Françoise de Bourbon-Lobkowicz

Marie-Françoise was born on 19 August 1928 in Paris. She is the daughter of Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, and Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset.[1] Her father was the titular Duke of Parma, the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, and the head of the House of Bourbon-Parma. Her mother, as the daughter of Georges de Bourbon-Busset, Count de Lignières, was a member of the non-dynastic Bourbon-Busset line of the House of Bourbon.[2] She is a direct descendant of Saint Louis IX and Louis XIV.[3] She is a sister of Prince Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma, Princess María Teresa, and Prince Sixtus Henry, Duke of Aranjuez.

During the German occupation of France, her father was arrested by the Nazis and later deported to the Dachau concentration camp. After his detainment, she fled to Austria with assistance from the Catholic Relief Services during the exodus of Hungarians during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. She then settled in West Berlin to help those who fled the USSR.[4]

On 11 December 1959 Marie-Françoise married Prince Edouard de Lobkowicz in a civil ceremony in Besson, Allier. A religious ceremony was held on 7 January 1960 at Notre-Dame de Paris.[5] Their wedding was the first Bourbon wedding to take place at the cathedral since the wedding of Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, to Princess Caroline of Naples and Sicily in 1816.[6] They had four children:[7]

• Prince Marie Edouard-Xavier Ferdinand Auguste Gaspard (18 October 1960, Paris – 27 April 1984, Ivry-sur-Seine)
• Prince Marie Robert Emanuel Joseph Michel Benoît Melchior (31 December 1961, Paris – 29 October 1988, Bhannes, Lebanon)
• Prince Marie Charles-Henri Hugues Xavier Benoît Michel Edouard Joseph Balthazar (born 17 May 1964, Paris)
• Princess Marie Gabrielle Anita Olga Thérèse Lisieux Gaspara (born 11 June 1967, Paris)

Marie-Françoise's oldest son, Edourad-Xavier, was murdered in Paris in 1984.[8] Her second son, Robert Emanuel, died in 1988 from a brain tumor.[9] Her husband died in 2010.

In 1980 she and her family moved to Lebanon, where her husband had been appointed as the ambassador for the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. In Lebanon she became involved in the construction and development of twelve medical-social centers owned by the Order. In 1987 she founded the Malte Liban Association, which raises money for the medical clinics serving the poor.[10]

Marie-Françoise was a member of the Saint-Siège delegation of the United Nations from 1990 to 1995.