Landgravine Christine of Hesse-Rotenburg

Princess Christine of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg (Christine Henriette; 21 November 1717 – 1 September 1778) was a princess of the German dynasty of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg. She was the Princess of Carignano by marriage and mother of the princesse de Lamballe and of Victor Amadeus II, Prince of Carignan. Biography Christine Henriette was born in Rotenburg the youngest of the ten children of the Landgrave Ernst Leopold I of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg and his wife, Princess Eleonore of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort. Her older sister Polyxena was married in 1730 to the future Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia and had issue. Another sister, Caroline was the wife of the French Prime Minister, Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon until her death in 1741. After Polyxena's marriage, Christine became engaged to Louis Victor, Prince of Carignan, the eldest surviving child of Victor Amadeus, Prince of Carignan and his wife Maria Vittoria Francesca of Savoy. The Carignans were a cadet branch of the House of Savoy, would inherit from them the kingship of Sardinia, and would be declared kings of Italy from 1861. Christine married Louis Victor on 4 May 1740 at the age of 22. The next year her husband succeeded to the title Prince de Carignan, the seigneury of Carignan having belonged to the Savoys since 1418. The fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty kilometers south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for the cadet line in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance.