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

by Susan Nagel

  Puymaigre, however, did not regard Marie-Thérèse as a prude or a sourpuss and commented, as many did, that she had a wonderful sense of humor. One day, Marie-Thérèse informed him that she wanted to visit the gardens of Plessis-Villette, owned by the Marquis de Villette. Puymaigre said he would send word ahead to warn that the Princess was coming but Marie-Thérèse insisted that she wanted no fuss made. Puymaigre protested and looked uncomfortable. At last, he explained that the Marquis de Villette often invited inappropriate women – ‘actresses’ – to his house. Marie-Thérèse burst out laughing, laughed heartily for a while and then told her nervous escort to go ahead and do whatever he liked. She enjoyed Puymaigre’s company and requested that he accompany her on many of her trips around France as a chevalier d’honneur. Once, a gust of wind blew the Dauphine’s skirt up indecently high. He offered her a scarf to tie around her skirt and protect her modesty, and, when she teased him that he had not rescued her in time, he responded: ‘If Madame had been on fire, I would have been there to put it out, but I cannot do anything against the wind.’

  Marie-Thérèse’s greatest private pleasure as she approached middle age was her maternal role with the Children of France. Despite their rift, Madame de Gontaut-Biron had nothing but praise for the Dauphine’s devotion to Princess Louise and the little Duc de Bordeaux, in the absence of their own mother. The children often went to Bagatelle, the d’Artois family home in the Bois de Boulogne, when they were in Paris, so that they could play in the park. Their aunt, often on horseback, would meet the children and join them on nature walks. As the royal family spent the summer at Saint-Cloud, their governess suggested that the children also needed a park there in which they could play. Marie-Thérèse and the King thought it was a wonderful idea. In an old flower garden they set about constructing a playground for the children which they named the ‘Trocadéro’ in honor of the Dauphin’s victory in Spain, complete with an iron bridge leading directly from the playground to the children’s apartments. They put on parties in the park and invited the children from the key aristocratic families such as the de Maillé, de Meffray, de Nadaillac and the Orléans. At one party, they lit a bonfire after supper. When the Bourbon flag almost went up in smoke, little Henri rescued it, waved it above his head and shouted: ‘I have saved the flag!’4

  According to Gontaut-Biron, the Dauphine also concerned herself with the children’s education, and she was quite exceptional in her requirements. Marie-Thérèse regarded the Duc de Bordeaux as her responsibility and she was going to do everything she could to ensure his place in history. She tutored him on his bloodline and the divine right of kings. In an unusual and forward-thinking move, instead of engaging her own friends as was the custom in previous French courts, Marie-Thérèse insisted on appointing tutors of great principle and learning so that Henri could be properly prepared to rule. In addition, she hired language tutors to teach Princess Louise and Henri Italian, German and English. These children were going to be truly European.

  While on New Year’s Day, Marie-Thérèse made a point of giving presents to the Orléans children, she gave none to the de Berry children, upon whom she usually lavished much love and attention. Princess Louise and the little Duc de Bordeaux, however, had been well versed in the story told by their aunt of how her mother, the late Queen, Marie Antoinette, would offer her own children a splendid array of toys and then send them away. Marie-Thérèse repeatedly explained to the little Louise and Henri that this was a lesson about ‘blessings and want’. When the de Berry children exhibited no complaints, their governess and the King were proud of them, and, just as she had been given an allowance, and had been instructed to give a portion of it to charity, Marie-Thérèse saw that the children received their money and then shared it with those less fortunate.

  Although the Dauphine’s rank and bearing intimidated many adults, children universally adored her. Even the young members of the Orléans branch of the family remembered her with the utmost love and affection. The Prince de Joinville, a grandson of Philippe Égalité, recalled in his memoirs that on January 6, 1824, when the whole family, including the Orleans children, were together to celebrate Twelfth Night, he broke open his cake and found the traditionally lucky bean within. His mother explained to the six-year-old that if he were to receive the bean he would be ‘King’ of the festivities.

