Draft:Marie Thérèse of France (1746 – 1748)

Marie Thérèse of France
la petite Madame
Born	19 July 1746 Palace of Versailles, France
Died	27 April 1748 (aged 1 and a half) Palace of Versailles, France
Burial	30 April 1748 Basilica of St Denis
House	Bourbon
Father	Louis, Dauphin of France
Mother	María Teresa Rafaela of Spain

Marie Thérèse of France (19 July 1746 – 27 April 1748) was the daughter of Louis, Dauphin of France and María Teresa Rafaela of Spain. Princess of France and fille de France. Marie Thérèse was the older half-sister of three future kings of France: Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, Charles X. She a granddaughter of king Louis XV and queen Marie Leszczyńska.

Biography

Marie Thérèse was born at the Palace of Versailles on 19 July 1746. At court, the baby's birth was an event as it was the first child of the Dauphin, only son of king Louis XV and queen Marie Leszczyńska. The birth was scheduled for early July 1746 but the child was not born until the 19th, much to the annoyance of Louis XV, who hurriedly left Versailles to see his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.

Her mother was exhausted from the labor that had begun the day before. In the rush, the courtiers assumed that the newborn was a boy. The Duke of Luynes recounted: “We heard the king say: “This child is very fat; ‘he’ has a very large head and a very long body.” This ‘he’ led to the conclusion that it was a boy. We later realized the truth.” The disappointment grew when everyone realized that a girl had been born. Only her father seemed unaffected that his first child was not the long-awaited male heir.

The princess, who was nicknamed «la Petite Madame», lost her mother on 22 July, 3 days after her birth. After several serious illnesses, María Teresa Rafaela suddenly passed away at the age of 20. The child was placed under the care of her governess, the Duchess of Tallard (née Marie-Isabelle de Rohan), lady-in-waiting to the queen. At the court of Versailles, the little girl's life was largely unnoticed. In order to secure the dynasty, her father had to take a new wife in February 1747. The new Dauphine Maria Josepha of Saxony, was then a young princess of 16, with the difficult task of raising the heir to the French crown. It was unlikely that she would become a surrogate mother to Little Madame, at a time when only governesses supervised the royal children during their childhood.

At the end of April 1748, the princess suffered from a toothache (possibly teething). The Duke of Luynes left a valuable testimony in his Memoirs at the Court of Louis XV about the illness suffered by the dauphin's daughter. According to her tutor, her illness began shortly after weaning her, on April 26. The Duke of Luynes recorded: “She vomited broth, was in a bad mood and complained of something that made her mouth sting, having five large teeth ready to erupt at the same time.” The princess then suffered convulsions and fever, the vomiting continued despite medical treatment. The child did not want to swallow anything that was not given to her by her father, the king or the queen. Her father attended the debates between the scientists, who finally proposed to administer emetics to her, a remedy “very violent, especially for a child of her age”. He finally agreed “with tears in his eyes”.

As the Duke of Luynes feared, this treatment “caused repeated vomiting” and it was judged that “there was little hope”. The princess was then quickly baptized with the first name Marie-Thérèse, in memory of her mother, according to her father's wishes. She died a few hours after the baptism, on 27 April, either from illness or from vomiting. Marie Thérèse's body was taken to the Tuileries for an autopsy. Her stepmother, Maria Josepha of Saxony, asked Madame de Tallard to bring in an artist, to paint a portrait of the deceased little princess to preserve the traces of the deceased, before the doctors performed the autopsy. According to the Duke of Luynes, two paintings of little Marie-Thérèse were created: “one as she was (for Marie Leszczynska), the other we will color so that she looks alive.” This second painting was placed by Maria Josepha above the child's cradle. Her father was very moved by his second wife's concern when he saw “the smiling angel who had flown away.” Louis Ferdinand mourned greatly for his daughter (until then his only child), who was all that still connected him to Marie-Thérèse-Raphaëlle of Spain, whom he never forgot: “The bond was broken. The grief seemed immeasurable […] and nothing remained of her (Marie-Thérèse) in the palace of Versailles which had known her so little.

According to the Duke of Luynes, a special witness to the event, the autopsy revealed several red spots in the brain […] there were many swellings in the brain and it seems that it was admitted that the teeth were the sole cause of death. The doctors also attributed “the poor quality of the milk she drank” to the fact that La Petite Madame was buried at Saint-Denis on 30 April. The two posthumous portraits, the only representations of the little Marie-Thérèse, have now disappeared.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Marie Thérèse of France (1746 – 1748)
8. Louis, Duke of Burgundy 4. Louis XV of France 9. Marie Adélaïde of Savoy 2. Louis, Dauphin of France 10. Stanisław I Leszczyński 5. Marie Leszczyńska 11. Katarzyna Opalińska 1. Marie Thérèse of France Louis, Grand Dauphin Philip V of Spain Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria 3. María Teresa Rafaela of Spain Odoardo Farnese Elisabeth Farnese Dorothea Sophie of Neuburg