Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter

by Susan Nagel

  M. Hüe, the valet-de-chambre of Louis XVI … I have a good deal of conversation with him. He is highly discontented with the treatment he meets with here … With a false mysteriousness he lets me know that he conceives they have the idea of marrying the young princess to one of her cousins, brother to the Emperor, and setting up in that way a claim to the throne of France. This may be, but it is a very remote speculation, and if I were to guess, such marriage would form an insuperable bar to her success. He speaks very highly of her, and I see her passing by. She is much improved in her appearance since I saw her in France.’3

  Morris expanded on his objections to the scheme:

  I have long suspected something still more important to the peace of Europe; viz, that the heir of the Spanish monarchy [Ferdinand] should be placed on the French throne … This idea I was always cautious not to publish … To consolidate it, they contrive to get the French princess … for his wife.4

  Despite Franz’s considerable efforts to persuade Marie-Thérèse of the benefits of staying in Vienna, Marie-Thérèse remained firm in her desire to fulfill her role as Child of France. Like her grandmother, the Empress, Marie-Thérèse was serious-minded, interested in politics and hungered for news of events in Europe. When she heard that Catherine of Russia had died on November 6, Marie-Thérèse contemplated what this might mean for French royalists and expressed her most private, and quite astute, thoughts to her uncle that the new Czar, Paul I, Grand Duke Paul – whom she had met at Versailles when she was a child – would be a comparatively weak successor; but she hoped he would continue to support her uncle as his mother had done before him.

  For her own survival, Marie-Thérèse had long mastered the ‘act of compliance’, as her uncle had assessed in a letter to her in March, 1796. Whilst still receiving a steady stream of communiqués from her uncle and Bourbon cousins, she continued to attend parties and balls and socialize alongside the Emperor’s sisters and wife. On November 13, Gouverneur Morris once again saw Marie-Thérèse at a party: it was his opinion that she was the picture of her late father.

  Sir M. Eden presents me to the archduchesses, sisters of the Emperor, and Madame of France. The elder archduchess, who is betrothed to the heir apparent of Naples, has a striking resemblance to the Queen of France, which I mention to her, and she tells me that others have observed it … Madame of France strikes me by the strong resemblance she bears to her father, Louis XVI, and I cannot help observing, when we leave her presence, on the malignity which pursued her poor mother, and would have persuaded the world that this was an offspring produced by her gallantries. Every trait gives the lie to that aspersion.5

  Of course, among those who had been first in line to insinuate that Marie-Thérèse had not been fathered by Louis XVI, and he did so at her baptism, was the late King’s own brother, the Comte de Provence, now King Louis XVIII, the man who had become Marie-Thérèse’s adopted father, the man whose lie she also adopted when she told the Emperor that she had to marry her cousin, d’Angoulême, because her parents had wished it.

  Gouverneur Morris, who had thought the late King Louis XVI a fine man, felt honor-bound to deliver the late King’s money with which he had been entrusted directly into the hands of his surviving child. Here, Louis XVI had demonstrated sound judgment. Unlike the friends and family of Marie Antoinette who took advantage of the late Queen’s trust, Morris proved completely reliable. He knew that the whole affair would be a delicate operation because the Emperor – or the late King’s brother – might try to intercept the money. Morris waited until he could arrange a method of payment that would circumvent those parties. Once he had made contact with Marie-Thérèse, the two were able to arrange the transactions. Marie-Thérèse also understood the need for discretion regarding the funds, which began to arrive via credit memos and notes from Switzerland and England.

  Instead of spending the money on party dresses or trinkets, Marie-Thérèse decided to use the funds to help the Bourbon cause, and she immediately forwarded sums to émigrés in need. On January 25, 1797, she wrote to her uncle:

  I have received with great pleasure your two letters of December 19 and January 3. I am very grateful that you have thought of me on my birthday, it is a happy day for me, because owing to the goodness of the Emperor, I recovered my liberty [from prison] … the note and memo herewith, I have from M. Morris, Minister of the United States to the Court of France during the early years of the Revolution, you will understand what I mean.

  She had begun her journey down the path of her own choosing: she would live her life devoted to the memory of her parents and to serving and promoting the Bourbon cause.

  Chapter XV

  The Birth of a Strategist

  On January 21, 1797, the fourth anniversary of the death of King Louis XVI, Louis XVIII wrote to his niece stating that he had met with the Abbé Edgeworth, the priest who had been with her late father at the scaffold. Louis XVIII, who rarely missed a public relations opportunity, asked Marie-Thérèse if she would write the priest a letter of gratitude for publication, and backdate it to the day she crossed the border. Marie-Thérèse, who had publicly declared that she was on earth to obey her King, privately declined to do so, claiming sweetly that she was too young for such a letter to have any import. She also begged her uncle to forgive her ‘resistance to your wish’, claiming that she did not want to call attention to herself for fear of irritating the Emperor. Louis wrote a second time; and, once more, she refused him. She was extremely uncomfortable using her parents’ tragedy in such a fraudulent way, and was angry that her uncle had asked her to do this. She enquired whether her father had left any secret instructions for her with the Abbé. He had not. Her uncle then referred to his own sad days in exile. She thanked him for confiding in her, and reciprocated by telling him of her own experiences:

  since the 10th of August 1792 until the month of August, 1795, I had known of nothing concerning my family, of politics, we only knew of the injuries that overwhelmed us. You have no idea of the harshness of our prison. Those who have not seen it with their own eyes could not have imagined it. I, who greatly suffered, could hardly believe it. My mother, ignorant of the existence of my brother, who lived below her. My aunt and I ignorant of the transport of my mother to the Conciergerie and after that her death. In vain I demanded to know why we were separated. They closed the doors without answering me. My brother died in the room beneath mine; they kept me in ignorance …

  I swear that during that time I had begun to lose all hope, and I feared that I would spend all my life imprisoned. Having lived alone in my room for a whole year, I had the time to reflect, and I could only imagine the worst about my parents, but as the unhappy love to delude themselves, there were moments when I had hope.

  Although Louis had previously thought of his niece mostly as his political ally, he felt genuine compassion as a result of her words and was impressed by her grace and kindness. The Duc d’Angoulême too seemed more enthusiastic as the tone of his letters changed from pleasant to ardent. On January 3, 1797, d’Angoulême wrote that on reading her letter of December 26 he had his

  lips pressed to the lines which your hands had traced … and I wonder how long I will be separated from she who occupies all my thoughts … who gives life to my own existence … the King has given me the hope that I will soon rejoin Condé’s army. I will be on the same continent where my cousin breathes, and I will fight for her.

  In early 1797, Archduke Karl was forced to leave for the Italian front. His military successes in Germany were not repeated in Italy, however, and after heavy defeats his troops fled his command. Louis seized the moment and summoned d’Angoulême to Blankenburg in the hope that the closer proximity to Marie-Thérèse would seal matters. The young Prince traveled there from Edinburgh on April 27, 1797, just as Napoleon’s army was gaining ground in northern Italy. It appeared as though the French armies would arrive at the steps of the Hofburg at any moment and the Emperor decided to move his family far away from Vienna
for their own safety. Marie-Thérèse was relocated to a convent near Prague where her mother’s sister, Maria Anna, would look after her. Monseigneur de la Fare wrote to the nun for an update on the French Princess, and she responded on June 2 that Marie-Thérèse was ‘very well … I am persuaded, like you, that she is destined for greatness … she has perfect submission to Divine Will’.

  By late summer 1797, with Napoleon victorious in Italy and peace negotiations between France and Austria imminent, Marie-Thérèse expressed her desire to return to Vienna. She wrote to her uncle, ‘I greatly love my aunt Maria Anna, but I do not know if you know what state she is in. She has consumption and has been sick for many years … she must drink women’s milk … I vow that if I stay here, I will be constantly with her, and to be with someone in this state, I am certain that I will become ill.’ She did, however, like the tranquility of the convent and hoped that she could live similarly in Vienna.

