MADAME ROYALE, Marie-Thérèse de FRANCE, dite (1778-1851)

MADAME ROYALE, Marie-Thérèse de FRANCE, dite (1778-1851)

Autograph letter to Théodore Charlet
« G… » [Gorizia, Italy], 24 June 1844, 2 p. 1/4 in-8°
Very minor holes in the lower left corner, of no significance, small ink smudges, upper margin slightly frayed.
Autograph foliation « n°186 »

Madame Royale mourns the death of her husband, Louis de France

« Je ne vous écris qu’un mot par an… partant demain pour que vous disiez à Mr Girese que j’ai reçu sa lettre du 12. que je continue toutes les pensions qu’il faisait et qu’il a bien fait de les faire à la fin de ce mois […] » Madame Royale évoque ensuite plusieurs commissions qu’elle adresse à son correspondant « Je vous prie d’écrire à M de Walkenaer [sans doute l’époque du baron Charles Athanase Walckenaer] que j’ai reçu sa lettre et suis bien sensible à son attachement et à la manière dont elle partage ma douleur. J’ai reçu votre lettre du 5. Je n’ai rien de nouveau à vous dire, je pars demain d’ici… mais la chaleur me fait beaucoup de mal. Adieu, vous connaissez mes sentiments pour vous et les vôtres. […]
Dites aussi au Cte de Bouilly que j’ai reçu sa lettre et celle de sa femme, que je reconnais bien ses sentiments mais que je suis si accablée qu’il m’est impossible de leur répondre […] »

Legitimate heir to the throne, Louis de France renounced his rights in favor of his nephew Henri d’Artois on the very day of his father Charles X’s abdication, during the events of the July Revolution of 1830. Having not abdicated but merely renounced his rights as Dauphin, he never reigned. However, for supporters of the theory of the inalienability of the crown (who recognize neither abdications nor renunciations), he became « Louis XIX » upon his father’s death, and remained so until his own.

Daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte of France, known as Madame Royale (to distinguish her from the king’s sister-in-law), was the first child of the royal couple, born after more than eight years of marriage. Imprisoned with her family in the Temple in 1792, she was the sole survivor, exchanged at the last moment in 1795 for the French commissioners handed over to the Austrians by Dumouriez. In 1799, she married her cousin Louis de France, Duke of Angoulême, son of the future Charles X. The childless death of Louis XVIII made her and her husband the last Dauphin and Dauphine of France. Forced into exile during the July Revolution of 1830, Madame Royale joined the former king Charles X, who had departed with his court for Gorizia, a city under Austrian rule. In 1844, she settled with her relatives and her nephew Henri d’Artois, Count of Chambord, at the Château de Frohsdorf, southeast of Vienna. She died there on 19 October 1851.