Maria Teresa Felicita d'Este

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Maria Teresa Felicita d'Este, posthumous portrait painting by Rosalie Grossard in Castle Eu

Maria Teresa Felicita d'Este ( French Marie Thérèse Félicité d'Este ; born October 6, 1726 in Reggio nell'Emilia , † April 30, 1754 in Paris ) was an Italian princess from the Este family and by marriage Duchess of Penthièvre .

Life

Maria Teresa Felicita (right) with her mother Charlotte Aglaé (left)

Maria Teresa Felicita was the eldest daughter and third child of the Duke of Modena , Francesco III. d'Este , and his wife Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans , daughter of the French regent Philippe II. de Bourbon . She was born on October 6, 1726 at 5 p.m. in Reggio nell'Emilia. Because her father was on the side of France in the War of the Austrian Succession , he was expelled from his duchies by the Austrians and Sardinians in June 1742 . Maria Teresa mother therefore returned to her family in France with her daughters in 1743. In early 1744, her mother decided to marry her to Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon , the eldest son of Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse . This agreement only came about against the opposition of the grandmother Maria Teresas, because Françoise Marie de Bourbon , the widowed Duchess of Orléans , did not want her granddaughter married to a man who was not a prince of the blood . However, because both the plan to marry the Italian princess to the Duke of Chartres and the plan to give her to the Prince of Conti as a wife failed, Maria Teresa Felicita married at noon on December 29, 1744 in the Palace Chapel of Versailles the 19-year-old Duke of Penthièvre in the presence of the entire royal family and the Princes of the Blood. Contemporaries described the blonde 18-year-old as no beauty, but as tall and with a beautiful complexion. The war events of the year were the main reason why the marriage only took place at this point in time, although it had already been decided at the beginning of the year. They delayed the wedding considerably. In addition, a papal dispensation was necessary for the marriage , because the bride and groom had common ancestors with King Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan and were related in the 2nd degree. This marriage license did not arrive in Versailles until December 20th. The church ceremony was presided over by Cardinal Rohan after the marriage contract had been signed the day before as part of a solemn act in the ox-eye hall ( French Salon aaleil de bœuf ). Shortly after the marriage, Maria Teresa and her husband probably traveled to Rambouillet to the castle there .

The following ten-year marriage between the two was considered happy, and the Duke of Penthièvre was fond of his young wife throughout her life. After the birth of her first son Louis Marie in January 1746, Maria Teresa followed her husband to Brittany when, in his capacity as governor, he organized the province's defense against British troops. In September 1747, while her husband was still in Brittany, she gave birth to her second son Louis Alexandre in Paris. Further pregnancies of the Duchess followed almost every year. The marriage resulted in a total of seven children, but only two of them reached adulthood:

  • Louis Marie (January 2, 1746 - November 15, 1749), Duke of Rambouillet
  • Louis Alexandre (6 September 1747 - 6 May 1768), Prince of Lamballe, ⚭ 1767 Marie-Louise of Savoy-Carignan
  • Jean Marie (born November 17, 1748 - May 19, 1755), Duke of Châteauvillain
  • Vincent Marie Louis (June 22, 1750 - March 14, 1752), Count of Guingamp
  • Marie Louise (October 18, 1751 - September 25, 1753)
  • Louise Marie Adélaïde (March 13, 1753 - June 23, 1821), Mademoiselle de Penthièvre, ⚭ 1769 Louis-Philippe II Joseph de Bourbon , Duke of Orléans
  • Louis Marie Félicité (April 29, 1754 - April 30, 1754)

In February 1754, Maria Teresa fell ill with pneumonia during her seventh pregnancy and her condition deteriorated noticeably. Her son Louis Marie Félicité was born prematurely at the end of April, and the Duchess died just twelve hours after giving birth on April 30 at 2 a.m. at the age of only 27. Together with the body of her youngest son, who died just one day after his birth, she was transferred to Rambouillet on May 2nd, where she was buried next to her other children in the church there the following day. Her husband mourned his late wife and, although only 29 years old, never remarried. After the sale of Rambouillets to Louis XVI. he had the remains of Maria Teresa reburied in November 1783 in the collegiate church of Saint-Étienne of the Dreux castle . Only ten years later the tombs were broken into by revolutionaries and the corpses buried in a mass grave. They were later reburied in the Chapelle royale de Dreux , built by Maria Teresa's daughter Louise Marie Adélaïde .

literature

  • Jean Duma: Les Bourbon-Penthièvre (1678-1793). Une nébuleuse aristocratique au XVIIIe siècle . Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-85944-272-3 , p. 38 ( online ).
  • F. Lorin: Rambouillet: La ville. - Le Château. - Ses Hôtes. In: Mémoires de la Société archéologique de Rambouillet. Volume 19. Aubert, Versailles 1906, pp. 446-454 ( online ).
  • Jean Vatout: Le château d'Eu. Notices historiques. Volume 5. Malteste, Paris 1836, pp. 147-148 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Maria Teresa Felicita d'Este  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Louis Moreri: Supplement au grand Dictionnaire historique, genealogique, geografique, etc. Volume 1: A – L. Lemercier [u. a,], Paris 1735, p. 411 ( online ).
  2. ^ Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (ed.): Burke's Royal Families of the World. Volume 1: Europe & Latin America. Burke's Peerage, London 1977, p. 88
  3. ↑ a b c d F. Lorin: Rambouillet: La ville. - Le Château. - Ses Hôtes , p. 446.
  4. ^ A b Edmond Jean François Barbier: Chronique de la régence et du règne de Louis XV (1718–1763). Volume 3: 1735-1744. Charpentier, Paris 1857, p. 478 ( online ).
  5. ^ Edmond Jean François Barbier: Chronique de la régence et du règne de Louis XV (1718–1763). Volume 3: 1735-1744. Charpentier, Paris 1857, p. 479 ( online ).
  6. ^ A b Pierre Narbonne: Journal des règnes de Louis XIV et Louis XV de l'année 1701 à l'année 1744. Bernard, 1866, p. 641 ( online ).
  7. ↑ J. Duma: Les Bourbon-Penthièvre (1678–1793) , p. 38.
  8. ↑ J. Vatout: Le château d'Eu , p. 147.
  9. ↑ J. Vatout: Le château d'Eu , p. 148.
  10. ^ F. Lorin: Rambouillet: La ville. - Le Château. - Ses Hôtes , p. 447.
  11. ↑ The following information, unless otherwise noted, based on Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (Ed.): Burke's Royal Families of the World. Volume 1: Europe & Latin America. Burke's Peerage, London 1977, p. 88.
  12. ↑ a b F. Lorin: Rambouillet: La ville. - Le Château. - Ses Hôtes , p. 452.
  13. ^ F. Lorin: Rambouillet: La ville. - Le Château. - Ses Hôtes , p. 453.
  14. ↑ a b Louis Sandret: Revue nobiliaire historique et biographique. New series, volume 8. Dumoulin, Paris 1873, p. 465 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Este, Maria Teresa Felicita d '
BRIEF DESCRIPTION by marriage to the Duchess of Penthièvre
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1726
PLACE OF BIRTH Reggio nell'Emilia
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1754
Place of death Paris