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- BIOGRAPHY
Françoise was born posthumously on 5 April 1549 in Châteaudun, the daughter of François d'Orléans-Longueville, marquis de Rothelin, prince de Châtel-Aillon, and Jacqueline de Rohan. Her father died on 25 October 1548, less than six months before her birth.
Françoise's cousin François III de Longueville was the uterine half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots. Her maternal aunt Claude de Rohan, dame de Thoury, was a mistress of François I, king of France. On 8 November 1565, in the château de Vendôme, Françoise married Louis de Bourbon, 1.prince de Condé, widower of Eleonore de Roye, comtesse de Roucy, who had died in 1564, and son of Charles de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, and Françoise d'Alençon, duchesse de Beaumont. A Huguenot general, he was the youngest brother of Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, king of Navarre. They had three sons of whom Charles would have progeny.
On 13 March 1569 her husband was captured and shot at the Battle of Jarnac where the Huguenots were defeated by the Catholic forces led by Marshal Gaspard de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes, and the duke of Anjou, who would later rule as King Henri III. Françoise was not yet twenty years old.
Françoise died in Paris on 11 June 1601 at the age of fifty-two. She was buried at Gaillon. The house of Savoy-Carignan descended from her through her son Charles' daughter Marie.
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