by Susan Nagel
Louis had already started on the crowned heads of Europe by playing on their fears of mass insurrection. There had been seeds of revolution and copycat uprisings in Hungary, the Netherlands and Germany and Louis reminded his cousins that they must continue to support his cause for their own good. Finally, in early 1798, Louis received word from Czar Paul that the French court in exile would be welcome to establish itself in Mitau (‘Jelgava’), on the Baltic Sea. The Czar offered Louis a generous allowance, a palace, and complete protection. The palace, formerly the home to the Dukes of Courland, was lavish. Mitau itself, like Lorraine, was a region that had been fought over and passed back and forth in peace settlements. The town, a place of refinement, was filled with Russian noblemen and German Jewish intellectuals, and as far as Czar Paul was concerned, Mitau, a border region only recently repossessed by Russia, was the perfect solution as it placed the Bourbons at a comfortably good distance away.
In a packet containing letters from d’Angoulême, Marie-Thérèse received a letter from her uncle explaining that he and her fiancé would soon depart for Mitau and, although far, far way from France, he hoped that Mitau would provide a more settled and fitting home for the Princess. After a grueling month-long journey from eastern Germany, Louis and his retinue arrived at Mitau Castle to great fanfare from the local officials and militia. Awaiting Louis was Marie-Thérèse’s noncommittal reply:
My dear uncle, I have had the infinite pleasure of, at last, receiving your news, because I have acutely felt privation, these six weeks have been so long … I have already learned that you had departed Blankenburg … It is so sad to have obliged you to go so far; one must hope that in the end you will be at the least tranquil in Mitau … I had not sufficiently admired the Emperor of Russia: he distinguishes himself among all of the sovereigns and his actions do him honor …
I thank you for the letters from my cousin. It is impossible for him to be any more attentive than he is, and it always gives me great pleasure when he gives me news of you. I flatter myself, that despite my distance from Mitau, I will receive from time to time your news; that will be one of my greatest consolations.
While Napoleon launched an ambitious military expedition to Egypt, his enemies plotted in Europe. The great allies reorganized to fight him once more and in Germany, England, and Russia, French émigrés, in contact with sympathizers in France, plotted to reinstate the Bourbons. A newspaper called Le Spectateur du Nord, published in Hamburg, provided propaganda for the royalists and their mission. From Mitau, Louis organized his court, his ministers, messengers and spies. He also attempted to increase pressure on Franz II to allow Marie-Thérèse to rejoin her family. Pleading his case with the Emperor’s most valued allies, the Czar, Charles IV of Spain and the remaining Bourbons in Italy, Louis reminded them all that it had been the wish of the late King and Queen of France that their daughter marry his nephew, the Duc d’Angoulême, and that the marriage already had the blessing of the Pope.
With Lord Nelson’s stunning defeat of Napoleon’s navy at Aboukir Bay, the sovereigns of Europe saw a glimmer of hope that they could reclaim France from the Jacobins. Franz II needed his European allies, so he acquiesced: Marie-Thérèse would go to Mitau and she would marry the Duc d’Angoulême. Throughout the second half of 1798 and early 1799, Charles IV, Louis XVIII, the Holy Roman Emperor and Czar Paul haggled with the gravity and tenacity usually accorded to the most significant of affairs of State over the impending nuptials of Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte. In an effort to shame Franz II into releasing the money that was owed Marie-Thérèse from her mother’s estate, Czar Paul insisted that the Holy Roman Emperor pay her traveling expenses. When Franz complained that he had already spent a good deal of money on his cousin, the other sovereigns retorted that she was supposed to have been his guest, and that he might recall that they themselves had offered to be her host. The Spanish Bourbon King Charles IV agreed to provide Marie-Thérèse with an annual income and, at last, Franz agreed to cover the cost of her journey, whose total amounted to only a part of the interest that he had earned on Marie Antoinette’s monies. Just as Marie-Thérèse turned twenty, she was informed that she would, at last, be getting married to her cousin.
