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

by Susan Nagel

  At the age of six, the Comte de Chambord’s education, supervised by Marie-Thérèse, had been turned over to the Duc de Rivière. As Marie Antoinette had prepared an informative account of her young son’s character for Madame de Tourzel, the Duc de Bourdeaux’s governess, Madame de Gontaut-Biron had done likewise for his new tutor. She described the boy as honest, straightforward, serious, and a champion of the underdog. Gontaut-Biron admitted that, although Henri was prone to having a quick temper, he was stoic and could display remarkable self-control for one so young. She also affirmed that he genuinely adored his sister, Princess Louise.

  The relationship between her niece and nephew often reminded Marie-Thérèse of the most tender and precious bond that she and her little brother Louis Charles had shared. She fostered their closeness, and made every effort to teach the children about love and charity. Marie-Thérèse had learned long ago to make her home wherever she was, and it was, despite her distaste for the Protestant country, in Edinburgh that she oversaw Princess Louise’s first communion. She was intent on teaching the children to bring their customs, values and traditions with them even when they were outside France; for, in France, many of their family celebrations were public events. In exile, their rituals were performed for their own benefit. Marie-Thérèse’s influence had a lasting impact on the children as evidenced by the letter from Madame de Gontaut-Biron to the Duc de Rivière, which stated that the young Henri was exceedingly charitable, often giving much of his own allowance to others in need. Many years later, as an adult, Henri would claim that it was his aunt, Marie-Thérèse, who was his most significant mentor, that she taught by example and that she remained, for him, the embodiment of piety and charity.

  Marie-Thérèse’s long periods in exile had taught her to appreciate the necessity of always having contingency plans, and although she departed France without much preparation, she and her secretary, Charlet, had arranged for monies from the sale of Villeneuve-l’Étang to be placed abroad. She also carried, tied into her skirt, a small bag of significant diamonds. The Bourbon family was entitled to yet another source of income that would provide for them all. The always fiscally prudent Louis XVIII had put away a fortune in a London bank during his reign – ‘just in case’. So, when King William IV began to encounter serious political problems with Parliament in 1831, and it became clear that it was best for a foreign monarchy to situate itself elsewhere, the Bourbons prepared to relocate, but, this time, it would not be for an impoverished lifestyle. While William IV battled with his two political parties over the parliamentary reforms of 1831–32, the Bourbons, cast down by the Scottish weather anyway, contacted Marie-Thérèse’s aging cousin, Franz of Austria.

  Franz, whose power had been diminished during the Napoleonic era, was once again a ruler of supremacy, owing to Napoleon’s demise and the 1814–15 Congress of Vienna, which not only returned Austrian and Italian lands to his Empire, but expanded his control, naming him President of a newly drawn German Confederation. The Emperor could afford to be magnanimous to his cousins and offered the Bourbon family hospitality in Prague at the fabulous and historic Hradschin Palace, Franz’s residence when he visited his domains in Bohemia. Marie-Thérèse was quite looking forward to returning to the Catholic country that was part of her mother’s homeland. When in France, Marie-Thérèse had responded to those who believed that Franz and his Viennese court had imprisoned and mistreated her that she had, in fact, been very happy amongst her Habsburg cousins. On July 7, 1832, she wrote to the Emperor: ‘I would like His permission to pass through Vienna to verbally express to Him my very deep acknowledgment of his past and present benevolence.’

  The Duchesse de Berry, however, would not be going to Austria. In early 1831, Charles X issued a half-hearted statement in order to mollify Marie Caroline. She had previously harangued him to appoint her the Comte de Chambord’s official Regent, but he had refused. In late January, the exiled King signed a document that stated that the Duchesse de Berry would be Regent of France during her son’s minority ‘when they return to France’. Shortly after this proclamation was issued, the peripatetic Duchess disappeared. Using various disguises and pseudonyms from Italian operas and the tales of Sir Walter Scott, she had returned to the continent on a mission to put her son on the throne of France. She journeyed through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, going from one escapade to another. Her Bourbon relatives read of her adventures in the daily newspapers with increasing horror.

  The Duchesse de Berry arrived in Genoa and went on to Sestri, Massa, and Florence. Local princes hurriedly dispatched missives to France’s King Louis-Philippe reassuring him that the Duchesse de Berry was unwelcome in their principalities. When she arrived in Rome, the Pope, equally alarmed, also contacted the Citizen King swearing that he had no intention of harboring the royal fugitive. From Rome, she contacted her own family in Naples, and even they were unimpressed to see her. Her half-brother, King Ferdinand III of the Two Sicilies, was annoyed with the Duchess’s lack of circumspection. The Duchess later admitted that, while in Italy, she had engaged in a romance, not reported on by the press, but one that would result in serious repercussions regarding her future. In addition to this alleged liaison, she embarked on another wild exploit, one that would turn out to be extremely dangerous.

  In April 1832, the Duchess sailed to Marseille. Her plan was to reach the royalist Vendée where she would lead an insurrection. When Marie-Thérèse and Charles X learned of Marie Caroline’s ambitions, they were dismayed. The Duchesse de Berry’s attempt failed; she was arrested and imprisoned at Blaye fortress. It was then discovered that she was pregnant. Most thought that the father of the baby was her co-conspirator, the equerry Mesnard, or Guibourg, a handsome local attorney who was often at her side. Mesnard, a married man in his sixties, could certainly not marry his pregnant lover and Guibourg was not of the appropriate station. Charles X was outraged, and he demanded the Duchesse de Berry provide a marriage license immediately. Eventually the Duchess did so claiming that when she was in Naples she had resumed a teenage love affair with Comte Ettore Lucchesi-Palli and had secretly married him. Most chose not to believe her: there were too many holes in her story, not least the fact that it had been over a year since she had even been in Naples and therefore Lucchesi-Palli could not be the baby’s father. Those who believe her story insist that proof was revealed in secret records at the Vatican in 1899 when papal secretary Petrus Chicchi asserted that the couple had married on December 14, 1831, and that the ceremony had been performed by a Jesuit priest, Father Rozaven, with the knowledge of Pope Gregory XVI. Skeptics insist that no such marriage license ever existed, that the powerful King of the Two Sicilies, in an effort to save his family’s honor, had something planted in the archives.

  At last, Marie Caroline became the heroine of her own invented story, the solipsistic theme of which was that she had been underestimated. In her tale, which she would tell to the poet-statesman Chateaubriand, she claimed that on her way to the Vendée she had started a letter-writing campaign, begging Europe’s monarchs to assist her in an invasion of France. They all turned her down except one. Through exceptional negotiations on her part and on the part of the Comte Ettore Lucchesi-Palli, King William I of the Netherlands agreed to cede Belgium to France if Henri V acceded to the throne. Marie Caroline insisted that during the summer of 1832, she and Ettore Lucchesi-Palli were working together hammering out an agreement. Ettore Lucchesi-Palli claimed that he had visited his bride on more than one occasion in Nantes; and she, once again, acting the role of playing a favorite figure from a Sir Walter Scott saga, made a dangerous and covert trip from west to east through France, to the Hague and back to Nantes, her theater of operation. Their meetings, in fact, do coincide with the correct timing for the conception of her baby, due the following May; however, once again, there is ample testimony that those meetings could not have taken place. Many tried and failed to find proof of these claims on the Duchess’s behalf, and there is still disagreement a
bout their veracity today.

  Once she landed on French soil, Marie Caroline issued her own proclamations as ‘Regent of France’. Appalled by the commotion caused by the Duchess’s behavior, Charles X issued a new statement making it clear that the Duchesse de Berry was not Regent of France. Meanwhile, he and Marie-Thérèse went ahead with their own plans. Charles, Louis-Antoine and Henri would sail from Leith for Hamburg at the end of September 1832, while Marie-Thérèse would take Princess Louise on a trip to London and then meet the men in Prague.

