Madame Guillotine

Poor grumpy Marie Joséphine’s younger sister, Maria Theresa was slightly more succesful at Versailles. She was born in Turin on the 31st January 1756 and was much prettier (which isn’t saying much) than her sister. Maria Theresa travelled to Versailles in Joséphine’s wake and was married there to the Comte d’Artois on the 16th November 1773, whereupon she began to use the name Marie-Thérèse.

Lucky Marie-Thérèse was the most fortunate of the trio of princesses who married into the French royal family at this time. Charles, her new husband was the only one of the princes to have inherited Louis XV’s good lucks and was also fortunate enough not to be obese and clumsy like his two elder brothers. On the downside, he was also clearly the most stupid and frivolous of the three, but that was hardly seen as a disadvantage.

Like her sister, Marie-Thérèse was disliked at Versailles, where she was considered unattractive, aloof and boring. She did, however, wash and clean her teeth and her complexion was much admired although it was not as dazzling as that of Marie Antoinette.

The Comtesse d’Artois became pregnant not long after arriving at Versailles and gave birth to her first child, Louis-Antoine, Duc d’Angoulême on the 6th August 1775. Three more children followed: Sophie on the 5th August 1776; Charles Ferdinand, Duc de Berry on the 24th January 1778 and Marie-Thérèse on the 6th January 1783.

Hated throughout France, the Comte and Comtesse d’Artois escaped with the first wave of emigrés shortly after the Bastille fell in July 1789. They lived a nomadic life in exile and Marie-Thérèse died in Austria on the 2nd June 1805 at the age of 49. Her husband would later become Charles IX.

I don’t put much effort into these posts – the text is just excuses to show off nice paintings!

Marie Antoinette’s sister in law, the Comtesse de Provence was notorious for being ugly, badly groomed and smelling horrible and yet, for someone who seems to have taken no interest in her appearance, she seems to have loved having her portrait painted!

She was born Maria Giuseppina Luigia in Turin on the 2nd September 1753, the daughter of Prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy and his wife the Spanish Infanta Maria Antonia of Spain. On the 16th April 1771, she was married by proxy to Louis-Stanislas, the Comte de Provence and made the long journey to Versailles, just as Marie Antoinette had done before her.

Marie Joséphine, as she was now known, was not popular at court. She was considered extremely ugly and unkempt and her bookish interests were scorned by the frivolous courtiers. She did not hit it off with her new husband either and, as with his elder brother Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette, the young couple did not consummate their marriage for quite some time.

Louis-Stanislas liked to tease the Dauphin and Marie Antoinette by pretending that he and his wife were having lots of sex and were likely to have a baby soon, but this was all just a big fat lie born out of either malice or a rather sad attempt at bravado. They did manage to conceive in 1774 and 1781, but unfortunately both pregnancies ended with miscarriages.

Shortly after her marriage, her sister Maria Theresa came to Versailles to be married to the youngest of the brothers, Charles, who was also the only one to have inherited anything of his grandfather Louis XV’s fabled good looks and charm. The Savoyard sisters were fortunate indeed to have each other as a support in the French court – they were never to be great friends with Marie Antoinette, probably because they envied her rank, beauty and charm but it is probable that she, who had been so close to her own siblings, probably felt jealous that they were together while she had no one from her family to hand.

Another family connection at Versailles was her cousin, the Princesse de Lamballe, who was also a Savoyard Princess.

After the royal family left Versailles in October 1789, the Provence couple settled at the Luxembourg Palace while Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette resided at the Tuileries. When Louis and Antoinette planned to escape the country, the Comte and Comtesse de Provence also left Paris at the same time, with markedly more success as instead of being apprehended they managed to make it to the Netherlands.

It was at this time that rumours began to start about the Comtesse and one of her ladies in waiting, Madame de Gourbillon, although the truth is still not known. What is known is that she fought endlessly with her husband during their exile and ended up leaving him and heading off alone to Germany.

After the death of Louis XVII in June 1795, the Comte and Comtesse de Provence were declared King and Queen of France by the exiled royalist court. Her reign was not to be a happy one.

Marie Joséphine died in exile at the age of fifty seven on the 13th November 1810 at Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire.