Sophie of France (1786-1787)


Sophie Helena Beatrice of France was a French princess, the second daughter and last child of Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette. She was styled as Madame Sophie at birth. As the daughter of a King of France, she was a Fille de France until her death in 1787.

Biography

Sophie was born at the Palace of Versailles, the youngest of the four children of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. She was named after her great-aunt Madame Sophie, Louis XV's fifth daughter, who had died four years earlier.
Sophie was born a very large baby, but her fragile health was undermined by tuberculosis. She died in Versailles after suffering 5 or 6 days of convulsions. She was only 11 months old.
Her death was a cause for much sorrow on the part of her parents. When Marie Antoinette's foster-brother, Joseph Weber, attempted to console her with the fact that given Sophie's tender age Marie Antoinette must not have grown overly attached to her, the bereaved mother is supposed to have said, "Don't forget that she would have been my friend." This was a reference to her words after the birth of Sophie's older sister in 1778.
Sophie was buried in the necropolis of the Kings of France, the Royal Basilica of Saint Denis, five kilometers north of Paris.

Ancestry