  I got up from the table, and carried the bean on a salver to the Duchesse d’Angoulême. I loved her dearly even then, that good kind Duchess! For she had always been so good to us, ever since we were babies, and never failed to give us the most beautiful New Year’s gifts. My respectful affection deepened as I grew old enough to realize her sorrows and the nobility of her nature … She broke the ice by being the first to raise her glass to her lips, when I had made her my queen.

  The boy did not understand the silence at the table at that time, but upon reflection and later events, he did. While others at the table were uncomfortably awaiting her reaction, Marie-Thérèse, aware of the symbolism of the moment, when an Orleans was being made ‘King’, displayed only graciousness to the child. The Prince de Joinville later acknowledged that even ‘after we were separated by the events of 1830’, when his father would betray the King and steal the Bourbon crown, she was still ‘the queen of his heart’, and he tried ‘to take every opportunity of letting her know how unalterable my feelings for her were’.

  Despite the ‘nobility of her nature’, the sorrows of the past still found their way into Marie-Thérèse’s life, including even her daily routines. Instead of allowing her ladies of honor to dress and prepare her toilette, Marie-Thérèse did it all herself, as she had in prison. For hours on end, even with guests present, Marie-Thérèse would sit at her needlework, performing her craft at a staccato pace, as she had in jail where, with the skill her mother and aunt taught her, she sewed and embroidered diligently for both her sanity and her self-preservation. Her rooms in the Pavillon de Flore, once her mother’s, and the Pavillon de l’Horloge, contained reliquaries of her loved ones. Fastened to her bedroom wall was a tapestry of white velvet embroidered with lilac daisies, which had been sewn by her mother and Aunt Elisabeth. There was also a stool seat that her brother used to say his prayers on in prison. The stool contained a drawer in which she had placed her most cherished possessions: the white bloodstained shirt that had been worn by her father to the guillotine, a lace bonnet her mother had worked on in the Conciergerie, confiscated by Robespierre, and a fichu that Madame Elisabeth wore to the scaffold that had blown into the hands of someone in the crowd, who had sent it to Marie-Thérèse. And of course she still carried with her a pronounced vocal defect from the time in the Temple Prison when she had stubbornly refused to speak with her captors – her trophy of defiance.

  Thirty years after the Terror, Marie-Thérèse was still a target. On July 24,1825, at a meeting of the King’s cabinet, Charles X showed a letter to his ministers containing an anonymous death threat to the Dauphine. The same year, yet another man claiming to be Louis Charles stepped forward to cause the Dauphine further torment. The man, who traveled from Modena, Italy, called himself the Baron de Richemont and he proved to be more insidious than any of the previous pretenders. Richemont, whose tales included little known details about life at Versailles and in the Temple Prison, went so far as to publish his memoirs and he harassed Marie-Thérèse with a barrage of letters from his apartment on the rue de Fleurus. When she refused to meet with him, he started a public campaign to ‘regain his throne’.

  In December 1825, when Marie-Thérèse learned that her long-time paladin, Czar Alexander, had passed away, his death affected her deeply. Charles X would soon be seventy, and Marie-Thérèse worried what the future would bring upon his death. Louis-Antoine was next in line to the throne, but privately she and her husband held different political views. The Dauphin maintained the liberality he had learned in England where the King shared his power with parliament; Marie-Thérèse was steadfast in her conviction in the God-given right for the
Bourbons to rule France. They, nonetheless, depended on each other, both for now comfortable in their separate roles for their common cause. He was the military hero; she the ambassador of goodwill. In 1826, the Dauphin went off to tour military barracks around France, and his wife left on her own public relations trips.

  The problems arose when Louis-Antoine meddled in politics. Somewhat eager to involve himself in the affairs of State, anticipating the day not too long off when he surely would be King, the Dauphin irritated his father’s ministers by choosing to attend their meetings. Charles X would convene with his advisors four times a week. They would begin at four o’clock in the afternoon, break for supper for an hour, and continue until eleven at night. Openly acknowledged as less intelligent than his wife, although a fine soldier, the Dauphin would arrive at the meetings and spend the time making his own notes in a portfolio without listening to what was going on around him. When he would every now and then tune in to the discussion, he would interrupt typically saying, ‘This might be stupid, but …’ forcing the group to recount what he had missed and making the meetings even more drawn out. Even his wife believed that he was better off paying attention to the army than taking an interest in political affairs.