  In London, William IV’s Queen, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, called on Marie-Thérèse and Princess Louise to pay her respects. General de la Rochejaquelein, namesake and nephew of the General and great hero of the Vendée uprising of the 1790s, then accompanied Marie-Thérèse, Princess Louise and Madame de Gontaut-Biron to their ship and on to Rotterdam. During the crossing, the General decided to speak with Marie-Thérèse about a matter that was weighing heavy on his mind. Understanding that it was a very delicate subject, he approached Marie-Thérèse and took a portrait out of his pocket. He showed the picture to her and stated that he thought it was a picture of her brother, and that he believed he was still very much alive. Madame de Gontaut-Biron recalled that Marie-Thérèse grew visibly agitated and then screamed at him: ‘How could you believe that if there had been the slightest possible doubt, I could have hesitated to proclaim it? Is it probable that I should prefer my uncle to my brother?’ Princess Louise wanted to know what her aunt had meant, so Marie-Thérèse, who explained that she simply could not bring herself to speak about it, asked Madame de Gontaut-Biron to tell the young girl about her aunt’s sad past. Madame de Gontaut-Biron complied and told Princess Louise: ‘You shall know all; and then you will understand, my child, a sadness which you have sometimes mistaken for brusqueness.’

  One day, during a carriage ride in the Dutch countryside, Marie-Thérèse unburdened her heart to her niece, and told Louise about her years in prison. In her cell, she told her, she had learned The Day of the Christian by heart because it comforted her. She recalled that she would twist wool that her aunt had left behind, and that she hated not knowing at which hours the guards would enter her cell. She told Louise that it was her own dear Aunt Elisabeth who, before she was taken to her death, had asked the guards to promise that they would allow her beloved young niece to dress before they entered. She recounted for Louise how she would wash her own laundry and then smooth it by putting it under her mattress. She explained that she would spend the days and nights listening: listening for the sound of approaching guards; listening to all she could hear within the prison walls. Wrenchingly, she then confided to Louise that she knew for certain that her mother had heard Louis Charles being tortured. At that point the memory proved so overwhelming that Marie-Thérèse stopped the carriage and alighted for some air. She walked alone for a while and then returned to the coach, calmer. When she resumed her place, she very sweetly asked Louise not to mention the subject ever again.

  Marie-Thérèse was nearing fifty-four years of age; yet, the painful memories of the Reign of Terror remained in clear focus. Other memories from her past proved a little more pleasant, and when, on October 8, 1832, Marie-Thérèse and her entourage arrived at the Hofburg, she claimed to be very happy to return to the home of her maternal family. She was, once again, a guest of the Habsburgs, whom she described as ‘amiable’ and ‘attentive’. She slept in the rooms she had occupied over thirty years ago, and aside from the sad anniversary of her mother’s death, which she commemorated with her mother’s relatives, she displayed obvious enjoyment showing Princess Louise around Vienna. At the end of the month, on October 28, she returned, after thirty-five years, to Prague, where she had been sequestered, for her safety, in a convent in 1797 when Napoleon had marched on Vienna. Although in 1797 she had not been overjoyed to remain at the side of her sickly aunt, Maria Anna, Marie-Thérèse had always found convent life soothing.

  Now in Prague people lovingly called her ‘Majesté’. The ground floor at Hradschin Palace was kept vacant for the Emperor, and the Bourbons and their small coterie of courtiers occupied the second floor. From their windows they could see the church domes and bridges and peer over the rooftops at one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. It was a lavish and truly splendid home. Louis-Antoine and her father-in-law would meet with sympathizers and she would care for her niece and nephew. Her own staff included her almoner, the Bishop of Hermopolis, her equerry, a Mr O’Haggerty, who became like a son to her, another priest named Trébuquet, and her longtime friend, the Vicomtesse d’Agoult. Marie-Thérèse was delighted when the Duc de Blacas, who had so ably served King Louis XVIII, and knew every rule of etiquette, joined them and assumed the role of head of household. Charles paid for guards out of his own funds and the Bourbons in exile lived comfortably and with many familiar rituals.

  While Charles X maintained that the family’s dream was to see his grandson on the throne of France, Louis-Antoine continued to minister to his father and proclaim publicly that his King’s wish was his command. Privately he felt some resentment. He was a man used to leading troops into battle and he was now visibly bored. Marie-Thérèse felt great sympathy for her husband’s pain; however, she would not cause a schism with her father-in-law, the rightful King of France.

  In the spring of 1833, Marie-Thérèse decided to visit the popular spa at Carlsbad, where she leased a riverside house on the edge of town. She went for walks, had treatments, and spent what she would later recall as delightful moments with friends. She was enjoying a pleasant, relaxing time when trouble abruptly interrupted her quietude, and came knocking at her door.

  Chapter XXIV

  Blackmail

  On May 10, 1833, the Duchesse de Berry, now Contessa Lucchesi-Palli, gave birth in Blaye prison to a daughter whom she named Anna Maria Rosalia. One month later, in a seemingly magnanimous gesture, Louis-Philippe released the infant and her mother from the tower fortress. In truth, the Citizen King was well aware that Marie Caroline posed little threat to his monarchy: she had proved herself daring but fatuous, was regarded as something of a joke and, given her liberty, would doubtless continue to be an embarrassment and a liability to the senior Bourbon line. Although Charles X was extremely fond of his effervescent daughter-in-law he maintained her banishment for the sake of family honor. Instead of reuniting with her family in Prague, Marie Caroline headed for Italy, where she and her new husband placed their daughter in the care of a foster couple. Sadly, Anna Maria Rosalia would die at only three months of age.

  Marie Caroline now possessed only a very minor title and began to realize that as the Contessa Lucchesi-Palli she had little standing among the noble houses of Europe. She desperately wanted to make amends with her late husband’s family and asked her friend Françis-René de Chateaubriand to serve as her emissary to the Bourbons. Chateaubriand left for Prague in May 1833. His mission was to meet with the former King and to deliver a packet of letters – one to Henri and Louise, one to Charles X, and some others to the Dauphine. Henri, Comte de Chambord would turn thirteen that autumn, the historic age of majority for Kings of France. In her letter to Charles, Henri’s mother asked her father-in-law to make a public proclamation announcing the great day; to her children she wrote declaring her love.

  At the Hradschin Palace, Chateaubriand asked the King’s permission to deliver the note to the children, but the King refused. Chateaubriand then relayed Marie Caroline’s request to see her children, and once again he was told this was not possible as the children had not yet been told of their mother’s remarriage. Chateaubriand spent some time with Henri and Louise, whom he found cheerful and charming, reporting that the brother and sister amused each other, teased each other, and were very respectful of their guest. However, Chateaubriand was distressed about the manner in which the children were being educated. He had been under the assumption that the tutors were preparing the de Berry children to face the new, modern and industrialized social order of Europe; instead, he
found that the Jesuits were in charge of the children’s education, inculcating them, he felt, with antiquated dogma.

  In France, although moderates were happy with the constitutional monarchy as a compromise, republicans wanted elections. Within the royalist legitimist movement there were divergent factions: a few sided with Marie Caroline, some dismissed her, some believed that Charles X should return to the throne, some urged the Dauphin to gather an army, and others thought it best to wait for Henri to come of age. Chateaubriand, a staunch royalist, believed that if France were going to keep pace with the other nations of Europe its King needed to be in step with his people. Agrarian economies that were socially paternalistic were changing with the advent of the industrial revolution. Every bourgeois merchant now fancied himself as king in his own right and wanted prestige and prosperity for his family. Would any of the Bourbon men in Prague be fit for the future? The aging Charles X was unlikely. The Dauphin now seemed listless and pitiable, and having witnessed for himself the schooling and shaping of the future Henri V, Chateaubriand determined that even Henri would be unsuitable as King unless he was better guided. Chateaubriand thought it was his patriotic duty to ask to have himself appointed the boy’s tutor.

  The first step was to reconcile the family. Learning that Marie-Thérèse was in Carlsbad, Chateaubriand took his leave of the King and proceeded to the spa. He arrived there at the end of May and made his way to the little house at the edge of town that Marie-Thérèse had rented for the season. He memorialized every detail of his visit with the Dauphine and wrote that before being presented to her he was ‘so filled with emotion that I did not know if I could face the princess’. At the Dauphine’s house, a servant opened the door, and he saw