The Letters of Madame: The Correspondence of Elizabeth-Charlotte of Bavaria, Princess Palatine, Duchess of Orleans, called 'Madame' at the Court of King Louis XIV, in Two Volumes

287, [1]; 307, [1] pp. 8vo. A collection of letters spanning nearly fifty years at court, with a genealogical table illustrating her relation to British royalty, a facsimile of one of her letters, and portraits of several kings, and images of medals bearing her portrait. Her vast, frank correspondence provides a detailed account of the personalities and activities at the court of her brother-in-law, Louis XIV, for half a century, from the date of her marriage in 1672. In addition to letters to her aunt Sophia and her morganatic half-sisters the Raugravines, she also corresponded with the former's courtier Gottfried Leibniz, although they never met. After he died, she insisted that the Académie des Sciences, of which he had been a member, honour his passing. The resulting eulogy to Leibniz, by Fontenelle, was the only one ever delivered anywhere. When the Simmern branch of the Wittelsbach dynasty became extinct in the male line with the death of her brother Karl II in 1685, Louis XIV sent troops to claim the Palatinate in his sister-in-law's name, initiating the War of the Palatine Succession (1688–1697), which would decimate much of the Rhineland. (Spanheim, Le Temps retrouvé XXVI)