Amable-Gabrielle de Villars

Amable-Gabrielle de Villars (1706-1771), was a French court official. She served as the dame d'atours to queen Marie Leszczyńska in 1742-1768, and to queen Marie Antoinette in 1770-1771.

Life

She was the daughter of Adrien Maurice de Noailles and Françoise Charlotte d'Aubigné and married in 1721 to duke Honoré Armand de Villars. She had no children with her husband (who was homosexual) but a daughter, Amable Angélique (1723-1771), with Jean Philippe d'Orléans, the son of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and Marie Louise Madeleine Victoire Bel de La Boissière d'Argenton.

She was appointed Dame du Palais to the queen in 1727. In 1742, the queen managed to convince André-Hercule de Fleury to have Villars promoted to dame d'atours after Françoise de Mazarin to avoid this office of being filled by Marie Anne de Mailly, but Mailly did however secure Villars' former office of lady-in-waiting.

In 1768, she and the rest of the queen's household was allowed to retain their offices after her death and resumed them in the household of Marie Antoinette upon her arrival in France in 1770.[1] By then, she was however too old to manage her office, and during her tenure, the Dauphine's household was drained of assets.[2]

In 1923, the book Le roman de la "Sainte Duchesse" : lettres inédites de la duchesse de Villars au comte d'Argenson (1738-1741) about her was published.

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References
  1. Helen A. Younghusband, Marie-Antoinette, Her Early Youth (1770-1774), Macmillan, 1912
  2. Helen A. Younghusband, Marie-Antoinette, Her Early Youth (1770-1774), Macmillan, 1912

Court offices
Preceded by
Françoise de Mazarin		 Dame d'atour
to the Queen of France
1742–1768		 Succeeded by
Adélaïde Diane de Cossé
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