Marie of Orléans, Viscountess of Narbonne explained

Marie of Orléans
Countess of Étampes Viscountess of Narbonne
Spouse:	John of Foix
Issue:	Germaine, Queen of Aragon Gaston, Duke of Nemours
House:	Valois-Orléans
Father:	Charles, Duke of Orléans
Mother:	Marie of Cleves
Birth Date:	19 December/September 1457
Death Date:	1493

Marie of Orléans (19 December/September 1457  - 1493) was the elder sister of King Louis XII of France. Due to her marriage to John of Foix,^[1] she was Countess of Étampes and Viscountess of Narbonne.

Marie was the eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and his third wife Marie of Cleves. After a previous betrothal to Peter II, Duke of Bourbon,^[2] she married John of Foix on 8 September 1483.^[3]

Issue

She had two children by John of Foix:

• Germaine of Foix (1488–1538)^[4]
  • married Ferdinand II of Aragon, and whose relationship to the Navarrese throne was used as an excuse by Ferdinand to claim the throne of Navarre (see Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre)
• Gaston of Foix (1489–1512)
  • served as a general for his uncle Louis XII, killed at the battle of Ravenna in 1512.

Notes and References

1. André Thevet, Portraits from the French Renaissance and the Wars of Religion, transl. Edward Benson, ed. Roger Schlesinger, (Truman State University Press, 2010), 3.
2. Frederic J. Baumgartner, Louis XII, (St. Martin's Press, 1996), 8.
3. Elena Woodacre, The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics, and Partnership, 1274-1512, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 122.
4. Frederic J. Baumgartner, Louis XII, 146.