Anne-Charlotte-Henriette de Choisy, Hüe and Cléry would escort the bride-to-be to Mitau. Cléry had just returned from London where he had had his memoir published and whilst there had been approached by the incorrigible Mrs Atkyns who asked him to deliver a quantity of gifts to Marie-Thérèse. He accepted the presents on the Princess’s behalf and wrote a gracious thank-you note to the Englishwoman, offering his opinion that ‘there is no one better than she … no one would thank you with more attachment and zeal’. Also en route from Paris was Madame Hüe, whose good friend Joséphine Bonaparte had written a letter enabling Madame Hüe to leave France.
Louis continued to write to his niece, filling his letters with praise for her fiancé; but, for Marie-Thérèse, the storybook romance had become unimportant. That winter, Marie-Thérèse’s cousin and friend, Archduchess Amelia, died, plunging the Austrian court into mourning. While grieving with her mother’s family, she received a package from the Elector of Trèves containing a miniature portrait of her brother, Louis Joseph, the first Dauphin. Marie-Thérèse confided to her uncle her delight at receiving the little painting as it had been ten years since his death and, as she had only been ten years old when he had died, Louis Joseph’s face had begun to fade in her memory. Also in the parcel from the Elector was an item even more shocking: the chemise her father had worn to the guillotine, which had mysteriously made its way out of France to the late King’s uncle. The shirt, smeared with blood, would become her banner.
Marie-Thérèse had been in Vienna now for nearly three years and four months, about the same amount of time that she had been in the Temple Prison, when she set out for Russia in early May. She traveled through Brno, Crakow, and Opatow and reached Terespol, at the border, on May 17.
Napoleon had spent nine months on the march after his defeat in the Battle of the Nile. In May, English naval hero Sir Sidney Smith crippled Napoleon’s already ailing forces at Acre. The monarchs of Europe and the royalists in Paris were poised for a skirmish of their own, ready to rid France of Napoleon and his allies. Marie-Thérèse had always been acutely aware of the political factions pitting monarchists against revolutionaries in France and although she had been told of the fate of many French émigrés, she remained innocent of the infighting, the competition, the jealousy, and even insidious sabotage that had gone on, and would continue, among her own family and friends, scrambling, as they had at Versailles, for favors, promises and appointments from Louis XVIII.
His kingdom in 1799 was, however, a mirage – a tragic-comic piece of well-rehearsed pantomime, enacted over the ages, now in a foreign land, and in a borrowed castle. Waiting in the wings for a return to France was the daughter of the martyred King and Queen. And if anyone could perform as required, it was Marie-Thérèse of France. So uniquely trained and practiced, and so inculcated with the obligation of duty, Marie-Thérèse headed toward Mitau to rejoin what was left of the Bourbon family, carrying with her her father’s bloodstained shirt, which, for the rest of her life, would never leave her side.
Chapter XVI
A Bride
Marie-Thérèse also carried some wedding presents with her from Vienna to Mitau. It was widely known in the Austrian and Neapolitan courts that Marie-Thérèse and her Neapolitan-born first cousin, the Empress Maria Theresa, disliked each other. The Empress, however, was kind enough to give Marie-Thérèse a portrait of her imperial self in a diamond-studded frame as a parting gift. Marie-Thérèse also received a letter from the Comte d’Artois, her soon-to-be father-in-law. With the letter d’Artois sent a gift of an exotic East Indian-style dress, and his best wishes. He had no intention of attending his son’s wedding. He was too happily ensconced in Edinburgh near his longtime mistress, Louise de Polastron, surrounded by his own coterie of courtiers and living on credit and a generou
s allowance from George III.
As the father of the groom, d’Artois did try to impose his own wishes on the marriage of his eldest son. He argued for months with his brother about who would serve his new daughter-in-law. D’Artois had his own favorites and recommended that the Polignacs be given that honor. Louis, understanding that granting favors to the controversial Polignacs would evoke unpleasant memories for some, suggested instead that they comply with traditional Bourbon etiquette and appoint the wife of d’Angoulême’s former governor, the Marquis de Sérent. D’Artois acquiesced, and the Marquise de Sérent, a lifelong family friend, was appointed dame d’honneur. D’Artois, seizing the moment, wrote to his wife Marie-Thérèse of Sardinia, from whom he continued to be estranged on the grounds that she repulsed him, telling her that she could not attend her own son’s wedding. Neither would their younger son, the Duc de Berry, be making an appearance: he, like his father, found the idea of a trip to the Baltic far too much of a bore.
In fact, Louis was beginning to have serious doubts about his brother’s entire family. Although he had repeatedly sung d’Angoulême’s praises to Marie-Thérèse, in truth, Louis found his nephew lazy, timid and unattractive. After having lived in England for many years, d’Angoulême had become an anglophile and openly embraced English clothing, the English way of life and, worse, he had become fond of the notion of constitutional monarchy. Understandably, Louis feared that if Marie-Thérèse, who was marrying her cousin out of a belief in the divine right of kings and hereditary obligation, discovered d’Angoulême’s predilection for the power of the bicameral legislature, she would be horrified. He therefore planned for the wedding to take place almost immediately upon her arrival at Mitau, before she could learn too much about her husband-to-be.
With d’Artois, his wife and their younger son missing from the proceedings, Louis was desperate to muster a show of family solidarity. Although he had little interest and even less affection for his own wife, Marie Joséphine, who had been residing in Kiel with her companion, Madame de Gourbillon, Louis ordered his queen to appear in Mitau for the wedding and to leave her friend behind in Germany. Marie Joséphine was so upset at the thought of being parted from de Gourbillon that she circumvented her husband and wrote to the Czar asking for his help. The Czar chose not to intervene in this matrimonial matter, and ignored her letter.
Marie Joséphine departed Kiel and, ignoring her husband’s orders, arrived in a carriage in Mitau with her friend and suspected paramour. As her carriage made its way to the Governor’s house, police spotted it on the street, saw de Gourbillon and physically removed the woman from Marie Joséphine’s coach. After what, to the local citizenry, appeared to be an opera buffa – with much flailing of arms, kicking and screaming – the Italian-born queen stormed off toward Mitau Castle to see her husband. In front of the entire household staff, ministers included, who had assembled to greet their Queen, she refused to change out of her traveling clothes and move into her quarters until Madame de Gourbillon was allowed to join her. Louis refused so Marie Joséphine locked herself in her room with a bottle of liquor and refused to come out. Madame de Gourbillon would later get revenge when she showed a letter penned by Louis’s own friend and minister, d’Avaray, to one of the Czar’s ministers, a letter that contained unflattering comments about Czar Paul. De Gourbillon’s spite would cause friction between Louis and the Czar, eventually being among the causes that would lead to Louis’s expulsion from Mitau.
By morning, the royal spitfire had calmed down, and she agreed to travel with her husband and the Duc d’Angoulême to meet Marie-Thérèse. As their carriage approached the outskirts of Mitau, they spotted the royal coach. Marie-Thérèse ordered her coachman to stop, and, alighting quickly, ran toward her uncle. According to all present, the Princess threw herself at the feet of her King and sobbed: ‘I see you at last. I am so happy. Here is your child; please be my father.’ The portly and awkward King lifted her from the floor and embraced her, as did his wife. D’Angoulême, who had not seen Marie-Thérèse in ten years, shyly kissed her hand and stuttered his own greeting.
As she entered the main hall of Mitau Castle, Marie-Thérèse was greeted with cheers. She looked around at childhood friends and Bourbon faces and, at last, felt a sense of home. The King presented her to the Abbé Edgeworth but he was so overcome with tears that he could not speak. Louis then gestured toward the hundred or so reunited gardes du corps, who, before individually escaping France, had protected the royal family at Versailles, and declared: ‘Their wounds and their tears state everything that I wish I could express.’
Also in the crowd was one of Louis’s foremost spies, the Marquis de la Maisonfort, who had come from St Petersburg to present the bride with gifts from the Czar, which included a stunning suite of diamonds, a purse filled with money, a collection of hats and gowns, her marriage contract (signed by the Czar), and a note praising her for her courage and inviting her to stay in Russia until the day when she would be able to return to France. Marie-Thérèse was shown to her apartment where she changed and wrote a letter of thanks to the Czar, calling herself his ‘very affectionate sister, cousin and servant’. She then spoke privately and at length with the Abbé Edgeworth, the man who had been with her father in his last moments. He entreated her: ‘Allow me to cry with you … tears in your presence soothe me.’