  The young Comtesse d’Agoult, who in 1827 was presented at court, believed that the marriage of the d’Angoulêmes was not a happy one. She found the Dauphine perennially grumpy and attributed it to her having married not for love but for duty. Formerly Marie Catherine Sophie de Flavigny, the Countess had just married the nephew of the Vicomtesse d’Agoult, the Dauphine’s great friend and lady-in-waiting. To be presented at court, young ladies needed two important sponsors, usually godmothers, who submitted their names and credentials to be considered. In Marie’s case, it was her new aunt the Vicomtesse d’Agoult who submitted her name.

  The court of Charles X was beginning to reflect the changes of postimperial France. Official rank gave one status, allowing admission to Jews and Protestants. Young girls from ancient noble families, from nouveau noble families as well as the merely nouveau riche, viedtobe presented. Families of the young girls who longed to make their debuts at court hired Monsieur Abraham for instructions, and he made a tidy business. The brand new Comtesse d’Agoult recalled that it was Monsieur Abraham, in his lace-trimmed shirts, who taught her how to maneuver the long court dress with walks and counter-walks because one never turned one’s back on royalty. He instructed the young woman on the art of lowering one’s eyes to the ground, inclining one’s head and at what point to perform each movement. He educated the girls in the subtle signals of the King’s procession and what to wear that would please Marie-Thérèse, who, in the end, controlled the invitation list. If you wanted to be invited back to the Tuileries, you were instructed to wear her favorite hairstyle for your debut and to wear a gown that the Dauphine would find appropriate. D’Agoult was presented in a white gown festooned with silver lamé tulle embroidered with silver flowers. Her hair was piled suitably high and pinned with stiff combs, shells and ostrich feathers. The front was divided in half into cascades of tiny curls and then ornamented with a small diadem of jewels and flowers. She also wore an exquisite suite of gorgeous emeralds.

  Marie d’Agoult recalled being extremely nervous before her appearance because, thinking that she was doing her niece a special favor, the Vicomtesse invited the young woman to meet privately with Marie-Thérèse for her approval before the official soirée began. The Vicomtesse escorted her to the Dauphine’s private rooms. Marie-Thérèse looked her over from head to toe and, echoing Louis XVIII’s own criticism of herself when she first appeared in Paris upon the return of the Bourbons, snapped, ‘She is not wearing enough rouge.’ Without saying another word, Marie-Thérèse turned on her heels and left the room. ‘How did I not see that?’ the elder d’Agoult nervously fretted, but there was nothing that the two women could do at that point.

  The Comtesse d’Agoult, despite her pallor, was indeed invited back on many occasions. She, like most women, was completely enamored of the King and enjoyed his company hugely. On the other hand, she never changed her mind about her first impression of Marie-Thérèse, often wondering what her aunt found so appealing about the woman. Marie d’Agoult wrote that the Dauphine had a glacial temperament and that she thought it was ridiculous for a forty-six-year-old woman to be called ‘Dauphine’, a word that evoked a fresh young bride. (In fact, the titles of Dauphin and Dauphine, which dated back to 1349, were absolutely correct for the d’Angoulêmes.) D’Agoult wrote that the Duc d’Angoulême was puny, ugly and had a nervous tic. Offered admittance to the Dauphine’s informal gatherings owing to her aunt’s close friendship with Marie-Thérèse, the young Countess claimed that on many occasions she observed Marie-Thérèse sitting at her needlework, while the guests, lined in two rows according to their rank, sat completely bored.

