Portrait of Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, Madame Royale
'Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France, Duchess of Angoulême and Dauphine of France' (
19 December 1778 –
19 October 1851) was the eldest child of King
Louis XVI of France and his Queen,
Marie Antoinette of Austria. As the wife of the eldest surviving son of
Charles X, she is considered by some to have been 'Queen of France' for the 20 minutes between her father-in-law's signing of the instrument of abdication and her husband's own signing of the document.
Childhood
Marie Thérèse of France
Marie-Thérèse was the first child born to King
Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette of Austria. Monarchists throughout France prayed for the birth of a male child to the royal couple, who had been married since
1770. However, the Queen greeted her daughter's birth with delight. "Poor little thing," she said as they placed the baby in her arms, "you are not what they wanted, but we will love you nonetheless. A son would have belonged to the State; ''you'' shall be mine, and have all my care; you shall share in my happiness and soften my sorrows." The baby princess was named after the queen's mother, the Holy Roman Empress
Maria Theresa. As the eldest daughter of the sovereign, she was commonly known as ''
Madame Royale''.
Madame Royale's household was headed by her governess, the
madame de Guémenée, who was later replaced by one of the queen's closest friends, the
Duchesse de Polignac. King
Louis XVI was an affectionate father, who delighted in spoiling his daughter and giving her anything she wanted. Marie Therese loved him much more than her mother. Marie Antoinette was stricter and was determined that her daughter should not grow up to be as haughty as her husband's unmarried aunts. She often invited children from working-class districts to come and dine with Marie-Thérèse and encouraged the child to give her toys to the poor. Marie Antoinette favoured her sons over her daughters.
In contrast to her image as a materialistic queen who ignored the plight of the poor, Marie Antoinette at various times attempted to teach her daughter about the sufferings of others. On New Year's Day in
1784, she had some beautiful toys brought to Marie-Thérèse's nursery. "I should have liked to have given you all these as New Year's gifts," the queen said, "but the winter is very hard, there is a crowd of unhappy people who have no bread to eat, no clothes to wear, no wood to make a fire. I have given them all my money; I have none left to buy you presents, so there will be none this year."
Marie-Thérèse was joined in the nursery by two brothers,
Louis-Joseph-Xavier-François in
1781 and
Louis-Charles in
1785, and a younger sister,
Sophie-Hélène-Béatrix in
1786.
Unfortuantly, Sophie died a year after her birth and Louis Joseph died a few years after his birth. This made Louis Charles the new Dauphin.
Ancestry
Life during the Revolution
As Marie-Thérèse grew, the
French Revolution was building outside the palace. Social discontent mixed with a crippling budget deficit provoked an outburst of anti-absolutist sentiment. By
1789, France was hurtling towards revolt as the result of bankruptcy due to the supporting of the American Revolution, drought, and famine, among many other problems aided by propagandists. These propagandists wrongly depicted Marie Antoinette as engaging in all sorts of sexual perversions not the least of which were incest with her own son and a lesbian affair that never happened. Upon the fall of the Monarchy these attacks grew ever more vicious as newfound freedom of the press was not accompanied by commensurate restraint by editors and publishers. The queen's popularity was at an all-time low, due to her Austrian birth and a hate campaign generated against her by the Parisian gutter press. Tragedy struck closer to home when baby Princess Sophie-Hélène-Béatrix died, to be followed not long after by the eldest boy's death. Prince Louis-Joseph died of
consumption at the height of the political crisis in early
1789.
On
14 July the
Bastille was captured by the mob. The situation was now critical and several members of the royal household had to be sent abroad for their own safety. The Prime Minister,
Breteuil, had to escape to
Germany. Marie-Thérèse's youngest uncle,
Charles d'Artois was sent abroad on her father's orders and even
her governess had to escape to
Switzerland in case she was targeted by an assassin. The new royal governess was the religiously devout
Marquise de Tourzel, whose daughter Pauline became the princess's life-long friend.
In October,
Versailles was besieged and the royal family was forced to move to
Paris. They were placed in the
Tuileries Palace, under virtual house arrest. From that point on, Marie-Thérèse's childhood was effectively over. Marie-Thérèse wanted to show her love to her mother but found it difficult. Unlike Marie Antoinette, Marie-Thérèse was very emotionally reserved and could not express her emotions easily.
The Orphan in the Temple
As the political situation deteriorated, the King and Queen came to the decision that their lives were in danger. The Queen was also convinced that France's future best interests lay in the Royal Family escaping Paris and its revolutionary atmosphere. They hoped to make it to the northeastern fortress of
Montmédy, which was a royalist stronghold. Their
attempted flight away from the city was intercepted in
Varennes by a former servant (who felt he had been mistreated by Louis XVI) when Louis insisted on stopping to eat; they were arrested and dragged back to Paris.
In autumn
1792, the entire family was imprisoned in the
Temple Fortress after the monarchy was abolished. In January
1793, Marie-Thérèse's father,
Louis XVI, was sent to the
guillotine. Father and daughter had always been very close, and his death devastated the surviving family.