  On August 22, the Duc d’Angoulême fell off his horse and broke his clavicle. Marie-Thérèse read about the accident in a newspaper and was annoyed that her uncle had not written to her about it. Her Austrian family chorused that it was obvious from this that the Bourbons cared little for her. Louis had, in fact, written to his niece about the mishap and included the reassuring information that her fiancé was recovering nicely, but the letter did not reach Marie-Thérèse until weeks later. In the letter, Louis also wrote that d’Angoulême was only able to maintain good spirits because of the thought of Marie-Thérèse’s uplifting letters. She, herself, hurt by the fact that she was forced to find out about her own fiancé in the newspapers, made a mental note that she had not heard at all from the Comte d’Artois nor from his wife, her aunt and uncle and future in-laws, and she was beginning to feel ignored by her Bourbon family.

  In France, the coup of 18 Fructidor (September 4, 1797), which placed the Jacobins in supreme command, sent the moderates into exile and dashed any hope of reconciliation with the monarchists. The time had come for the Holy Roman Emperor to negotiate with ‘the Usurper’. Once peace negotiations with Napoleon were under way, the Emperor recalled his family from Prague, this time to the Belvedere Palace on the outskirts of Vienna. Marie-Thérèse liked the Belvedere, with its beautiful gardens designed in the French style by Dominique Girard who had trained in the gardens at Versailles, much more than the fortress-like Hofburg, and she returned to Vienna most willingly. She read of Napoleon’s successes and followed the peace talks leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Campo Formio in October, in which Austria forfeited possessions in Burgundy and Lombardy, Belgium and the Ionian Islands and Franz received part of Venetia, among other parcels of land, as small compensation.

  Archduke Karl also returned to Vienna, and told Jacques Matthieu Augeard, the late Marie Antoinette’s secretary, that he had seen Marie-Thérèse and was infatuated with her. Receiving reports in Blankenburg, Louis decided that d’Angoulême needed to make an appearance at the Belvedere as well and instructed d’Angoulême to go to Vienna ‘incognito’. Once again, Marie-Thérèse vetoed the King’s plan, strategically arguing that the Emperor would certainly learn of the French Prince’s arrival, that Franz was in no mood to receive a Frenchman at court and that it would be an insult to d’Angoulême if he arrived without fanfare. Once again Louis XVIII could not outwit his young niece in such a game of nerves.

  Marie-Thérèse then wrote to her uncle underlining the precariousness of the Bourbons’ position and stressing, ‘It is a great problem to know if the peace will bring happiness or sadness for us, that is to say, for France, because these words are synonymous.’ Equally, she insisted that she would not leave Austria until she had financial independence – until her uncle had arranged for the Emperor to ‘do something’ for her – as she did not need to be in a prison to be miserable and without her own funds she would not be happy. In November, King Frederick William II of Prussia died, and the new King, Frederick William III, informed Louis that he would have to leave his realm. Marie-Thérèse understood that for the moment the plan to reunite with her uncle and marry her cousin was impractical. In the meantime, she played the game, made the best of her situation and sat back and waited.

  Worn down by his dealings with the French, Emperor Franz loosened surveillance on Marie-Thérèse at the Belvedere and allowed her greater freedom to meet with her countrymen. Among her visitors was the Duc d’Enghien, grandson of her Bourbon cousin, the Prince de Condé. D’Enghien wrote to his grandfather that Marie-Thérèse was enchanting and lively – ‘you will be charmed when you see her’. Marie-Thérèse wrote to Louis that she had seen her cousin, ‘My God! It had such a profound effect upon me – at last, to once again see a member of my family.’ She told her uncle that she hoped someday soon to see the Prince de Condé and, in a change of heart about her ‘neglectful’ Bourbon cousins, thanked him for all he had done for their cause. Convinced that it might now be safe to send Marie-Thérèse items of value, Louis forwarded something he had been promising for a long time: a ring with the portrait of her mother carved on its stone.

