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The French lordship of Montpensier (named after the village of Montpensier, département of Puy-de-Dôme), located in historical Auvergne, became a countship in the 14th century.
It changed hands from the House of Thiern, to the House of Beaujeau, to the House of Drieux, to the House of Beaujeau again, and finally to the House of Ventadour, before it was sold in 1384 by Bernard and Robert de Ventadour to John, Duke of Berry, whose sons Charles and John were the first two to hold the title of Count of Montpensier.
After their deaths without issue, their younger sister Marie brought the countship to her third husband, John I, Duke of Bourbon (1381–1434). The countship was subsequently held by Louis de Bourbon, the younger son of John and Marie, and by his descendants up to Charles de Bourbon-Montpensier, the famous constable, who became duke of Bourbon by his marriage with his cousin, Suzanne de Bourbon, in 1505.
In 1384–1434 and 1505–27, Montpensier followed the succession in Duchy of Auvergne, and from 1434 onwards that of Dauphinate of Auvergne.
Confiscated by King Francis I, the countship was restored in 1538 to Louise de Bourbon, sister of the Constable of France, and widow of the prince de La Roche-sur-Yon, and to her son Louis, and was erected into a duchy in the peerage of France (duché-pairie) in 1539. Marie, daughter and heiress of Henry, Duke of Montpensier, brought the duchy to her husband Gaston, Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIII, whom she married in 1626, and their daughter and heiress, known as La Grande Mademoiselle was duchess of Montpensier.
When Mademoiselle Anne died childless, her heir (but an ancestress' Huguenot marriage after being a nun may have been regarded invalid) was Elisabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, the then wife of Duke of Orléans. The title subsequently remained in the Orléans family, and was borne in particular by Antoine Philippe (1775–1807), son of Philippe Egalité, and by Antoine Marie Philippe Louis (1824–1890), son of King Louis-Philippe and father-in-law of King Alphonso XII of Spain. Mademoiselle de Montpensier was a title conferred upon some women of the royal family, namely during the years previous to the French Revolution.