Empress Maria Theresa and her large family

[prinzheinelgirl]

Further to the post earlier on the hatred for the Jews in Prague, I've just read that Maria Theresa had a chilly relationship with her Bohemian subjects as a whole, not only with the Jews. She called the St Wenceslas Crown as a 'fool's cap' and described it as heavier on her head than the Hungarian crown....and for many years, she wasn't able to forgive the Bohemians for paying homage to her enemy, the Elector of Bavaria, when Prague was conquered by the Bavarian and French troops.  The thing is, the Bohemians found themselves forced to pay homage to Charles VII as their king, it was not done willingly. But MT couldn't see that distinction and saw it as a betrayal of her subjects (she wasn't crowned sovereign yet at that point , the coronation was done in 1743) in her greatest hour of need. While the Bohemians  referred  to her as the "stepmother of Bohemia".

I'm sorry if I upset anyone here, but the above information lends more credence to MT bearing grudges and resentments for years whenever she felt slighted.

(The source above is the World of the Habsburgs, a wonderful  site on the Habsburgs and the historical context of the times, which a project of the Austrian federal government so the information can be relied upon.)

Regarding the author Paul Tabori mentioned earlier,  he was a member of the Austrian P.E.N. Club and a colleague of Stefan Zweig; they also collaborated on a book.

[prinzheinelgirl]

Here are the exact quotes in German regarding Mimi's thoughts and feelings on Marie Antoinette. The letters were indeed addressed to her friend (and distant cousin) Eleonore of Liechtenstein (as forum member Marc suggested earlier in the Maria Amalia thread); my German is rather poor so I wouldn't like to translate it word per word (although I get what they mean in general); perhaps someone in the forum could translate?

1.08.1789:
"Was sagen Sie, meine teure Freundin, über die schreckliche Lage meiner Schwester in Paris ? Ich leide sehr mit ihr. Wer hätte gedacht, daß es in einer Stadt wie Paris solche Grausamkeiten gäbe. (...)"

06.09.1789:
"Dieser gute König ist sehr zu bedauern, dies hat er nicht verdient. Seine Absichten und Pläne waren nur auf das Glück und das Wohlergehen seiner Völker gerichtet.
Er war zu meiner Schwester zu gut, aber auch zu launenhaft. Sie ist jetzt das Opfer. Die Erbitterung, die man gegen sie hegt, alles das, was man gegen sie sagt und druckt, ist unvorstellbar. Trotzdem hat sie meiner Meinung nach das einzig Richtige getan: weder Drohung noch Furcht konnten sie aus Versailles wegbringen und sie vom König trennen."

25.06.1791:
"Ich habe seit dem Tod meines angebeteten Vaters und meiner Mutter kein größeres Leid erfahren als die Nachricht von dem unglücklichen Schicksale meiner armen Schwester. Sie werden wissen, daß sie kaum vier Meilen weit von der Grenze gefangengenommen wurde. Wenn sie einen anderen Weg eingeschlagen hätte, wäre sie gerettet gewesen wie Monsieur und seine Frau. Ich bin untröstlich über meine unglückliche Schwester und ihre unschuldigen Kinder."

11.11.1793:
"Hätte Maria Theresia geglaubt, daß sie Kinder zu Welt setzen würde, damit diese zum Spielball der Bösen werden, zu Boden gedrückt durch die Meute, bedeckt mit Schande, um schließlich am Schafott zu sterben? Ich kann mich nicht trösten über die Leiden, die die letzten Stunden dieser Unglücklichen gezeichnet haben."

[Marc]

Good to know I guessed right about which Eleonore is in question...and thanks for putting quotes in one place!

[Eric_Lowe]

I hope someone could translate that. :-(

[Marc]

Eric,if you are really interested, copy>paste>google translate ;P

I did it and it works

[Eric_Lowe]

I tried but...Guess I am a bit low tech...

[CountessKate]

Not a very good translation, and I find the second section a little obscure in parts; corrections welcome!

08/01/1789:
"What do you say, my dear friend, about the terrible situation of my sister in Paris? I suffer so much with her. Who would have thought that in a city like Paris there could be such cruelty. (...)"

