Tales of the Lady 3 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Madame Royale

Marie-Therese was born on December 19, 1778. As the daughter of the King of France, she was given the title, fille de France, which means Daughter of France; as the oldest daughter, however, she also was given the title, Madame Royale, which was reserved for the oldest living unmarried daughter of the king of France. It was understood that when Marie-Therese eventually married or her father died, she would relinquish the title.

Marie-Thérèse had a difficult start in life. She almost suffocated at birth because the room was filled people who had a right to be witnesses. Her father ordered that a window be opened, which revived the new baby, and made sure that there were not so many spectators at the births of his other children.

Answer: Her maternal grandmother

Marie-Thérèse was named after Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, her maternal grandmother, who ruled Hapsburg lands from 1740-1780. She was the only Hapsburg woman to ever rule; her father, Charles VI, saw to that by issuing the Pragmatic Sanction, which worked out who would be the heir in the case that he only had daughters. It did not, however, happen that easily. In spite of the agreement, war broke out - the War of the Austrian Succession - after Maria Theresa took the throne and it took five years to settle the matter of her ascension. It has been written that Marie-Thérèse asked that all of her oldest granddaughters be named after her.

Marie-Thérèse's middle name, Charlotte, was the name of Marie Antoinette's favorite sister, Maria Carolina of Austria, who the family called Charlotte.

Answer: False

Apparently, Marie Antoinette felt that her husband's family was a bit too uppity, especially some of his spinster aunts! This, of course, is very surprising, considering what was recorded about her attitude concerning her own royal status!

Marie-Therese reportedly played regularly with other children who were lower in status than she, and was encouraged to share her toys as well. There is an account, written by Madame Campan, who was a servant to Marie Antoinette, that tells of an incident on New Year's Day in 1784, where Marie told her daughter that she had given all of her money to a "crowd of unhappy people who have no bread to eat, no clothes to wear, no wood to make a fire". Interesting!

Answer: 3

Marie-Thérèse had two brothers, Louis Joseph Xavier François, the heir born in 1781, and Louis Charles de France, who was born four years later. A sister, Sophie Hélène Béatrix, was born in 1786. Sadly, Marie-Thérèse was the only sibling to survive past the age of ten.

Madame Sophie died of tuberculosis when she was 11 months old. The same disease took Louis Joseph in 1789, a month before the Storming of the Bastille. Her younger brother, Louis Charles, became the new heir apparent. He is typically known as Louis XVII, although he never ruled. Louis Charles died in 1795 after being kept alone for years in deplorable living conditions by members of the new revolutionary government. Honestly, the story about his treatment evokes sympathy for the young prince still today.

Answer: Tuileries Palace

It is quite astonishing to look at the royal family's lack of action toward their deepening peril as revolutionary ideas began to take over. Louis did encourage members of the royal family to emigrate to safer countries, but did not seem to worry about the safety of his immediate family. In October 1789 they were forced to leave Versailles and return to Paris, where they were essentially kept under lock and key at the Tuileries Palace, which had been the main residence of French kings before Versailles was constructed.

At this time, from 1789-93, the royal family benefited from the fact that the revolutionaries had not agreed on the type of government for the newly liberated France. There were still those who favored a type of limited monarchy, and as long as that option was on the table, Louis and Marie's family was relatively safe; they had some freedom of movement inside the palace and on its grounds. But their attempted escape to Austria in 1791 changed that. Didn't Louis try to leave France? Wasn't that an act of treason? Is he really an enemy of the Revolution? In August 1793, the family was moved to another location. This time it was a prison.

Answer: False

After the Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, the seven prisoners who were inside were set free, and the destruction of the prison, symbol of all the wrongdoing of the Old Regime, began. Within months the Bastille was in ruins.

Louis, Marie, Marie-Thérèse, and other family members were taken to Temple Tower in August 1792; it was a medieval fortress that was built by the Knights Templar. By January 1793 Louis XVI was dead; in July of that year her brother, the heir apparent, was taken to a separate room, and Marie-Thérèse stayed with her mother and her aunt, Louis' youngest sister, Elizabeth. Marie Antoinette was executed in October 1793, and Elizabeth in May 1794. Marie-Thérèse could hear her brother's screams, presumably from beatings, but was not allowed contact with him; he died in June 1795. She was not informed regarding the fate of any of her family members until August 1795.

Answer: Reading

Sources agree that during the time of her imprisonment, which lasted over three years, Marie-Thérèse was allowed to have two books - "The Imitation of Christ", which was a book of devotions, and "Voyages", a collection of books (it appears that she had one of them) about exploration. Her requests for more books, and anything else for that matter, were denied. It is believed that after the execution of her aunt, Elizabeth, Marie-Thérèse was alone for quite a long time. Is there any wonder that she wrote that she was "the most unhappy person in the world" on the wall of her room?

When the Terror was over, Marie-Therese was allowed to leave her prison, just before her seventeenth birthday. She was part of a trade of French prisoners, and was taken to Vienna.

Answer: Louis Antoine d'Artois

Marie-Thérèse did not enjoy her time in Vienna, believing that her mother's family could have done more to help during the course of the Revolution. She made her way to Russia, where her father's brother, who had taken the name Louis XVIII, was living. He arranged for her marriage to Louis Antoine d'Artois, who was the son of King Louis XVI's youngest brother, the future Charles X of France.

Apparently Marie-Thérèse knew that this was the wish of her father and mother, and agreed to the arrangement for that reason, refusing to marry Archduke Karl, her Austrian family's choice. She was given a ring that her father had worn and became known as the Duchess of Angoulême. The couple had no children.

Answer: Germany

Marie-Thérèse was taken to Vienna after being released from prison, but left there to be with her French family shortly thereafter. They were living in what is Russia (Latvia today), under the protection of the Russian czar, and this was where she married her husband. Before their return to France, the family moved to Great Britain; Marie-Thérèse lived with her husband in Buckinghamshire, while her father-in-law lived in Edinburgh.

After the overthrow of Napoleon, twice after his abdication in 1814 and his defeat at Waterloo, the family returned to France. When republican forces began another bid to take over the government, they returned to Edinburgh, then Prague, and back to Austria (now Italy), where her father-in-law and husband both died. She remained in Austria until her death in 1851.

Answer: Bourbon Restoration

After Napoleon was exiled to Elba, the royal family returned to France with Louis' brothers, Louis XVIII and Charles X on the throne from 1814-1830. This had to be a difficult time for Marie-Thérèse, who attempted to right what she could - she especially made sure that her parents and brother were given proper burials. When Napoleon escaped from Elba during the Hundred Days, the other members of the family fled France; Marie-Thérèse, who was in Bordeaux at the time, stayed; it was an act that Napoleon was said to have greatly admired, in spite of the fact that his army forced her to leave the country.

The family returned to rule France after the Battle of Waterloo, but Louis XVIII died in 1824. When Charles X ascended the throne, his son, Marie-Thérèse's husband, Louis Antoine, became the heir apparent. After the Revolution of July 1830 began, both Charles and her husband abdicated, an act that led to the labeling of Louis Antoine as Louis XIX. Some believe that for the twenty minutes between the signing of their abdications, Marie-Thérèse was the rightful Queen of France.