At five o’clock Marie-Thérèse joined the King, Queen, her fiancé, and their court in exile for dinner. In the salon, she was reunited with her beloved governess, Madame de Tourzel, who recorded in her memoirs that Marie-Thérèse resembled her mother, her father and Madame Elisabeth and therefore her appearance ‘seemed to unite the earth and the sky’.
On the evening of June 9, the bride-to-be and d’Angoulême quietly signed an abbreviated nuptial document befitting a royal couple without a kingdom. The next morning Marie-Thérèse of France married her cousin, Louis-Antoine, Duc d’Angoulême in the home of the Dukes of Courland in a makeshift chapel decorated with bowers of greens and lilacs, entwined with roses and white lilies – symbolizing royalty and the Bourbon dynasty. Courtiers of the ancien régime and the hundred or so gardes du corps attended alongside senior residents of Mitau. Marie-Thérèse wore the diamonds given to her by Czar Paul and the couple knelt before the elderly Cardinal de Montmorency, who blessed their union. The King gave the pair his own present. It was the ring his brother, King Louis XVI, had removed from his wedding finger and given to Cléry before mounting the scaffold. Engraved inside were the initials ‘M.A.A.A.’ – for ‘Marie Antoinette Archduchesse d’Autriche’ – and the date May 16, 1770. Louis-Antoine placed the ring on Marie-Thérèse’s hand and both ‘cried tears of joy’. De la Maisonfort, who attended the wedding, wrote that it was ‘the most touching, the most interesting I had ever seen’.
D’Angoulême, overwhelmed by his new role center stage, penned Czar Paul an effusive letter expressing his gratitude for all that the Emperor had done for his family, and for orchestrating his happiness. He mentioned the fact that he was aware of the exploits of the dashing Archduke Karl and of the courage of his own bride and asked Paul, and separately his uncle, permission to leave Mitau to join the Czar’s army, as many other French émigrés had. Russia along with England, Austria, the Ottoman Empire and some small German and Italian states had just regrouped, forming the Second Coalition of allied forces against the French. Only days after the wedding of the d’Angoulêmes, the sixty-nine-year-old Russian General, Alexander Suvorov, whose troops had recaptured Milan and Turin, scored another victory at Trebbia forcing a French retreat into the Alps. With Napoleon focused in the Middle East, Archduke Karl led Austrian troops to victory near the Rhine. D’Angoulême explained to the Czar that he thirsted for glory and, unlike many of his ancestors, had no desire to be idle and unemployed. Louis, exasperated that Louis-Antoine would want to leave his new bride – especially now the eyes of Europe were turned toward the new couple, and the hopes of French royalists pinned on their ability to procreate – dism
issed his nephew’s request as a moment of uncharacteristic ebullience.
Louis, meanwhile, wrote to d’Artois extolling his niece’s many virtues. ‘Portraits you have seen of our daughter’ did not do her justice; she was charming, precociously sage and resembled
at the same time her father and her mother, to the point of reminding us of both of them perfectly, together and each separately … she is not as tall as her mother, and a little taller than our poor sister … she holds her head marvelously and walks with ease and grace. When she speaks of her misfortunes, tears do not come easily, from habit, as she contained herself to not give her jailers the barbaric pleasure of seeing her cry … Nevertheless, her natural gaiety has not been subdued … she smiles with a good heart and is amiable. She is sweet, good, tender; she has, without a doubt good reason … she is modest … innocent as the day of her birth … finally, I recognize in her the angel for which we have cried.
Louis was not just uttering pleasantries to impress the family. He found Marie-Thérèse delightful, as did his advisor, the Duc d’Avaray, who wrote to his friends in Italy that Marie-Thérèse was everything the French people could want in a princess. Inestimably buoyed by the union, Louis wrote to d’Artois that ‘we will soon ourselves be reborn with their children’. Louis, a prodigious reader who, among his literary accomplishments had written a dissertation on Horace and had translated Horace Walpole’s Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III, had hopes of turning his nephew into a thinker, but had found d’Angoulême’s intellect lacking. He had tried to instill some enthusiasm in his nephew, but found the young man without vigor. Before Marie-Thérèse had arrived in Mitau, Louis had written to his niece advising her that it would be up to her to make a man of her husband, though he strongly suspected that this was going to be a difficult task.