on 2 October 1666 while the court was in residence, Marie Anne was the eldest illegitimate child of King Louis XIV. Considered the king's most beautiful daughter, she would become his favourite female child. His favourite child, however, was her younger half-brother, Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine. She and her younger brother Louis de Bourbon (later Count of Vermandois) were put in the care of Madame Colbert, the wife of Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. They were raised by Madame Colbert away from the intrigues of the Court.

The following year, Marie Anne was legitimised by her father on 14 May 1667. On the same day, her mother was given the titles of Duchess of La Vallière and of Vaujours with letters patent. Marie Anne would succeed to her mother'sLa Vallière title. During her youth, she was known as Mademoiselle de Blois, a style that was later granted to her younger half-sister, Françoise Marie de Bourbon, youngest daughter of the king by Madame de Montespan.

Marie Anne de Conti refusing the marriage proposal on behalf of Moulay Ismaïl, King of Morocco (French school of the 17th century)

On 16 January 1680, Marie Anne married her cousin, Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, in the chapel of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He had fallen in love with her at first sight.[citation needed] Her dowry was one million livres. The marriage was the first between a Prince of the Blood and one of Louis XIV's legitimised daughters which caused a scandal at the time. After a disastrous wedding night, the