09/06/1789:
"This good king is very much to be pitied, and does not deserve his situation. His policies and plans were focused only on the happiness and welfare of his people. He was too good to my sister, but also capricious. She is now the victim. The bitterness which is felt against her, and all that is said and printed about her, is unimaginable. Nevertheless, she has done in my opinion the only right thing: neither threat nor fear will take her away from Versailles and separate her from the king. "

06/25/1791:
"I have not suffered so much since the death of my adored father and my mother as I have in learning of the misfortunes of my poor sister. You will know that they were captured barely four miles from the border. If they had taken a different route, they would have been saved as Monsieur and his wife were. I am heartbroken about my unfortunate sister, and her innocent children. "

11/11/1793:
"Had Maria Teresa believed that she would bring children to the world to be at the mercy of the wicked, thrown to the ground by the mob, covered with shame, and finally to perish on the scaffold? Nothing can console me for the suffering of these unfortunate beings in their last hours.”

[Eric_Lowe]

Thanks CountessKate ! Appreciate it ! :-)

[joahannagabriela]

Why does Johanna Gabriela wasn't called as Maria Johanna unlike her sister they were called maria.....
is it true that the Godfather of Johanna Gabriela is King George III of England?
isn't that MAria Josepha is the favorite sister of Joseph II, does it means that Joseph have a close relationsip with Johanna too?

[CountessKate]

Johanna Gabriela's full name was in fact Maria Johanna Gabriela Josepha Antonia.
Joseph wasn't particularly fond of Johanna Gabriela, but his wife Isabel was, and was very upset at her death.

[ivanushka]

Joseph wasn't particularly fond of Johanna Gabriela, but his wife Isabel was, and was very upset at her death.

Do you know why Joseph wasn't particularly fond of Johanna: was she not a very likeable personality or was it just one of those things?  As she died so young we know so little about her.  Apparently her sister Josepha was both very pretty and very sweet.  I've always imagined Johanna was too but probably only because I associate one with the other being that they were so close in age, both engaged to the same man and both died so young.  Not that that means much, I guess.  After all, Caroline and Antoinette were always considered a pair and yet they were very different personalities!

[CountessKate]

[[/quote]
Do you know why Joseph wasn't particularly fond of Johanna: was she not a very likeable personality or was it just one of those things?  As she died so young we know so little about her.  Apparently her sister Josepha was both very pretty and very sweet.  I've always imagined Johanna was too but probably only because I associate one with the other being that they were so close in age, both engaged to the same man and both died so young.  Not that that means much, I guess.  After all, Caroline and Antoinette were always considered a pair and yet they were very different personalities!
[/quote]

Derek Beales writes in his biography of Joseph II that "he notoriously enjoyed baiting his sisters.  The archduchess Josepha...must have been an exception, since Joseph was extremely fond of her."  He therefore suggests that it was not that Joseph was particularly fond of his sisters but not of Johanna, but that he was not especially friendly with any of his sisters, except for Josepha.  She was supposed to have a particularly gentle and pliant personality, which perhaps appealed to Joseph, who had uneasy relationships with women generally, and many of his sisters had strong personalities which not unnaturally clashed with his.  He was charmed with Marie Antoinette when he visited her in France many years after she had left Austria, possibly because she appeared to be willing to defer to him, and certainly put herself out to charm him; and he adored his first wife Isabel, who similarly charmed and deferred to him, whatever her private feelings might have been.  Johanna may simply not have appeared particularly deferential or pleasant, and therefore might have been lumped in with the other sisters, while Josepha's more obvious sweetness marked her out for his favour.

[ivanushka]

Yes, now I think about it, I can see that Joseph who may have felt uncomfortable with forceful women may have problems with a lot of his sisters.  Christine, Amalia and Caroline were all very strong personalities and Johanna may well have taken after them.  As for Elizabeth, I believe that before the smallpox she was very narcissistic and someone once said that her best friend was her mirror.  Joseph does always seem to have been fond of Antoinette and perhaps it was because she was very similar to Josepha in both looks and personality.

