Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily

Not to be confused with Princess Maria Amalia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1818–1857).

Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily
Queen consort of the French
Consort	9 August 1830 – 24 February 1848
Spouse	Louis Philippe I
among others... Issue
Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans Louise, Queen of the Belgians Marie, Duchess Alexander of Württemberg Louis, Duke of Nemours Clémentine, Princess of Kohary François, Prince of Joinville Charles, Duke of Penthièvre Henri, Duke of Aumale Antoine, Duke of Montpensier
House	House of Orléans House of the Two Sicilies
Father	Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies
Mother	Maria Carolina of Austria
Burial	Chapelle royale de Dreux, Dreux, France
Religion	Roman Catholic

Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, sometimes known as Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies (Maria Amalia Teresa; 26 April 1782 – 24 March 1866) was a Princess of Naples and Sicily^[1] and later the Queen of the French from 1830–1848, consort to Louis Philippe I.

Biography

Early years

Princess Maria Amalia was born on 26 April 1782 at the Caserta Palace outside Naples, Italy. Her parents were the King of Naples and Sicily, Ferdinand IV, and his wife, the Austrian daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, Maria Carolina.

Her mother’s sister, Marie Antoinette, was queen of France at the time of Maria Amalia’s birth.

His brothers included Prince Carlo, Duke of Calabria, who died of smallpox^[2] in 1778; the future King Francis and Prince Leopold, Prince of Salerno.

Her older sisters included the future Holy Roman Empress, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Princess Maria Cristina, was the wife of the future Charles Felix of Sardinia and Queen of Sardinia; Maria Cristina's twin Princess Maria Cristina Amelia died in 1783 of smallpox. The last surviving daughter was the future Princess of Asturias.

His cousin's included the Duke of Parma, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Holy Roman Emperor, Queen of Portugal, King of Spain and a Duchess of Calabria, the first wife of his brother Francis.^[3]

As a young Italian princess, she was educated in the Catholic tradition which she appears to have taken to heart. Her mother, Maria Carolina, like her famous mother before her,^[2] Empress Maria Theresa, made an effort to be a part of her daughter’s life, though she was cared for daily by her governess, Donna Vicenza Rizzi.^[4] As a child, Maria Amalia’s mother and her aunt, Marie Antoinette, arranged for her to be engaged to Marie Antoinette’s son, the future king of France, due to which, her mother encouraged her to remember that she would someday be his queen.^[5] Tragically, her young fiance died in 1789.^[6]

Maria Amelia faced chaos and upheaval from a young age. The death of her aunt Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution and her mother’s subsequent dramatic actions emblazoned the event in the young girl’s memory.^[7]

On the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 the Neapolitan court was not hostile to the movement. When the French monarchy was abolished and her aunt and uncle were executed, her parents joined the First Coalition against France in 1793.

Although peace was made with France in 1796, by 1798 conflict was again fierce. It was decided that the royal family flee to the Kingdom of Sicily. The family left Naples on 21 December 1798 on board the HMS Vanguard, a British Royal navy vessel which was in turn protected by two Neapolitan warships.

It was on board the warship that her younger brother Alberto died of exhaustion on Christmas Day aged 6, 1798.^[2] He was buried in Palermo soon after the family arrived there; his funeral was the first official engagement his family attended in Sicliy.^[2]

She was forced to leave her home at the age of 18 and spent the next few years jumping from various royal dwellings to escape turbulent times in Italy.

While in flight, she encountered her future husband, Louis Philippe d'Orléans, also forced from his home in France due to political complications of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. Louis-Philippe's father, the previous Duke of Orléans, had been guillotined during the French Revolution, though he had advocated it in the early years.^[8]

The two were married in 1809, three years after they met in Italy whereupon Marie-Amelie became the Duchess of Orléans. Unfortunately for Marlie-Amelie, she went to France with her new husband in 1814, where she attempted to make a home with her growing family, but with Napoleon’s brief return, she was forced to flee yet again. Prior to her husband’s rise to power, Maria Amalia and her husband had to cope with a persistent money problem due to the fact that they had no income aside from that which they were given by the English crown.^[9] This must have been particularly difficult for Maria Amalia given her ideas about the superiority of royals and the ways in which they were to conduct themselves.

During the d’Orléans’ time in France prior to Louis-Philippe’s coronation, the family lived in the Palais-Royal which had been the home of Louis Philippe’s father, the previous Duke of Orléans. Despite the monetary worries of the family, in total, the house was returned to its original splendor at cost to the couple of eleven million francs.^[10]

Tenure as Queen

In 1830, following what is known as the July Revolution, Louis-Philippe became king of France, with Maria Amalia as his consort and queen of the July Monarchy. Maria Amalia did not play an active role in politics and in fact made a concerted effort to remove herself from it.^[11] This seems to have been the result of her personality, training, and conception of the role of monarchy. She may also have been aware of the backlash in France against women asserting power over politics where, it was thought, they had undue influence. This became painfully clear with the example of her late aunt, Marie Antoinette. Though she was not a political woman, as a queen known to be a staunch supporter of monarchy in its traditional conception, Maria Amalia was able to escape the suspicion of many of the French who worried that her husband’s ideology was not monarchical enough and tended toward middle class, bourgeois, values at the expense of the proper treatment and conduct of royalty.

