Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars

by Elena Maria Vidal

  Louis XV (1710-1774) was the grandfather of Antoinette’s husband the Dauphin. A shy man with multiple insecurities, Louis XV adored his family, which did not prevent him from scandalizing them repeatedly by his lifestyle. Part of the old King’s problem was that he had been an orphan, the only surviving son of the golden couple of Versailles, the young Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne. His mother was the high-sprited and unruly Marie-Adélaïde de Savoy who, in spite of being spoiled by Louis XIV, grew up to be a charming consort of the future heir to the throne. Louis XV probably did not remember his mother, for she died of measles when he was two. He nearly died himself, for after his heartbroken father followed his mother to the grave, both Louis, then called the Duc d’Anjou and his older surviving brother, the Duc de Bretagne, fell ill. Louis’ brother the Duc de Bretagne was killed by the doctors’ overzealous bleeding. However, Madame de Ventadour, the royal governess, locked the toddler Louis away from the doctors and cared for him herself, saving his life. He emerged from his sickroom as the only surviving heir to the throne. When his great grandfather Louis XIV died on September 1, 1715, Louis XV began his reign at age five.

  It is always hard being an orphan; it is particularly hard when the orphan is the titular head of the most powerful kingdom in Europe, without parents or even grandparents to watch over his best interests. Louis XV was placed in the care of the Regent, his cousin the Duc d’Orléans. As was the custom, when still a small boy, he was taken away from Madame de Ventadour and given over to the care of male tutors. He was physically well-cared for and received a fine education but it is said that the lack of feminine nurturing was something for which he later overcompensated. In the meantime, he was betrothed to the Infanta Mariana Victoria, his three-year-old Spanish cousin, who came to live at Versailles when Louis XV was eleven. The marriage never came to be, since when Louis was fifteen it was considered important for him to have a wife old enough to beget children. Not only were children a matter of import, but it was seen as crucial to find the teenager a wife before he fell under the spell of a mistress. A Polish princess, Marie Leszczyńska, was chosen. She was several years older than Louis but at the time it did not matter. Louis XV and his Queen were happy together for many years and ten children were born to them.

  Much to his wife’s heartbreak, Louis strayed, and strayed and strayed. In 1744, he repented while in the throes of a near fatal illness; his confessor insisted that he issue a public confession as well. The people of France, who had prayed for his healing, began to call him the “Well-Beloved.” The King had also promised God during his illness that if he recovered he would rebuild the ruined church of St. Geneviève, dedicated to the patroness of Paris. Over the next several decades, a magnificent neo-classical church was built to house the relics of the shepherdess saint; sadly, during the Revolution, it was desecrated and turned into a mausoleum called the Panthéon.

  At any rate, long before the church was even begun, Louis had fallen back into his old ways. In 1745, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, after first being tutored in etiquette, became his official mistress with the title of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. The court was scandalized, not that the King had another mistress but that Madame de Pompadour was from a bourgeois family. It was one thing for the King to sin with an aristocrat; to sin with a commoner showed a complete lack of respect for his family, for his court and most of all, for his crown. In fact, the entire kingdom was degraded, in the eyes of many, especially in the eyes of the King’s growing son and daughters. To her credit, the Marquise tried to get along with everybody, even the Queen. The prince and princesses despised her, calling her “Pom-Pom” and Maman Putain which means “Mama Whore.” Louis XV ignored them; he found La Pompadour immensely entertaining for her wit, charm, and cultured mind. She became his best friend and most trusted advisor.

  In matters of intimacy, the Marquise was said to have a cold temperament; after five years they gave up their sexual relationship although she continued to bear the name of maitresse en titre. To the disgust of many in the court, the King’s valets began to procure young maidens for him.5 A house called the Parc aux Cerfs was established in the town of Versailles for the girls to stay. It was on the site of what had been a “park of the stags” in Louis XIII’s time. The King wanted young, innocent girls because it decreased the chances of contracting syphilis. Madame de Pompadour felt herself safe as the Parc aux Cerfs protected her from having potential rivals at Court. The King never went there but the girls were brought to him in the palace. After their time with the King they would be given a dowry and helped to marry well. The expense of such a harem did not help the depleted coffers of the state, and made the people lose respect for the crown.6

  Such was Madame de Pompadour’s influence in diplomatic matters that she was blamed for France’s disgrace in the Seven Years War, and the loss of Canada to England. The Marquise patronized the arts and was known for her exquisite taste as well as her huge expenditures. She sponsored Voltaire, Diderot and other scions of the Enlightenment, much to the horror of the devout Royal Family. She engineered the expulsion of the Jesuits from France and rejoiced when the entire Order was banned by the Pope. Madame de Pompadour wielded more power than many a queen, but it all came to an end when she died of tuberculosis in 1764 at the age of forty-two. But before she died, she had maneuvered the King into the Austrian Alliance.

  Four years later, Queen Marie died; Louis thought briefly of marrying again, and negotiations were made with Empress Maria Theresa for the hand of her daughter Archduchess Maria Elisabeth. But then he met Jeanne Bécu, the illegitimate daughter of a friar and a seamstress. Many whispered Jeanne had been a prostitute; the King went to extraordinary lengths to enoble her, including a mock marriage to the Comte du Barry. By this time, Louis XV’s children were grown; his grandchildren, growing up. The Dauphin Louis-Ferdinand died in 1765, followed by his Dauphine, leaving behind a family of orphans, with an awkward young boy as heir to the throne of France.

  Marie Leszczyńska (1703-1768) was the Queen of Louis XV. She was the last Queen of France before Antoinette. Marie tightened up the rigorous court etiquette that Antoinette later relaxed because it was so suffocating. The daughter of a dethroned monarch and wife of a blatantly unfaithful husband needed the highly ritualized pomp to maintain her rank more than did the “daughter of the Caesars.” 7 Marie Leszczyńska's father was the ex-king of Poland and her early life was complicated by upheaval and exile. Yet for this very reason, she was chosen to be the bride of the teenaged Louis XV, because she had no political entanglements. Her father Stanislaus Leszczyński was delighted when a messenger from Versailles arrived to ask for his daughter's hand. At age twenty-two Marie married the sixteen-year-old King. She was pretty, devout, and had received an excellent education. They were happy and lived amicably together for about a decade; the Queen gave birth to ten children. Later, she was blamed for throwing Louis XV out of bed on certain holy days, but that may be only gossip. Perhaps she had a health issue; after giving birth to so many children it was not unlikely. At any rate, Louis began a career as a womanizer, his most famous mistress being, of course, Madame de Pompadour, who ruled France at his side.

  Queen Marie quietly devoted herself to her faith and her family. Courtiers mocked her Polish ways and called her La Polonaise even as later they would call Antoinette L'Autrichienne. All of Marie's children were as religious as she was; her youngest daughter Madame Louise became a Carmelite nun and a Blessed of the Church. Some of her grandchildren were quite pious as well, especially Louis XVI, Madame Clothilde, and Madame Élisabeth. Clothilde was declared a Venerable and Louis XVI and Madame Élisabeth have been regarded as martyrs by many. When Marie died in 1768, two years before Antoinette’s arrival in France, Louis XV sincerely mourned the mother of his children, and we hope he regretted causing her such pain with his infidelities.

  Louis the Dauphin (1729-1765), christened Louis-Ferdinand, was the only surviving son of Louis XV and the father of three kings of France, including
Louis XVI. The opposite of his father, he preferred books and music to hunting and dancing. He had a brother one year younger, Philippe, Duc d’Anjou, a beautiful boy who was painted by Barrière blowing bubbles. When he was sick his nurses put the dirt from the grave of Saint Médard in his food, in the hopes of curing him. In their misguided zeal they put in so much dirt the child experienced organ failure and died at age two in 1733. It was probably stories of such horrendous mishaps that made Antoinette determined to personally supervise the care of her children. As a teenager, Louis-Ferdinand had a brief marriage to the Spanish Infanta, Marie-Thérèse-Raphaëlle, with whom he was desperately in love, and she with him. Her death in childbirth drove him nearly out of his mind and it was with many tears that he consented to marry again. A dedicated Catholic and the leader of the Devout party at court, he encouraged the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in spite of ridicule from the sophisticated element. He did everything in his power to keep the Jesuits from being expelled from France, knowing that they were the best hope against the anti-Christian tendencies of the philosophes because of their emphasis on learning and the excellent schools which they ran. He and his second wife Marie-Josèphe de Saxe were deeply committed to each other and to the proper education and upbringing of their children. Louis-Ferdinand would take his children to view the local parish register, to see their names inscribed along with the names of the lowliest peasant children, to show them that all distinctions of rank vanish in the eyes of God.8 He would also take them to see the peasant huts, so they could see how most of the French people lived. Louis-Ferdinand was only thirty-six years old when he passed away from tuberculosis, leaving a heartbroken wife Marie-Josèphe, who died not long afterwards, and five young children.

  Louis-Ferdinand left his papers with his sister Madame Adélaïde, to be passed on to Louis-Auguste when he came of age or ascended the throne. It is strange how the oldest son of every generation of the Bourbon family died in youth or infancy before inheriting the crown, almost recalling the tenth plague of Egypt. Some claim it is because of Louis XIV's refusal to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart; it is beyond me to analyze the ways of the Almighty. Although Louis-Ferdinand had been dead for several years when Antoinette arrived, his was still a strong presence in the family, especially where his sisters and his eldest surviving son were concerned. Young Louis-Auguste did all he could to honor his father, receiving Holy Communion on the anniversary of his death, and trying to have the same political views, for he saw the late Dauphin as the model of the perfect Christian prince.

  At a time when the French court was ruled by Madame de Pompadour and influenced by the philosophes, there came into the midst of such a loose and free-thinking environment a devout Catholic princess. Daughter of the Elector of Saxony, Marie-Josèphe (1731-1767) was destined to become the mother of three Kings of France. All in all, she bore thirteen children, losing several babies and children to early deaths, including the beloved Louis-Joseph, Duc de Burgogne, whose death from tuberculosis of the bone was to haunt Louis XVI, as well as possibly infecting him with the same disease.

  Marie-Josèphe faced enormous challenges. In addition to a husband who was still in love with his first wife, the Dauphine had to contend with the anti-religious element at Versailles, which prevailed in spite of the pious queen and princesses. Little by little Marie-Josèphe won the love and respect of her husband as they worked together to educate their surviving children, focusing on a solid religious formation, while striving to maintain the Catholic faith at the court in spite of the blatant immorality of Louis XV. She made a point of visiting the Carmelite nuns of Compiègne with her mother-in-law Queen Marie; as they sewed clothes for the poor, the rough cloth used by the nuns often made Marie-Josèphe’s fingers bleed. 9 With her restrained yet kindly and dignified manner, the Dauphine became greatly loved; it is said she even got on well with Madame de Pompadour. She helped to patch up disagreements between her husband and his father. Her nickname was “Pépa.”

  However, one thing that Marie-Josèphe took a stand against, other than the expulsion of the Jesuits, was the marriage of her son Louis-Auguste to one of daughters of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. This is because Marie-Josèphe’s mother was a Habsburg Archduchess, the daughter of Emperor Joseph I, Empress Maria Theresa’s uncle, and Marie-Josèphe had always been told that Maria Theresa had stolen the throne from her mother. According to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, women could inherit the Habsburg lands, but Charles VI planned for the inheritance to go to his own daughter, Maria Theresa, not his older brother’s daughters, who were consequently left out of the succession. As a result, Marie-Josèphe was suspicious of the Austrian alliance, not trusting her Habsburg relatives.

  Marie-Josèphe cared for her husband Louis-Ferdinand in his fatal illness and followed him to the grave two years later in 1767. It was a great tragedy for her five remaining children, for whom the influence of such a strong mother was irreplaceable. Although Marie-Josèphe was against the Austrian alliance, her death before the arrival of Antoinette of Austria was unfortunate, since she of all people would have been most fitted to give loving guidance to her vivacious daughter-in-law, adrift in a foreign court. It was later said, however, that Antoinette’s second son Louis-Charles bore a strong resemblance to his paternal grandmother, Marie-Josèphe de Saxe.10

