Marie Thérèse of France
French Madame Royale (1778–1851)
Marie-Thérèse (Marie-Thérèse Charlotte; 19 December 1778 – 19 October 1851) was the eldest child of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France, and their only child to reach adulthood. In 1799, she married her cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, the eldest son of Charles X of France, henceforth becoming the Duchess of Angoulême. She, along with her younger brother, Louis XVII, were the only members of their immediate family to survive the French Revolution.
She became Dauphine of France upon the accession of her uncle and father-in-law, Charles X, to the French throne in 1824. On 2 August 1830, after the July Revolution, both Charles X and her husband signed an instrument of abdication 20 minutes apart. Some popular sources identify her to be a short-reigning Queen of France in the 20-minute interval between the signatures, but scholarly sources generally consider this to be a myth. She is, however, the undisputed legitimate Queen of France from 1836 to 1844 according to the Legitimists.
Early life (1778–1789)
Marie-Thérèse Charlotte was born at the Palace of Versailles on 19 December 1778, the first child (after eight years of her parents' marriage) and eldest daughter of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. As the daughter of the King of France, she was a fille de France, and as the eldest daughter of the King, she was styled Madame Royale at birth.
Marie Antoinette almost died of suffocation during the birth process due to a crowded and unventilated room, forcing men to break open the windows, which had been shut for the winter, in an attempt to revive her.
“Marie Thérèse of France” enters the record as french Madame Royale (1778–1851). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Marie, Thérèse and France can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marie Thérèse of France” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.