  Marie-Thérèse also enjoyed more contact with the French émigré community as a whole and Madame de Chanclos and Monseigneur de la Fare worked in concert to introduce her to more people of her own age, including some French girls. During this time she made friends she would hold dear for life – Madame de Chanclos’s niece, Marie-Françoise de Roisins, daughter of the Marshal de Roisins, who later became Comtesse Esterhazy, a girl from Lorraine named Anne-Charlotte-Henriette de Choisy, whose family had had a long history serving France with honor, and Comtesse Marie-Wilhelmine Ferraris. Madame de Chanclos arranged for the three young women to join Marie-Thérèse’s household, and the four became inseparable. Marie-Thérèse was delighted when she was once again permitted to receive both Monsieur and Madame Hüe and Jean-Baptiste Cléry who asked her to read a journal he had written of his time in prison with her late father. She read it and gave him her permission to publish it. Cléry then left for Blankenburg to seek the blessing of Louis XVIII.

  The Treaty of Campo Formio had been a disaster for the German Princes, forcing them to cede lands to France on the eastern bank of the Rhine to the French Directory. In December, the Congress of Rastatt convened in order to placate the Princes, and among the ambassadors was the Swedish Count, Axel Fersen, who represented his own King in the compensation discussions. The French Directory, declaring him a friend of the late King and an enemy of France, refused to allow him to participate and sent him on his way. Fersen traveled to Vienna to see Marie-Thérèse with news that he wanted to deliver in person. He had asked the Directory to relinquish the crown jewels that her mother had returned to the State so that Marie-Thérèse could have them, but Napoleon had refused his request.

  Fersen had other news. A boy had been found wandering aimlessly in the countryside near Châlons-sur-Marne in northeast France. It was said he could not remember his own identity. Rumors spread that he was Louis XVII, and that his jailers had taken him out of the Temple Prison in a basket. A few months later, it was revealed that the boy was one Jean Marie Hervagault. Fersen uncovered the fact that Comte Louis de Frotté, with whom he spoke, had been involved in a rescue attempt orchestrated by the late royalist General Charette. According to Frotté, at one point the Directory had desired peace at all costs and had agreed to release the boy King. On the evening of June 13, 1794, Frotté and a woman waited in a carriage outside the Temple. A man appeared with a little boy. The boy was handed over to Frotté and the woman. They changed the child into girl’s clothing and their carriage took off. When they arrived at Fontenay, where Charette’s troops had temporarily relocated, they presented the boy to the General, who informed them that they had the wrong child. Frotté told Fersen that he was not sure who had been duped, themselves, or the Directory. Frotté and many others believed that Louis Charles was alive and being kept hidden until Napoleon and the Directory could be overthrown. This story, as with almost every other new story concerning Marie-Thérèse’s
beloved brother, received confirmation from some loyal courtiers and was reported widely. The possibility that Louis XVII still lived fascinated everyone, and pained no one more than his own sister.

  One man, of course, dismissed all of the stories as implausible. From his two-roomed apartment in Blankenburg, Louis XVIII sent an emissary, the Marquis de Bonnay, to Vienna to meet with his niece. Louis prefaced the visit by writing to Marie-Thérèse on December 19, her nineteenth birthday, assuring her that her happiness was of the utmost importance to him, and that he was working feverishly to ensure it. Five days later, Bonnay wrote to the King from Vienna that he had met with Marie-Thérèse and that she remained steadfastly committed to her King and to marrying no one other than d’Angoulême. Bonnay declared that he was astonished by her clarity of judgment and ‘sang-froid’ – as he put it – in her commitment to her duty. He cautioned, however, that she could be willful and defiant. Bonnay advised that the King and d’Angoulême put some effort into their relationship with this extraordinary young woman; he suggested that Louis should write to her often, encourage other members of the family to do so, send her family portraits and ensure that she felt loved. As d’Avaray had already pointed out, Marie-Thérèse, like most women, needed to be wooed and to know her fiancé’s character and innermost thoughts. Bonnay advised that as Marie-Thérèse took devotion quite seriously, it would be a good idea for d’Angoulême to stress his own churchgoing in his letters to her. Finally, he suggested Louis find a way for the Princess to have significant money of her own; win her ‘young heart by any method’; marry her off to d’Angoulême as quickly as possible; find a more permanent home for his own court in exile; and obtain the cooperation of the other crowned heads of Europe.