  The Daughters of Louis XV, later called “the Aunts” or “Mesdames Tantes” of Louis XVI, played a key part in the life of the court of France when Antoinette arrived, even those who were dead or gone away still made their presences felt. There is, alas, a tendency to lump them together, as eccentric elderly ladies surrounded by spoiled lap dogs. While the lap dogs were omnipresent, the Mesdames themselves each had unique qualities. Nattier painted them all at least once, but since the artist tended to make all women look similar it is sometimes difficult to get a sense of their individual personalities. The oldest and only married daughter of Louis XV and Queen Marie Leszczyńska was Madame Louise-Élisabeth of France (1727-1759), called Madame Royale and later the Duchess of Parma by marriage. She and her twin sister Madame Henriette, born on the Vigil of the Assumption, grew up during the happiest time of their parent’s marriage. Élisabeth, known for her intelligence and confidence, was not a beauty but had her father’s piercing dark eyes. To quote author Catherine Delors:

  On August 14, 1727, Queen Marie Leszczyńska gave birth to twin girls, the first born being Marie-Louise- Élisabeth, known as Madame Élisabeth, or simply, as the King’s eldest daughter, Madame. Louis XV, who was only seventeen, had of course been hoping for a male heir, but he was nonetheless delighted by the birth of the girls. ‘People said I could not have children,’ he went around repeating, ‘and see, I made two!’

  Élisabeth is his darling, his Babette. She has never been considered pretty, but she is bright, vivacious, willful. Yet dynastic politics lead Louis XV to arrange her marriage to her cousin, Philippe de Bourbon, younger son of the King of Spain. It is considered a mediocre match for a Fille de France (‘Daughter of France’) to marry a foreign prince unlikely to succeed to any throne, but Louis XV wants to reinforce the family ties with the Spanish Bourbons.

  The bride is only twelve, and she is heartbroken when she must leave Versailles and her twin, Madame Henriette. ‘Tis forever, my God, tis forever,’ she sobs in the arms of her sister. Indeed it was often true at the time: as a rule a princess, once married abroad, never set foot again in her native country. That is, for instance, what happened to Marie-Antoinette. But, as we shall see, Madame Élisabeth will never allow herself to be bound by rules applicable to ordinary princesses.11

  Élisabeth returned to France for visits, staying a year each time, so she became familiar with her sister-in-law the Dauphine and her nieces and nephews. To the disgust of her siblings, she befriended La Pompadour. Her husband Philippe inherited the Duchy of Parma from his mother and so he and Élisabeth went to live there, thus founding the House of Bourbon-Parma. Their oldest daughter Isabelle married Marie-Antoine
tte’s brother Joseph and their only son and heir Ferdinand married Antoinette’s sister Maria Amalia. On her final trip to Versailles, Élisabeth died of smallpox in 1759 and was buried in the royal crypt at Saint Denis next to her twin sister.

  Madame Anne-Henriette (1727-1752) was the fraternal twin of Madame Élisabeth. Her short life left an indelible mark on the court for her quiet and reserved but strong personality. Devoted to music, she was a gifted cellist; Nattier painted her playing her favorite instrument. With an exquisite appearance and the gift of conversation, she was quite close to her father the King, presiding at her father’s small suppers and soirées. Her life, however, was marked by disappointments. After suffering the separation from her twin, she fell in love with her second cousin Louis-Philippe, Duc de Chartres, heir to the dukedom of Orléans. The future father of Philippe Egalité returned her love, but Louis XV himself would not countenance the match, as he was reluctant to strengthen the claim that the Orléans family had to the throne by giving them one of his daughters. He also feared offending the Spanish Bourbons, who also were in line to inherit the French crown. The lovers were parted. Henriette rejoiced when her sister Madame Élisabeth returned to France for visits, but the friendship of Élisabeth with La Pompadour caused a rift between the twins. It was Madame Henriette along with the Dauphin and Madame Adélaïde who called the mistress Maman Putain or “Mama Whore” and they saw Élisabeth’s partiality as an offense to their already outraged mother the Queen. Henriette died of smallpox at the age of twenty-four; the tomb she was to share with her twin at the Basilica of Saint Denis was desecrated during the Revolution.