  The Comtesse d’Agoult enjoyed the company of the Duchesse de Berry, whom she regarded as fun and, while the Dauphine would not budge from her position that the Duc d’Orléans wanted to steal the crown, the Duchesse de Berry harbored no ill will and was quite friendly with the members of the junior branch of the Bourbons. The Countess also stated that people had begun to gossip that Princess Louise would be married to the Duc de Chartres, the eldest son of the Duc d’Orléans, but that everyone knew that the Dauphine was adamantly against that union, which meant that it would never happen.5

  While the Comtesse d’Agoult may never have understood the Dauphine’s charm, there were countless lifelong admirers of Marie-Thérèse. Among them was Maurice Esterhazy, who also met the Dauphine in 1827. For years, Marie-Thérèse had begged her old friend, the Comtesse Esterhazy, to return to her native France. In June of 1827, ‘Fanny’ arrived in Paris with her twenty-year-old son, Maurice, whose father had asked the young man to keep a journal of his time with the French royal family. Maurice did, indeed, keep daily notes of his visit, which include many warm, insightful anecdotes about Marie-Thérèse and her family.

  His own mother, whose friendship with Marie-Thérèse began on January 10, 1796, when she ‘first laid eyes’ on the Bourbon Princess, had accompanied Marie-Thérèse to Prague and to Belvedere and had enjoyed many years of intimate correspondence with the Dauphine. Their very cordial relationship allowed Maurice a perspective of Marie-Thérèse that very few people were privy to. He had heard that she was formal and dry, but he recalled that when they arrived she greeted his mother effusively, as if the two were still young, giggly girls. He remembered her as an exceedingly warm, pleasant and hospitable host who possessed a wonderful sense of humor. One day, she had a bit of fun grilling them about the Bonapartes – Napoleon’s mother, his famously promiscuous sister, Pauline, and various nieces and nephews – who were now living in Rome, ‘in general and on each in particular, their mannerisms, their social relations, the way they were with others, and if the Pope had seen them. She finished by asking us if we had been invited to their parties. After a sudden and involuntary expression escaped us as a result of her last question, she was really amused.’

  While the Esterhazys were guests of the Dauphine they were treated like members of the family. They dined with the Bourbons, went to church with the Bourbons and visited Saint-Cloud, Compiègne, the Tuileries, Rosny, and the Dauphine’s estate at Villeneuve-l’Étang, where Maurice saw his mother’s portrait on a table placed alongside some of the Dauphine’s most personal treasures. They saw the rooms commemorating both her stay in Vienna and her husband’s victory in Spain. Maurice wrote that the Dauphine spent a great deal of time with her niece and nephew, which allowed him to get to know the children and he found them well-mannered and quite adorable. He recounted an episode at the dining table when the six-year-old Henri could not cut his bread. His grandfather, Charles X, managed the bread for the boy who responded simply ‘very much obliged, Sire’.

  Six weeks after their arrival, Marie-Thérèse shocked everyone by taking the Esterhazys to Versailles. Maurice was concerned that this particular tour was goin
g to be very difficult for his mother’s friend, and he was amazed that she had offered to take them there. ‘It is interesting,’ he wrote, ‘to find oneself with the daughter of Louis XVI in the apartment which he occupied, to be at the place where the bed stood of Marie Antoinette, the little secret exit through which she was forced to save herself, the place where the unfortunate garde du corps defended the entrance to the chamber of the Queen, the balcony where she showed Louis XVII to his people.’ Marie-Thérèse took them to the theater in the town of Versailles and three days later showed them around the Petit Trianon. Maurice was in complete awe of Marie-Thérèse as they walked about the gardens, saw the rustic Hameau, entered the theater where her mother had performed in comedies and visited the family chapel. He wrote that she ‘showed us with great tenderness a small room, where she would take her lessons, when the rain kept her from playing outside in the gardens’. All of the furniture that was still in place at the Trianon, he wrote, had belonged to the Bonapartes. The Bourbons had not bothered to change any of it. Certainly, Marie-Thérèse had avoided the house since her return, making this tour of Versailles, he believed, afforded him by the only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, a singular experience. Marie-Thérèse had summoned her strength, mastered her pain and thought only about his and his mother’s enjoyment and for this she was a heroine in his eyes.