Princess of Condé and widowhood (1710–1740)
Louise Françoise's husband, who had by this time descended into madness, did not survive his father long and died within the year in 1710. Although Louise Françoise should have officially assumed the style of Madame la Princesse de Condé douairière (Dowager Princess of Condé) upon the death of her husband, she instead chose to be known in her widowhood as Madame la Duchesse douairière. She had a portrait taken in widow's dress. When her husband died she is said to have been affected but Madame de Caylus did not believe her grief was sincere.
Perhaps in the hope of ingratiating herself with the future King, Louise Françoise frequently attended the court of her older half-brother, Monseigneur, at the Château de Meudon. At Meudon, she became close to Élisabeth-Thérèse de Lorraine, Princess of Epinoy and her older sister, Mademoiselle de Lillebonne, a future Abbess of Remiremont. Unexpectedly, the Dauphin died in 1711, ruining his sister's plan of establishing a more solid relationship with the Crown. Despite her dashed hopes, Louise Françoise was deeply affected by the Dauphin's death. This death made her nephew, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, Marie Adélaïde, the new Dauphin and Dauphine.
Marie Adélaïde and Louise Françoise were to become bitter enemies because of the new Dauphine's condescending attitude toward ladies of inferior rank. The Duchess of Orléans and the older Dowager Princess of Conti also grew to dislike their niece for her haughty behaviour.
As a dowager, Louise Françoise became a good friend of Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, the former mistress of Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy. Jeanne Baptiste had escaped Savoy in 1700 and had been residing in Paris ever since.
Within two years, in 1712, the new Dauphin and his young wife died, leaving only a small son, the Duke of Anjou, as the legitimate heir of Louis XIV. In 1715 the King died and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. A controversy immediately arose between Louise Françoise's older brother, the Duke of Maine, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Orléans, over which of the two should be declared regent. After the Parlement of Paris had deliberated for a week, the Duke of Orléans was declared the official regent. This, of course, exacerbated the rivalry between Louise Françoise and her younger sister, the Duchess of Orléans, now the highest-ranking woman in France.
During the Régence, Louise Françoise was frequently occupied with the escapades of her second daughter, Louise Élisabeth, Princess of Conti, who had become the mistress of Philippe Charles de La Fare. When her daughter's husband, the Prince of Conti, discovered the liaison, he became physically abusive toward his wife. The only son of the Conti couple, Louis François de Bourbon, was thought to have been the result of his mother's adulterous relationship with La Fare. Louise Élisabeth later took refuge from her violent husband with her mother at the Palais Bourbon.
In 1714 her niece, Mademoiselle du Maine, the daughter of her older brother, the Duke of Maine, was named in her honour.
In the 1720s, Louise Françoise became the mistress of the Armand de Madaillan de Lesparre. In order to be closer to her, he built the Hôtel de Lassay next to the Palais Bourbon, her residence in Paris. Later on, a gallery was built, housing the grander, more public part of the collection of paintings that made Lassay's reputation as a connoisseur redound in Parisian circles for a generation after his death; the gallery that joined the two buildings also enabled the lovers to have better access to each other.
In 1737, she was asked to be the godmother to Louis XV's eldest son, Louis, Dauphin of France. The young Dauphin's godfather was Louise Françoise's nephew, Louis, Duke of Orléans.
When her son was disgraced during the regency of the Duke of Orléans, Louise Françoise regarded his mistress Madame de Prie as the cause. As such, Louise Françoise detested her. Her son died in exile in 1740 to be succeeded by his son, Louise Françoise's grandson, Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, who was aged four.
