal, she slapped him in front of the court,[7] then turned her back on the king who had bowed in salutation to her.

On the occasion of the marriage between their respective children, Louis XIV gave to his brother the Palais-Royal in which the Orléans had resided, but had not owned.

From her father, Françoise Marie received a dowry of more than two million livres, twice the sum bestowed on her older sister, Louise, who had married Louis, Duke of Bourbon, first prince of the blood royal, whose rank was deemed substantially lower than that of the king's nephew.

Without being humpbacked or deformed, she had one side larger than the other, which caused her to walk awry; and this defect in her figure indicated another, which was more troublesome in society and which inconvenienced herself.

[11] Her mother-in-law wrote the following in her memoirs:all the ladies in waiting have made her believe that she did my son honour in marrying him; and she is so vain of her own birth and that of her brothers and sisters that she will not hear a word said against them; she will not see any difference between legitimate and illegitimate children.

The union, despite open discord, produced eight children, several of whom later married into other European royal families during the Regency of her husband for the young King Louis XV of France.

Françoise Marie was so annoyed at her children not being recognised as grandchildren of a king that Saint-Simon wrote:The duchesse d'Orléans had a head filled with fantasies that she could not realise... Not content with the modern rank of Granddaughter of France, which she enjoyed through her husband, she could not bear the idea that her children were only Princes of the Blood and dreamed up a rank for them that was betwixt and between...great-Grandchildren of France.

Her father-in-law had died of a stroke at Saint-Cloud following an argument with Louis XIV at Marly concerning the Duke of Chartres' flaunting his pregnant mistress, Marie-Louise de Séry, in front of Françoise.

However, on 6 July 1710, Françoise secured the marriage of her eldest daughter, Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, to the duke, much to the annoyance of the Duchess of Bourbon.

[14] After the liaison of her favourite daughter, Charlotte Aglaé, with the libertine Louis François Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu was discovered, Françoise and her husband married her abroad swiftly.

Government authorities arrested and imprisoned The Duke and Duchess of Maine and the Cardinal de Richelieu for their involvement in the plot temporarily.

Earlier, Françoise had tried to marry either Louise Adélaïde or Charlotte Aglaé to the Duke of Maine's son, Louis Auguste, Prince of Dombes, but both refused their cousin.

As it turned out, the second of the king's eight daughters, Madame Henriette, fell in love with Françoise Marie's grandson, Louis Philippe, then the duc de Chartres.

Louise Diane, the favourite of Madame, was engaged to the young Louis François de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, whom she married at Versailles.

[clarification needed] She returned from Modena in a self-imposed exile many a time and Françoise Marie and her son Louis chose to ignore her when she did.