Yolande de Polastron, Duchesse de Polignac

Yolande de Polastron was born on the 8 September 1749 in Paris, but moved to Languedoc. The Polignac family were of ancient lineage and well-respected, but encumbered by many debts. She lost her mother, Jeanne Charlotte Hérault, at the age of three and went to her aunt, who put her in a convent - a common practice for the education of young girls of the aristocracy. She was engaged to Jules François Armand, comte de Polignac, whom she married on 7 July 1767.

When her sister-in-law invited her to the Court at Versailles, she came with her husband and was presented at a formal reception in 1775. Queen Marie-Antoinette became instantly attached to her and agreed to settle the family's many outstanding debts; Gabrielle also won the friendship of the king's younger brother the comte d'Artois and the approval of King Louis XVI himself, who was grateful for her calming influence on his wife, encouraging their friendship. Charismatic and beautiful, Yolande became the undisputed leader of the queen's exclusive circle, ensuring that few entered without her approval. The entire Polignac family benefited enormously from the queen's considerable generosity, but their increasing wealth outraged many aristocratic families, who resented their dominance at Court. Ultimately, the queen's favouritism towards Yolande and her family was one of the many causes which fueled Marie-Antoinette's unpopularity with some of her subjects (especially Parisians) and members of the politically-liberal nobility.
Yolande was eventually appointed Governess to the Royal Children, including the future Louis XVII of France and Marie-Thérèse Charlotte de France, Madame Royale. At the time, her appointment generated further outrage at Court, where it was felt Yolande was unsuitable for the post. Her husband was later promoted through two rungs of the aristocratic ladder, thus making him a duc and Gabrielle a duchesse - a further source of irritation to the courtiers at Versailles.
The months leading up to the outbreak of the French Revolution in July 1789 saw the queen and the duchesse de Polignac become close again. Politically, Yolande and her friends supported the ultra-monarchist movement in Versailles, with Yolande becoming increasingly important in royalist intrigues as the summer progressed.
The marquis de Bombelles remembered her ceaseless work to promote hardline responses against the emergent revolution. Together with Bombelles' godfather, the ex-diplomat and politician baron de Breteuil, and the comte d'Artois, they persuaded Marie-Antoinette to help depose the king's liberal chief minister, Jacques Necker. However, without the necessary military support to crush the insurrection, Necker's dismissal fuelled the already-serious violence in Paris, culminating in the attack on the Bastille Fortress.
After the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, several members of the Polignac family decided to emigrate. On Louis XVI's express orders, the comte d'Artois left, as did Breteuil; Yolande went with her family to Switzerland, where she kept in contact with the Queen through letters. After she had left, the care of the royal children was entrusted to the Marquise de Tourzel.
Yolande developed cancer while living in Switzerland, although she had arguably been in poor health for several years. She died in December 1793, shortly after hearing of the execution of Marie-Antoinette. Her family simply announced that she had died as a result of heartbreak and suffering. Contradictory royalist reports of her death suggested consumption as an alternative cause of death, but no specific mention of her disease was made in the various allegorical pamphlets which showed the Angel of Death descending to take the soul of the still-beautiful duchesse de Polignac. Her beauty and early death became metaphors for the demise of the old regime, at least in early pamphlets and in subsequent family correspondence, the duchess's beauty was a much-emphasised point.