marriage remained sterile and Marie Anne shocked the court when she openly stated that her husband was not good at making love.

In 1683, she lost her beloved brother the Count of Vermandois, who shared the same birthday with her. The young count had been exiled from court after being involved in a homosexual scandal involving their uncle's lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine, himself the long term lover of Marie Anne's uncle the Duke of Orléans. From all sources, Marie Anne was quite upset by her brother's death, while, according to contemporary accounts, the young man's parents did not even shed a tear.

In 1685, her husband contracted smallpox from Marie Anne. Although she recovered, he succumbed after five days. After his death, she was called Madame la Princesse Douairière,and also la Grande Princesse de Conti. She never remarried and even refused an offer of marriage from the Sultan of Morocco, Ismail Ibn Sharif preferring to be free.

During the five years of her marriage to the Prince of Conti, a Prince of the Blood, she was one of the most important ladies at her father's court. Her younger half sister Louise Françoise de Bourbon, the elder legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, however, made a more important marriage in 1685 to Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Bourbon, who was the eldest son of the Prince of Condé and heir to the title. As the Conti line descended from the Condé's, the latter took precedence over the former and as such Marie Anne had to