Élisabeth Sophie de Lorraine (Marie Élisabeth Sophie; 1710 – 2 August 1740) was a French noblewoman and the second wife of Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, the notoriously lecherous Duke of Richelieu.
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Biography
Élisabeth Sophie de Lorraine was born in 1710 and was the second daughter of Joseph de Lorraine, Count of Harcourt and his wife Marie Louise Jeannin de Castille. Her older sister Louise Henriette Françoise married Emmanuel Théodose de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon in 1725.
As a member of the House of Guise in France, she held the status of a princesse étrangère.
Family relations included Emmanuel Maurice de Lorraine-Guse, Duke of Elbeuf; Béatrice Hiéronyme de Lorraine, Abbess of Remiremont; Élisabeth Thérèse de Lorraine, Princess of Epinoy; and Queen Elisabeth of Sardinia.
She was proposed as a bride for Paul Anton, a prince of the Hungarian House of Esterházy and a distinguished soldier and patron of music. The marriage never materialised.
In the end, with the help of Voltaire, the Duke of Richelieu was married to Élisabeth Sophie. As she was a princess of the House of Lorraine, Richelieu had to ask permission from the reigning Duke of Lorraine, Francis III Stephen. The Duke of Lorraine accepted and Élisabeth Sophie married Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu on 7 April 1734.