In July, guards entered the royal family's rooms and took away Marie-Thérèse's little brother, the future
Louis XVII. The three women left in the fortress were Marie Antoinette, Marie-Thérèse and Louis XVI's youngest sister,
Madame Élisabeth. Of these three, only Marie-Thérèse was able to survive the
Reign of Terror.
In October
1793, Marie Antoinette was taken to the
Conciergerie Prison and accused of treason, incest with her son and other perversions. There was no evidence to support the charges, but it was a foregone conclusion that she would be declared guilty. She was executed by Sanson, the former Royal Executioner, on
16 October. In May
1794, Marie-Thérèse's Aunt Élisabeth was taken from her in the middle of the night, and executed the following day.
During the remainder of her imprisonment in a tower the Temple, Marie-Thérèse was never told what had happened to her family. All she knew was that her father was dead, and she felt alone in the world. The following words are scratched on the wall of her room in the tower: "Marie-Thérèse is the most unhappy creature in the world. She can obtain no news of her mother; nor be reunited to her, though she has asked it a thousand times." "Live, my good mother! whom I love well, but of whom I can hear no tidings." "O my father! watch over me from heaven above, life was so cruel to her." "O my God! forgive those who have made my family die."
There are rumours that
Maximilien Robespierre visited Marie-Thérèse once in prison, but they are not likely true. It was only once the
Reign of Terror subsided that Marie-Thérèse was allowed to leave
France. She was taken to
Vienna, where her cousin ruled as Emperor
Francis II.
Life as an Émigrée
Profile of Madame Royale
Marie-Thérèse later left
Vienna and moved to
Mittau,
Courland, where her father's eldest surviving brother,
Louis-Stanislas, Comte de Provence, lived as a guest of Czar
Paul I of Russia. He had proclaimed himself King of France as
Louis XVIII after the death of Marie-Thérèse's brother. Without children of his own, he wished his niece to marry
Louis-Antoine, his nephew and her cousin, who would be the eventual dynastic heir to the throne of France. Marie-Thérèse agreed unquestioningly, happy only to be part of a family again.
Louis-Antoine, Duc d'Angoulême, the eldest son of her father's youngest brother,
Charles-Philippe, Comte d'Artois, was a shy, stammering, diffident young man who was also probably impotent. He was certainly nothing like his handsome and virile father, who viewed his eldest son as a crass embarrassment and tried to talk Louis XVIII out of marrying Marie-Thérèse to him. The wedding, however, went ahead in
1799.
The royal family moved to
Great Britain, where they settled in
Buckinghamshire. Marie-Thérèse's uncle and father-in-law,
Charles, spent most of his time in
Edinburgh, where he had been given apartments at
Holyrood House. The long years of exile ended upon the abdication of
Napoleon I in
1814, when the royal family was restored to the French monarchy.
The Bourbon Restoration
Louis XVIII attempted to steer a middle-course between liberals and the
Ultra-royalists led by his younger brother, the
Comte d'Artois. He also attempted to suppress the many gentlemen who claimed to be Marie-Thérèse's long-lost younger brother,
Louis XVII. Needless to say, these claimants caused the princess a good deal of emotional distress.
Marie-Thérèse found her return emotionally draining and she was deeply distrustful of the many Frenchmen who had supported either the republic or
Napoleon Bonaparte's rule. She visited the site where her brother had died, and the field where her parents and aunt
Madame Élisabeth were buried. The royal remains were later re-buried in the family crypt in
Saint-Denis.
In March 1815 Napoleon returned to France and rapidly began to gain supporters and raised an army. Louis XVIII fled France, but Marie Therese who was in
Bordeaux at the time attempted to rally the local troops. The troops agreed to defend her but not to cause a civil war with Napoleon's troops. Marie Therese stayed in Bordeaux despite Napoleon's orders for her to be arrested when his army arrived. Believing her cause was lost (and to spare Bordeaux senseless destruction) she finally agreed to flee. Her actions caused Napoleon to remark that she was the "only man in her family."
After Napoleon was defeated at
Waterloo, the
House of Bourbon was restored for a second time.
Tragedy struck when Charles' youngest (and favourite) son,
Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry was assassinated by republican terrorists on
13 February 1820. Charles never recovered from the loss.
Louis XVIII died on
16 September 1824 and was succeeded by his younger brother as Charles X. Marie-Thérèse's husband, Louis-Antoine, was now heir to the throne and she was addressed as ''
Madame la Dauphine''. However, anti-monarchist feeling was on the rise again. Charles's ultra-monarchist sympathies alienated many members of the working and middle-class. There was an uprising in
1830 in which the Royal Family was betrayed by their cousin,
Louis-Philippe who insinuated that Charles had abdicated absolutely (he had actually nominated his grandson
Henri, comte de Chambord as king.) The abdication of Charles X was followed twenty minutes later by the abdication of Louis-Antoine. This deception worked and
Louis-Philippe became king.
