Cellemare Plot

   A plot named for Antonio de Giudice, duke of Gio-venazzo, prince of Cellemare, who was the Spanish ambassador to France (1715). The plot, carried out on the orders of the Spanish minister, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni (1664-1752), involved louis-auguste de bourbon, duke of maine, and his wife, the duchess Anne-Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon Condé (16761753). The participants in the plot sought to replace phillipe d'orléans as regent of France with Philip V of Spain. The conspiracy failed, and the duke of Maine was briefly imprisoned (1719). Upon his release (1720), he retired from political life.