[CountessKate]

Below is a very nice portrait of an archduchess (because of the style of crown) by Johann Gottfried Auerbach (1697-1753), which has been tentatively suggested to be one of the daughters of Josef I, either Maria Josefa or Maria Amalia.  As a result, the portrait has been misiinterpreted on several websites (including Wikipedia) as a portrait of the archduchess Maria Amalia, the daughter of Maria Theresa.  As she would have been 7 when Auerbach died, this seems somewhat unlikely, but nevertheless I don't think the features of the archduchess portrayed resemble either of Josef I's daughters, while the style of dress suggest a dating of after the mid 1720s, when hoops started to widen and flatten, at which stage Maria Josefa and Maria Amalia would have been married women and unlikely to have been portrayed as archduchesses.  It clearly isn't Maria Theresa and it doesn't much resemble her sister, Maria Anna, either.  So I'm wondering whether it could possibly be Maria Theresa's daughter, Marianne (this was her name in the family which I'm using to differentiate her from her aunt).  There is some resemblence between the features of the archduchess in this portrait to Jean-Etienne Liotard's pastel drawing of Marianne in 1762, and at the latest date at which she could have been portrayed by Auerbach, in 1753, she would have been 14 or 15.  Here are the two portraits; what do others think?

 

[prinzheinelgirl]

Yes, now I think about it, I can see that Joseph who may have felt uncomfortable with forceful women may have problems with a lot of his sisters.  Christine, Amalia and Caroline were all very strong personalities and Johanna may well have taken after them.  As for Elizabeth, I believe that before the smallpox she was very narcissistic and someone once said that her best friend was her mirror.  Joseph does always seem to have been fond of Antoinette and perhaps it was because she was very similar to Josepha in both looks and personality.

Archduchess Maria Johanna was said to be strong-willed although more talented than her younger sister, Maria Josepha.  Joseph II lacked modesty and thought he had the best mind in the family so people who had a mind of their own probably did not sit very well with him.  He did like Maria Carolina better than he did Marie Christine or Maria Amalia or Maria Elisabeth. I wonder why. Perhaps he felt a bit sorry for what she had to put up with in the early years of her marriage. There seems to no mention that he liked her that much in Vienna.

Below is a very nice portrait of an archduchess (because of the style of crown) by Johann Gottfried Auerbach (1697-1753), which has been tentatively suggested to be one of the daughters of Josef I, either Maria Josefa or Maria Amalia.  As a result, the portrait has been misiinterpreted on several websites (including Wikipedia) as a portrait of the archduchess Maria Amalia, the daughter of Maria Theresa.  As she would have been 7 when Auerbach died, this seems somewhat unlikely, but nevertheless I don't think the features of the archduchess portrayed resemble either of Josef I's daughters, while the style of dress suggest a dating of after the mid 1720s, when hoops started to widen and flatten, at which stage Maria Josefa and Maria Amalia would have been married women and unlikely to have been portrayed as archduchesses.  It clearly isn't Maria Theresa and it doesn't much resemble her sister, Maria Anna, either.  So I'm wondering whether it could possibly be Maria Theresa's daughter, Marianne (this was her name in the family which I'm using to differentiate her from her aunt).  There is some resemblence between the features of the archduchess in this portrait to Jean-Etienne Liotard's pastel drawing of Marianne in 1762, and at the latest date at which she could have been portrayed by Auerbach, in 1753, she would have been 14 or 15.  Here are the two portraits; what do others think?

Yes, the features in the two portraits are indeed similar. As for it being Maria Amalia, Maria Theresa's daughter, I'm not sure the features correspond to hers much. In that family portraits by Meytens done in the 1750s (where she was at the back with  Maria Johanna and Maria Josepha) she was depicted as a rather grown girl; certainly looking older and more "mature" than her older sisters Marie Christine (wearing black) or even Maria Elisabeth in front, and she was only around 7-10 years old at most. I wonder if she just "matured" too early?  not only with her sisters, but Leopold and Charles in front seem "puny" compared to her....