Marie-Thérèse chose to go into exile with her uncle and husband, rather than stay in Louis-Philippe's new kingdom. They sailed to
Britain in
1830.
Final Exile
The Royal Family lived in
Edinburgh until
1833 when King Charles chose to move to
Prague as a guest of the
Austrian Emperor. They moved into the opulent luxury of Schloss-Hradschin. Marie-Thérèse devotedly nursed her uncle Charles through his last illness in
1836, when he died of
cholera. By that time they had left
Prague and moved to the estate of Count Coronini near
Gorica,
Slovenia (now
Gorizia,
Italy). Like her deceased uncle, Marie-Thérèse remained a devout and sincere
Roman Catholic.
Marie-Thérèse's husband died in
1844 and he was buried next to his father. Marie-Thérèse then moved to a mansion called
Frohsdorf, just outside
Vienna. She spent her days walking, reading, praying and sewing. The children of Marie-Thérèse's murdered cousin, Ferdinand, came to live with her – including the Bourbon claimant to the throne, the
Comte de Chambord. In
1848 France became a republic, after Louis-Philippe's reign ended in another revolution.
She died on
19 October 1851, three days after the fifty-eighth anniversary of her
mother's execution. The cause of death was
pneumonia. In her will, Marie-Thérèse wrote:
:"Thank all Frenchmen who have remained attached to my family and to me, for the proofs of devotion that they have given us and for the sufferings they have endured for our sakes. I pray God to shower his blessings upon France that I have always loved, even in the time of my bitterest afflictions."
She is buried in the Franciscan monastery of
Kostanjevica,
Slovenia, together with King
Charles X; her husband, the
Duc d'Angoulême; and her nephew, the
Comte de Chambord, who was the last member of the senior line of French Bourbons, as well as his wife, the Archduchess Marie-Thérèse of Austria-Este, daughter of Duke
Francis IV of
Modena and Princess
Maria Beatrice of Savoy, and her niece,
Louise, Duchess of Parma. A court minister to King Charles X, Louis Jean Casimir, is also buried there.
On her gravestone, Marie-Thérèse's title is listed as 'Queen Dowager of France', this is because her husband was King
Louis XIX of France for about twenty minutes.
In fiction
Marie-Thérèse has appeared in several motion picture adaptations, mainly to do with her mother's life. In
1938 she was played by Marilyn Knowlden in the lavish movie ''Marie-Antoinette'', opposite
Norma Shearer as the queen. In 1975, in the French television drama ''Marie-Antoinette'', Marie-Thérèse was played by Anne-Laura Meury.
In
1989 she was played by Katherine Flynn in ''The French Revolution''. Katherine's on-screen mother, Marie Antoinette, was played by her real mother,
Jane Seymour.
In
2001, Marie-Thérèse's character appeared briefly in the inaccurate costume-drama ''The Affair of the Necklace'' opposite
Joely Richardson as Queen
Marie Antoinette.
Recently, Marie-Thérèse's character appeared in a
Northern Irish play on the mystery of little
Louis XVII. The characters of
Louis XVII,
Charles X and the princess's governess
Louise-Élisabeth de Tourzel also appeared. The monarchist author of the play, ''All Those Who Suffered'', explains his inspiration at http://www.royaltymonarchy.com/opinion/articles/russell.html
Marie-Thérèse's life provided inspiration for the novel ''Madame Royale'' by acclaimed author,
Elena Maria Vidal. It was a sequel to Vidal's novel ''Trianon'', which looked at
Versailles before the Revolution.
More recently, author Sharon Stewart wrote a historical fiction novel based on the writings of Marie-Thérèse herself, ''The Journal of Madame Royale''. She first entitled her book ''The Dark Tower'', as part of it takes place in the Tower where the princess and her family were kept, but after it became part of a series called "Beneath the Crown", the title was changed to ''The Princess in the Tower''.
In
2006, ''
Marie Antoinette'', directed by
Sofia Coppola was released. Marie-Thérèse was played by two different actresses. At age two, she was played by Lauriane Mascaro, and at age six she was played by Florrie Betts.
Kirsten Dunst starred as her mother, Marie Antoinette.
External links
Primary sources
★
Duchess of Angoulême's Memoirs on the Captivity in the Temple (from the autograph manuscript)
★
★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html Duchess of Angoulême's Memoir on the Flight to Varennes, (1823 English translation, by
John Wilson Croker, of a slightly redacted French edition)
★
★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html Duchess of Angoulême's Memoirs on the Captivity in the Temple, (same 1823 English translation)
Other material
★
English language site of the franciscan Monastery in Kostanjevica Slovenia, where Marie Thérèse Charlotte is buried, together with the last French kings
★
German language site speculating about the switch of Madame Royale
★
[1] The Ruin of a Princess, which contains the life and letters of Madame Élisabeth, Journal of the Tower of the Temple by Cléry and Narrative of Madame Royale.
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