Family: The Habsburgs

Although I have very little experience of politics, I cannot help being worried about what is happening everywhere in Europe. It would be very terrible if the Turks and the Russians went back to war. At least here I am very sure they want to keep the peace. If my brother had come, I think, like my dear Mama, that his acquaintance with the King would have been very useful for the general good and quiet. It would be the greatest good fortune if these two sovereigns, who are so close to me, could trust each other, they could settle many things together and would be protected from the lack of skill and the personal interests of their ministers.

The Grand Almoner is at death's door; Prince Louis [de Rohan] will replace him in that office. I am really annoyed by this, and it will be much against his own inclination that the King will appoint him; but two years ago he allowed himself to be surprised by M. de Soubise and Mme de Marsan into a half promise, which they converted into a full one by thanking him, and which they have just now used to the full. If he [Rohan] behaves as he always did, we will have many intrigues.
(~from Secrets of Marie Antoinette: A Collection of Letters, edited by Olivier Bernier. New York: Fromm International, 1986, pp. 211-212)

Her Majesty entered followed by the three princesses. My husband and myself each sank upon the left knee and kissed the noblest, the most beautiful hand that has ever wielded a scepter. The Empress gently bade us rise. Her face and her gracious manner banished all the timidity and embarrassment we naturally felt in the presence of so exalted and beautiful a figure as hers. Our fear was changed to love and confidence.

From Madame Guillotine:
http://madameguillotine.org.uk/2011/09/14/marie-antoinettes-french-grandmother/
Marie Antoinette’s French grandmother, Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans was born to Monsieur and Liselotte on the 13th September 1676 at the Château de Saint-Cloud, which had been perfected by her father over the years and had a commanding view from its terrace towards Paris. Later, this beautiful summer château would cause controversy when it became the personal possession of Marie Antoinette, but at the time of Élisabeth’s birth it was still, along with the Palais Royal in Paris, the primary seat of the Orléans family.

As niece of Louis XIV, the little girl was one of the first ladies in France and was given the courtesy title of Mademoiselle de Chartres, which she would use until the marriages of her elder half sisters, the daughters of Henrietta of England were married and she was given the title of Madame Royale to signify that she was now the premier unmarried princess in the country.

Élisabeth’s childhood was a happy one and was divided between Saint Cloud, the Palais Royal and the residences of her dread uncle, Louis: Versailles, Marly and Fontainebleau where she was an honoured denizen. Pretty and gloriously dressed in shimmering silks, velvets and brocades, Élisabeth was every inch the French princess, however beneath the gorgeous clothes there beat a rebellious heart which made her fond parents frequently despair of her frankness, wild behaviour and tomboyish escapades.

Like all princesses at this time, Mademoiselle de Chartres would have been raised in the full knowledge that she was no doubt destined to one day marry a man that she had never met and travel abroad to preside over his court, probably to never see France ever again. The fates of Louis XIV’s bevy of beautiful indolent illegitimate daughters by Louise de la Vallière and Athénaïs de Montespan must surely have aroused envy in the breasts of many French princesses as, unable by the stigma of their birth to marry foreign princelings, they alone had been permitted to remain at Versailles and had been married off to the most high ranking noblemen of their father’s court, including Élisabeth’s brother, much to her mother’s fury.

It is said that Liselotte was so enraged that Philippe had agreed to their eldest son and heir, the Duc de Chartres marrying the daughter of Athénaïs de Montespan, who had once been lady in waiting to Philippe’s first wife, Henrietta, that she slapped her son’s face in front of the entire court then, worse still by the standards of the day, pointedly turned her back on Louis XIV and stomped off, ignoring him, when he wished her a good day.

Luckily, the marriage of her only daughter, Élisabeth was a bit more to her liking and in fact she must have felt some relief when a match with Joseph of Bavaria, the younger brother of Madame la Dauphine was suggested to the girl and, outraged, she declared that she had no intention of marrying a younger son.

Fortunately for Élisabeth there were several suitors for her hand, including the Emperor Joseph I and William III of England, the widower of her cousin, Mary II of England. It was also tentatively suggested that the Princess marry her cousin, the Duc de Maine, another one of La Montespan’s good looking, merry, witty children but her mother nipped this in the bud.

Élisabeth was eventually married at the age of twenty two, which was absolutely elderly by the standards of the day, to the Duc de Lorraine, who was a bit of a step down for a Princess who had been considered a suitable bride for a King and Emperor. The wedding was a very grand affair and took place on the 13th of October 1698 in the chapel at Fontainebleau in front of her family and the entire court, who were probably relieved to have her married at last and also to someone who wouldn’t prompt her terrifying mother to lose her temper with the King.

It wasn’t a love match and had been engineered by necessities of state, but Élisabeth and her new husband, Leopold fell deeply in love and were to be immensely happy together bar a rough patch in the middle of their years together when he had a bit of a mid life crisis and took up with a glamorous French noblewoman. Their chief residence was the Château de Lunéville, which her husband extensively rebuilt and which became known as ‘the Versailles of Lorraine’.

The proximity of Lorraine to Versailles and Paris meant that Élisabeth was a lot more fortunate than many other Princesses, including her own grand-daughters, the daughters of her son Francis and Maria Theresa, who were sent away from home at an early age never to return. Élisabeth, on the other hand, was still able to see her family if not as much as previously then more often than perhaps she could have hoped for before her marriage. She was even a guest at all the great events of the time, including the coronation of her cousin, Louis XV at Rheims Cathedral.

Astonishingly, the marriage of Leopold and Élisabeth produced thirteen children over the years although, like her son and his wife, they would know the extreme sorrow of losing several of them in infancy, including three in the same week to an outbreak of smallpox, which would also be the scourge of the Imperial court.

Francis, the couple’s eldest surviving son and heir to the Duchy of Lorraine was born in Nancy, Lorraine on the 8th of December 1708 after the couple had suffered a temporary estrangement when Leopold had briefly taken up with a mistress and poor Élisabeth, suffering agonies of jealousy and hurt, had pretended to look the other way while they carried on under the same roof.

Francis would go on to capture the heart and then hand in marriage in February 1736, of his cousin, the young Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and would become father of Marie Antoinette, who was said to be his favourite child and like all of the Imperial children bore the name Hapsburg-Lorraine in tribute to their father’s duchy, which he had, much to his sorrow been forced to give up in exchange for the Duchy of Tuscany as part of the terms of his marriage. It’s said that despite being madly in love with Maria Theresa, he had hesitated while in the very act of signing the marriage contract and had in fact put down the pen several times before finally signing so unhappy was he about giving up his duchy to France (it’s complicated but there was a war and the French had always had their eye on Lorraine and so decided to nab it and so on).

His mother was deeply aggrieved about the loss of Lorraine and took up residence in Commercy, which the French made a Principality in an attempt to appease her. She was to die in the Château there on the 23rd of December 1744, at the age of sixty eight and was buried in Nancy beside her husband. http://madameguillotine.org.uk/2011/09/14/marie-antoinettes-french-grandmother/