Categotry Archives: History
Ah Maria, The End
Maria Theresa’s response to her growing infirmities was to push herself even harder. When she was told that these exertions would be her undoing, she redoubled her efforts. These were not the actions of a woman who was denying her mortality; they were the actions of a woman who knew she was dieing and wanted to get it over with. There was very little in the world that frightened Maria Theresa. Nothing frightened her personally. Certainly not the thought of […]
Ah, Maria, the End is Near
If Maria Theresa, Queen of Austria, was feeling her age by 1780, it isn’t hard to understand why. If she’d had only two children instead of sixteen, and those two were Marie Antoinette and Joseph, that would have been enough to age Mother Theresa prematurely. Toss in fourteen more, the rigors of not just running, but re-building the Austrian Empire from practically the ground up, starting this at age twenty-three, with no formal training, in what was very much a […]
Ah Maria, A Long Distance Scolding
Watching Marie Antoinette take her place in the history books was not easy for her mother. Snubbing the king’s mistress would prove the least of Marie’s mistakes. In 1774, King Louis XV died. The Dauphin became King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette became Queen of France and life did not improve. For Maria Theresa things became, if such were possible, even worse. France was still vital to Austria’s long term strategy of containing Prussia. Maria still had a very full plate, […]
Ah Maria, What Does it Mean to Be Untouchable
As my readers may recall, Marie Antoinette’s finally speaking to Madame Dubarry was hardly the end of her troubles. A baby was still years away and Marie had begun to acquire the very unfortunate habit of publicly displaying contempt for her husband. The girl never learned. Said Joseph after the 1777 visit to Paris, “She does not love him in the least.” I say “The 1777 visit” because it was the big one that finally put some, ahem, firmness, into […]
Ah Maria, It’s a Royal Dressing Down
So many people became embroyled in the stalemate between Marie Antoinette and the King’s mistress, Madame Dubarry – starting with the king’s daughters and ending with, of course, Mom; Maria Theressa of Austria. Marie Antoinette’s continued slighting of Madame Dubarry had finally been pushed to it’s logical, or perhaps I should say illogical conclusion. France and Austria were facing the possibility of war. This was not Marie’s fault alone. Brother Joseph’s connivance in the partition of Poland was the event […]
Ah Maria, How to Tell Who Reigns
Queen Maria accidentally gave Marie Antoinette a puritanical upbringing by example. But she knew when to draw the line. How to teach as much to Marie? “The Court of Versailles was beside itself with delight at the spectacle of this child setting herself up against the King’s mistress, therefore, against Louis himself.” And this was what Marie Antoinette could not grasp. She was too young and too un-worldly to understand what Madame Dubarry meant to King Louis. As a result, […]
Ah Maria, She’s the Most Powerful Woman in France
Maria Theressa of Austria sent her daughter, Marie Antoinette, off to France with little preparation and many fears. Prince Louis didn’t help matters when he put off the consummation for years. Wrote Maria to Marie on the subject of getting her husband to…cooperate…so to speak. “On no account any peevishness, but only tenderness and caresses; for too much eagerness could ruin everything. Gentleness and patience are the only things that can help. Nothing so far is lost. You are both […]
Ah Maria, It Was Merely a Tiff
Having inadvertently raisied Marie Antoinette to have strong, puritanical notions, there was little her mother could do to make her understand the special place of a king’s mistress. “The Court of Versailles was beside itself with delight at the spectacle of this child setting herself up against the King’s mistress, therefore, against Louis himself.” And this was what Marie Antoinette could not grasp. She was too young and too un-worldly to understand what Madame Dubarry meant to King Louis. As […]
Ah Maria, a Match Made in Heaven… or Not.
We now veer sharply into titillating details of Marie Antoinette’s marriage. A proxy marriage ceremony was carried out in Vienna and a game of one-upmanship between Austria and France shifted into high gear. Receptions of the utmost splendor were held at the Belvedere and Liechtenstein Palaces. Full-dress military reviews, theater galas and much more filled the itinerary. And while all this was taking place in Vienna, frantic preparations were under way at Versailles, including the construction of a new opera […]
Ah Maria, How to Educate a Heedless Lady
Mr. Al’s take on Marie Antoinette, as seen by her mother, continues. I must beg forgiveness of all my readers for a mistake that I made last week. I said that Marie Antoinette was not born to be Queen of France. This was quite true. However, she had been pledged to to wed the Dauphin at age eleven. This should have given mom plenty of time to prepare her except for the fact that she actually got married when she […]
Ah Maria, What of Marie Antoinette?
Emperor Joseph wasn’t Queen Maria Theressa of Austria’s only wayward child. In fact, he wasn’t even the best known of the lot. In the great mass of official business that Maria had to attend to, she still found time to correspond with family and friends. After the death of Francis, Maria took, not surprisingly, a great interest in the family affairs of her married children. There were a lot of them. By 1774, only two children remained at home; daughters […]
Ah Maria, It’s School
Queen Maria Theresa had no interest in enlightenment, but she did many progressive things for her people where her son considered himself highly enlightened. What did he do? Maria’s positive achievements during this period were remarkable, if mostly unheralded. While serfdom existed to one degree or another throughout the empire, it was not because Maria wanted it that way or because she accepted the status quo as immutable. As we have seen, Maria was aware, to an extent, of the […]
Ah Maria, Who is Truly Enlightened?
We left off with Empress Maria Theresa of Austria butting heads with her Emperor son, and that’s where we resume with week. “If I conversed only with my equals, I should have to spend my days in the imperial vault.” So wrote the Emperor Joseph. The truth was, while he believed that of himself, he didn’t think that anyone else was worthy of their positions. Time and again he lambasted those whom he felt held their positions because no one […]
Ah Maria, What a Battle
King Joseph, co-regent of Austria and brother to Marie Antoinette, needlessly invaded Bohemia in search of fame and glory. It didn’t quite work out for him. Joseph was right to believe that Frederick did not really want to fight. That is to say, Frederick was not totally committed to fight. Which is not the same as saying he was unable or unwilling to fight. Frederick had 160,00 men and over 850 guns. (cannon) His main reason for hesitating was that […]
Ah Maria, How Can He Measure Up?
Sometimes history hands us the unhappy combination of a juvenile and selfish mind full of arrogance in a position of power. Woe betide the fool who challenges the worth of such an individual. Witness Marie Antoinette’s brother in action. Joseph considered the reputations of some of his peers in the “running an empire” business, and was not happy when he compared his own to theirs. What did they do to be considered “Great?” Catherine in Russia. Great Scot, the woman […]
