Louis-Auguste, Duke du Maine
Son of Louis XIV / princely owner of Sceaux
1670–1736
Who they were
Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duke du Maine, was a son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. His wife was Anne-Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon-Condé. Their son, also named Louis-Auguste, was the Prince de Dombes: father and son were different people with different titles.
The duke acquired Sceaux in December 1700. François de Troy’s 1704 painting of the feast of Dido and Aeneas places the family within a mythological scene: the duke appears as Aeneas, the duchess as Dido and their young son as Ascanius. The picture records the household’s theatrical self-presentation.
The Cellamare conspiracy interrupted life at Sceaux in 1718. The museum’s account distinguishes the duchess’s active involvement from the duke’s limited part, although both suffered arrest and exile. They returned in 1720. The duke died in 1736, before his wife; his ownership belongs to the eighteenth-century estate, not the later Trévise château.
Related residences
Sources
- Sceaux — family identities and François de Troy’s painting
- Sceaux — the duke’s arrest and exile
- Sceaux — ownership chronology
Short biography checked 10 October 2026. Lifespan and documented activity dates are labelled separately.