Louise Marie Madeleine Fontaine
On 9 October 1749 at the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, Jacques-Armand Dupin married with Louise-Alexandrine-Julie de Rochechouart-Pontville. But for Louise and her husband, their son was a source of many troubles, especially when he ran up debts of very large sums of money from gambling. His father had to sell many of his assets in 1750 to honor the debt of his son. The troubles with Jacques-Armand, however, continued. Claude Dupin was forced to obtain against him a "Lettre de cachet", who imprisoned Jacques-Armand in the fortress of Pierre Encise under the pretext of madness. After this, the family decided to send him to the Île Maurice (26 October 1765), where he remained for the next two years until his death on 3 May 1767, a victim of yellow fever. Before embarking on the "Count of Artois", a merchant ship of the French East India Company, Jacques-Armand reportedly revealed to his mother the existence of an illegitimate daughter of his, called Marie-Thérèse Adam, whose origins, however, remained mysterious. Nevertless, Madame Dupin took care of the child and raised as her own, later becoming in her reader and heiress. Louise considers Marie-Thérèse as her own daughter and educated after her own image, transmitting her high culture and elegance of her manners. Marie-Thérèse Adam was entirely dedicated to Madame Dupin and remained at her side until the last moment.
Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt (1757–1830)
The marriage was wholly dynastic in purpose (her sisters were married off to heir to Prussia and the Tsarevitch), consolidating the duchy of Saxe-Weimar's place at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. Primary and secondary sources agree that it was as unhappy, with Louise (noted for her delicacy and timidity) had difficulty fitting in at court and remained in the shadow of her mother-in-law, the dowager duchess Anna Amalia. Louise especially attended the convents in her new country. A Romantic "avant la lettre", she did not have a taste for the Romantic lifestyle. Goethe was court poet and minister to her husband (and his companion in his extra-marital affairs), but was moved by her charm, noble-heartedness and her eyes "the colour of cornflowers". Taking her under his wing, Goethe dedicated the following words to her:
After four years of marriage, in 1779 Louise finally gave birth her first child; sadly, wasn't the hoped male heir but a daughter, named after her and lived only five years; her next pregnancy, in 1781, produced a second daughter who died immediately after birth. At this time the Weimar ducal court also went through its sturm und drang phase, drawing not only Goethe but also the Ernestines from Miseleien and Eseleien. The resulting emotional coldness did not help their marriage, with her husband publicly humiliating the marriage by a long-term affair with the actress Karoline Jagemann. Louise only gave him the heir in 1783, with the birth of Charles Frederick; after him, followed four more children, of whom two survive infancy: Caroline Louise in 1786 and Bernhard in 1792. With the birth of Bernhard the marriage had finally served its purpose of guaranteeing the succession to the throne and the continuation of the dynasty. Charles Frederick later married Maria (sister of Alexander I of Russia, and their daughter Augusta of Saxe-Weimar married prince Wilhelm of Prussia, thus becoming the first empress of Germany.