Exile and death

After her husband was forced from kingship in the extremely turbulent events of the Revolution of 1848, the royal family fled to England. Louis-Philippe died two years later. After the death of her husband, Maria Amalia continued to live in England where she attended daily Mass and was well known to Queen Victoria.^[12] Queen Maria Amalia died on 24 March 1866.^[13] After her death, the dress she had kept since 1848 when her husband had left France was put on her, according to her last wishes.^[14]

Issue

Name	Picture	Birth	Death	Notes
Prince Ferdinand d'Orléans		3 September 1810	13 July 1842	Married Duchess Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, had issue.
Louise d'Orléans		3 April 1812	11 October 1850	Married Leopold I of Belgium, had issue.
Princess Marie d'Orléans		12 April 1813	6 January 1839	Married Duke Alexander of Württemberg, had issue.
Prince Louis d'Orléans		25 October 1814	26 June 1896	Married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had issue.
Françoise Louise Caroline d'Orléans		26 March 1816	20 May 1818	Died aged two.
Princess Clémentine d'Orléans		6 March 1817	16 February 1907	Married Prince August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had issue.
Prince François d'Orléans		14 August 1818	16 June 1900	Married Princess Francisca of Brazil, had issue.
Prince Charles d'Orléans		1/16 January 1820	25 July 1828	Died aged eight.
Prince Henri d'Orléans		16 January 1822	7 May 1897	Married Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, had issue.
Prince Antoine d'Orléans		31 July 1824	4 February 1890	Married Infanta Luisa Fernanda, Duchess of Montpensier, had issue.

Ancestry

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 26 April 1782 – 25 November 1809 Her Royal Highness Princess Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily
• 25 Nov 1809 – 9 August 1830 Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Orléans
• 9 August 1830 – 24 February 1848 Her Majesty the Queen of the French
  • 24 February 1848 – 26 August 1850 Her Majesty the Queen of the French (preteder)
• 24 February 1848 – 26 August 1850 Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Orléans
• 26 August 1850 – 24 March 1866 Her Royal Highness the Dowager Duchess of Orléans
  • 26 August 1850 – 24 March 1866 Her Majesty the Dowager Queen of the French

Further reading

• Howarth, T.E.B. Citizen-King, The Life of Louis-Philippe, King of the French. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1961.

• Margadant, Jo Burr. "The Duchesse de Berry and Royalist Political Culture in Postrevolutionary France. History Workshop Journal, No. 43, (Spring, 1997).

• Margadant, Jo Burr. “Gender, Vice, and the Political Imagery in Postrevolutionary France: Reinterpreting the Failure of the July Monarchy 1830–1848.” American Historical Review 104.5, (1995).

• Paris, Isabelle comtesse de. La Reine Marie-Amelie, Grand-mere de l'Europe. Paris: Perrin, 1998.

References

1. ^ The joint kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were later known as the Kigdom of the Two Sicilies
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Dyson. C.C, The Life of Marie Amelie Last Queen of the French, 1782–1866, BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008, p. 50.
3. ^ They were the parents of the famous duchesse de Berry
4. ^ Dyson, p. 31.
5. ^ Dyson, p. 35.
6. ^ Dyson, p. 37.
7. ^ Dyson, p. 39.
8. ^ Dyson, p. 100.
9. ^ Dyson, p. 112.
10. ^ Dyson, p. 153.
11. ^ "Marie-Amélie de Bourbon". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1357132/Marie-Amelie-de-Bourbon. Retrieved 2009-12-26. 
12. ^ Dyson, p. 295.
13. ^ Dyson, p. 306.
14. ^ Dyson, p. 307.

Bibliography

• Dyson, C. C. (1910). The life of Marie-Amélie. New York, New York: D. Appleton and Company. OCLC 526786. 

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

Media related to Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies at Wikimedia Commons

Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies Cadet branch of the House of Bourbon Born: 26 April 1782 Died: 24 March 1866
French royalty
Vacant Title last held by Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France as Queen of France and of Navarre	Queen consort of the French 9 August 1830–24 February 1848	Vacant Title next held by Eugénie de Montijo as Empress of the French
Titles in pretence
Vacant Title last held by Marie Thérèse of France as Queen of France and of Navarre	— TITULAR — Queen consort of the French 24 February 1848–26 August 1850	Vacant Title next held by Marie Isabelle d'Orléans
Preceded by Marie Thérèse of Austria-Este as consort of the disputed king, also titular queen until 1883		Vacant Title next held by Marie Beatrice of Austria-Este as Queen of France and Navarre

Persondata
Name	Maria Amalia Of Naples And Sicily
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	26 April 1782
Place of birth	Caserta Palace, Italy
Date of death	24 March 1866
Place of death	Claremont, Surrey, England