[1] He was baptized on the day of his birth, in the chapel of the Palace of Versailles by Louis René Édouard de Rohan, Grand Chaplain of France, in the presence of Honoré Nicolas Brocquevielle, priest of Notre Dame de Versailles: his godfather was Emperor Joseph II of Austria, represented by Louis Stanislas Xavier and his godmother was Marie Clotilde of France, princess of Piedmont, represented by Élisabeth, younger sister of King Louis XVI.

The time spent at La Muette seemed to have helped Louis Joseph recover, and almost a year later, in March 1785, he returned there and was inoculated against smallpox.

At the ceremony, it was noted that Louis Joseph had trouble walking, which was in fact caused by a curvature of the spine – something which was treated through the use of metal corsets.

Louis Joseph died at 1:00 a.m. at Château de Meudon on June 4, 1789,[3] at the age of seven and a half, during the Estates General, 40 days before the storming of the Bastille.

On 10 August 1793, on order of the National Convention during the Reign of Terror, his tomb was desecrated, together with those of the kings and queens of France, members of the royal family, high dignitaries, and abbots.

[7] The Pennsylvania legislature, meeting in Philadelphia in 1785, named the newly formed county northwest of Lancaster and north of York to thank France for helping the United States win its independence from the British Empire.