Bourgeois delivered Élisabeth of France, later Queen of Spain, on 22 November 1602 as part of her ongoing service to Marie de Medici.
On 22 November 1602, Louise Bourgeois attended the birth of Élisabeth of France, the second child of Henry IV and Marie de Medici. Élisabeth would later become Queen of Spain through her marriage to Philip IV, making this delivery historically significant beyond the immediate moment of birth.
This delivery came just over a year after Bourgeois's triumphant management of the birth of the future Louis XIII, and it confirmed her position as the trusted midwife for the queen's subsequent pregnancies. Royal childbirth in this period carried substantial risk, with maternal and infant mortality rates markedly high across all social classes, including royalty. Bourgeois's careful, methodical approach, later described in her published writings, contributed to a series of successful royal births without major incident.
Her continuing service reflects the confidence of the French court in her professional judgment, at a time when the field of childbirth assistance was in transition between traditional midwifery and emerging male-dominated obstetric surgery. Bourgeois's ability to navigate this transition while retaining royal favor speaks to both her technical skill and her diplomatic acumen within the highly stratified court environment.
This delivery is one of six royal births documented in her tenure, each of which she would later reference in her influential published observations on childbirth and women's health, lending her books unmatched authority drawn from firsthand royal practice.