Louise-Marie of France, OCD (15 July 1737 – 23 December 1787) was a French princess and Discalced Carmelite, the youngest of the ten children of King Louis XV and Queen Maria Leszczyńska.

Louise-Marie of France was born at the Palace of Versailles on 15 July 1737 to the disappointment of Louis XV who was hoping for a "spare" as his only surviving son with his wife was the Dauphin.

At this point the King was already in a 6 year secret affair with his wife's lady in waiting, the also married Comtesse de Mailly, which caused deep pain on the Queen as she was deeply in love with her husband.

The lawyer Barbier noted in his memoirs that Louis XV had resumed his sexual relationship with Queen Marie by December 1737 in the bath so as to increase their chances of conceiving another boy.

Marie was afraid of losing her husband's love and thus continued sleeping with him till she became pregnant again and suffered a dangerous miscarriage in early 1738, which prompted the Queen to discontinue sexual relations with the King thereafter by refusing him entrance to her bedroom.

[5] In June 1738, much to the sorrow of their mother, the four youngest princesses, Victoire, Sophie and Thérèse (who died at Fontevraud at the age of eight) and Louise, were sent to be raised at the Abbaye de Fontevraud, because the cost of raising them in Versailles with all the status they were entitled to was deemed too expensive by Cardinal Fleury, Louis XV's chief minister, in particular because the new cost of an official mistress had been added to the expenses since the king recognized his favorite.

[6] Their trip was described: "the princesses, who departed from Court in eight coaches and two chaises with twenty wagon loads of luggage, arrived at Fontevraud after a journey lasting thirteen days.

[4] The Abbaye de Fontevraud had been selected because of its status, as it was a prestigious establishment where the abbess was always a member of the highest nobility, but it was not an educational institution.

Their sad mother Queen Marie Leczinska was forbidden from visiting them by the Cardinal de Fleury and later by Louis XV their own father under pretext that the 2 week travel time was too expensive.

According to Madame Campan, the sisters were subjected to traumatic disciplinarian methods and neglected in their education: Cardinal Fleury, who in truth had the merit of reestablishing the finances, carried this system of economy so far as to obtain from the King the suppression of the household of the four younger Princesses.

Saint Cyr would have been more suitable for the reception of the King’s daughters; but probably the Cardinal shared some of those prejudices which will always attach to even the most useful institutions, and which, since the death of Louis XIV., had been raised against the noble establishment of Madame de Maintenon.

Madame Victoire attributed certain paroxysms of terror, which she was never able to conquer, to the violent alarms she experienced at the Abbey of Fontevraud, whenever she was sent, by way of penance, to pray alone in the vault where the sisters were interred.

The nuns worked to subdue her pride, in particular a Madame de Soulanges, and a well known anecdote describes how Louise lectured one of her servant women, who in her view had not been humble enough, by saying: "Am I not the daughter of your King?

[10] Already in 1748, when Louise, aged 11, was still in Fontevraud, rumors began to circulate that her father intended her to marry Prince Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the throne of England.

"[11] Madame Louise never married, and became a part of the group of the four unmarried princesses referred to collectively as Mesdames de France at court.

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 a number of rooms to cross, she frequently in spite of her haste, had only just time to embrace her father before he set out for the chase.

[10] In the following year, the death of her brother the Dauphin in December 1765, followed by that of her sister-in-law, Dauphine Maria Josepha, in 1767 and mother Queen Maria Leszczyńska in June 1768, and the presentation at court of the Comtesse du Barry, the new favorite of Louis XV, pushed Louise to approach Christophe de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, asking him to intercede on her behalf with her father the King of her desire to enter the Carmelites, a cloistered and austere Order, at the convent of Saint-Denis.

[18][19] The words, "I Carmelite, and the King all to God", reflected Louise's willingness to redeem with her sacrifice the soul of her father, and expiate his sins.

I went to Madame Victoire; there I heard that the King alone had been acquainted with Madame Louise’s project; that he had kept it faithfully secret, and that, having long previously opposed her wish, he had only on the preceding evening sent her his consent; that she had gone alone into the convent, where she was expected; and that a few minutes afterwards she had made her appearance at the grating, to show to the Princesse de Guistel, who had accompanied her to the convent gate, and to her equerry, the King’s order to leave her in the monastery.

As soon as I obtained permission to do so, I went to St. Denis to see my late mistress; she deigned to receive me with her face uncovered, in her private parlour; she told me she had just left the wash-house, and that it was her turn that day to attend to the linen.

[21] Threatened with closure owing to limited financial resources, the convent was now unexpectedly saved by the arrival of a nun with a large dowry,[22] which in turn further attracted significant donations.

[23] She took her religious vows on 12 September 1771 in a lavish ceremony in which the Papal Nuncio presided, dressed in white satin and wearing a million worth of diamonds, in the presence of the king and the rest of the royal family.

[22] With her investiture, Louise chose the name Thérèse of Saint Augustine[10] in honor of Teresa of Ávila, a mystic and reformer of the Carmelite Order.

[c] After her renunciation, Louise came to be in a far more influential position of status than what she had been as the youngest of princesses, and she was reportedly consulted as an authority figure by the king her father, the princes, the ambassadors, the bishops and the archbishops.

"[17] Like her sisters, however, she opposed the wedding of her nephew the Dauphin to Marie Antoinette of Austria, this marriage having been concluded by Choiseul, whom she detested because of his banishment of the Jesuits.

[10] This confidence in her counsel did attract attention by contemporaries, "The retirement of Madame Louise, and her removal from Court, had only served to give her up entirely to the intrigues of the clergy.

[29] An anecdote is given about one such visit; "Mme Elizabeth arrived at the convent one day quite early, and begged to be allowed to wait on the nuns at their dinner.

"[29] Louise gave assistance to the Carmelites nuns who had left Austria after being expelled by Emperor Joseph II, finding them a place in other French Carmel convents.

In November 1787, her nephew Louis XVI granted non-Catholics in France the right to openly practice their religions as well as legal and civil status by the Edict of Versailles.

[33] The buildings of the convent at St Denis survived the turmoil and today house the Musée d'art et d'histoire de Saint-Denis.