The marriage had been arranged out of necessity. King Louis V had only a son, Louis Ferdinand, in whose shoulders all the expectations of France were laid, but the young dauphin’s happy marriage with the Spanish infanta María Teresa Rafaela had met its untimely end a year ago. The Dauphin was so grief-stricken that every soul in France wept with him in silence. But he had only sired a baby girl, Marie Thérèse, and not willing to let the male line die, the king wed you to Louis Ferdinand.