Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy

Not to be confused with Princess Maria Teresa of Savoy.

Marie Thérèse of Savoy
Countess of Artois
Marie Thérèse by Périn Salbreux overlooked by a portrait of Marie Clotilde of France
Spouse	Charles Philippe, Count of Artois
Detail Issue
Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême Sophie, Mademoiselle Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry
Full name
Maria Teresa di Savoia
Father	Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy
Mother	Maria Antonia of Spain
Born	31 January 1756(1756-01-31) Royal Palace, Turin, Savoy
Died	2 June 1805(1805-06-02) (aged 49) Graz, Austria
Burial	Graz, Austria
Signature

Maria Theresa of Savoy (Maria Teresa; 31 January 1756 – 2 June 1805) was a princess of Savoy by birth and the wife of Charles Philippe, Count of Artois, grandson of Louis XV. Some nineteen years after her death, her husband was recognised as King Charles X of France.

Background

HRH Princess Maria Teresa of Savoy was born at the Royal Palace in Turin, during the reign of her grandfather Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia. The daughter of the heir apparent and his wife, Victor Amandeus and Maria Antonia of Spain. The couples fifth daughter, her parents had eleven children overall, of which ten survived infancy. She was raised with her sister Princess Maria Giuseppina (Josephine) who was three years her senior.

Betrothal and marriage

Following a series of dynastic alliances, Maria Teresa was betrothed to the Count of Artois, the youngest grandson of the reigning Louis XV of France. Artois had previously been intended to marry Mademoiselle de Condé, the daughter of the Prince of Condé; however the union never took place as Mademoiselle de Condé's rank was much less than Artois who, as a male line descendant of a French monarch, was a grandson of France. The young princess married the count in a proxy ceremony at the Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi before her official marriage which took place at the Palace of Versailles on 16 November 1773. This union was the second of three Franco-Savoyard marriages that would take place within 4 years. In April 1771, her elder sister, Maria Giuseppina (Josephine), had married the Count of Provence; in 1775 Maria Teresa's brother, by then heir to the throne himself, married Princess Marie Clotilde.

Marie Thérèse with her three surviving children, by Charles Leclercq, 1783.

As her husband was the grandson of a king, the newly named Marie Thérèse held the rank of a granddaughter of France and thus a member of the immediate royal family. This rank, allowed to her to maintain the style of Royal Highness which she had had from birth being the granddaughter of a Sovereign. However, at Versailles, the simple style of Madame la comtesse d'Artois was used instead.

She was one of the most disliked figures at the French court of the time, although she avoided the worst of the abuse directed at Marie Antoinette. Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, who corresponded with Empress Maria Theresa regarding Marie Antoinette, said that she was silent and was interested in absolutely nothing^[1] Marie Thérèse was not regarded as a beauty at Versailles but her complexion was generally admired. Maria Theresa was a cousin of the infamous Madame de Lamballe, great friend of the Queen Marie Antoinette; she was also a cousin of the said Prince of Condé who would later be instrumental in leading a large counter-revolutionary army of émigrés.

Roughly a year after Maria Theresa's arrival at Versailles, she became pregnant with her first child, and she gave birth to the first child of the new royal generation. Three weeks after the birth of her son, the Duke of Angoulême, her sister-in-law, Marie Clotilde of France, was married to Maria Theresa's brother, the Prince of Piedmont, in a proxy ceremony at Versailles on 27 August 1775.

The next year she gave birth to a daughter Sophie who was known as Mademoiselle as the most senior unmarried princess at court. She died at the age of six in 1783. She was buried at the Royal Basilica of Saint Denis. Her second son was born in 1778. Her last child Marie Thérèse d'Artois, presumably named after her mother, died while the court was at Choisy-le-Roi aged just 6 months.

She fled France with her husband shortly after the storming of the Bastille (14 July 1789), which marked the beginning of the French Revolution. Some time after, she took refuge in her homeland of Savoy. She died in exile at Graz (Austria) in 1805. Because she died before her husband became king of France, she remained Countess of Artois. She was buried in the Imperial Mausoleum next to Graz cathedral.

Issue

1. Louis Antoine d'Artois, Duke of Angoulême (Versailles, 6 August 1775 – Gorizia, 3 June 1844) married Marie Thérèse of France had no issue.
2. Sophie d'Artois, Mademoiselle d'Angoulême (Versailles, 5 August 1776 – Versailles, 5 December 1783) died in infancy.
3. Charles Ferdinand d'Artois, Duke of Berry (Versailles, 24 January 1778 – Paris, 14 February 1820); married Princess Maria Carolina of Naples and Sicily and had issue.
4. Marie Thérèse d'Artois, Mademoiselle d'Angoulême (Versailles, 6 January 1783 - Château de Choisy, 22 June 1783) died in infancy.

Ancestry

References and notes

Media related to Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy at Wikimedia Commons

1. ^ Fraser, Antonia, Marie Antoinette, The Journey, Anchor Books, (American edition, 2002): in Part One: Madame Antoine, p. 100

See also

Persondata
Name	Maria Theresa Of Savoy, Princess
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	31 January 1756
Place of birth	Royal Palace of Turin, Turin, Kingdom of Sardinia
Date of death	2 June 1805
Place of death	Graz, Austria, Holy Roman Empire