Marie Thérèse ''Françoise'' de Choiseul (8 December 1766 – 27 July 1794) was a French noblewoman and a Monegasque princess, married to

Prince Joseph of Monaco Prince Joseph Marie Jerôme Honoré of Monaco (10 September 1763 – 28 June 1816) was the second son of Honoré III, Prince of Monaco, and Maria Caterina Brignole and the younger brother of Prince Honoré IV. Joseph served as regent of Mona ...

in 1782.

Life

She was the daughter of Jacques Philippe de Choiseul, Duke of Stainville, and Thérèse de Clermont, and the niece of

Étienne François, duc de Choiseul Étienne, a French analog of Stephen or Steven, is a masculine given name. An archaic variant of the name, prevalent up to the mid-17th century, is Estienne. Étienne, Etienne, Ettiene or Ettienne may refer to: People Artists and entertainers * ...

, the chief minister of

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...

. On 6 April 1782, she married

. The marriage was described as a happy one. In March 1793, Monaco was annexed to Revolutionary France, and the members of the former ruling dynasty became French citizens. In parallel, her spouse spent most of his time abroad to negotiate foreign loans, which made him a suspect of counter-revolutionary activities and thus made whole family suspected of being traitors. He became, in fact, involved in the royalist uprising in Vendée. Marie Thérèse de Choiseul was arrested in the absence of her spouse, as was his father, his brother and his sister-in-law. Arrested in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

on charges of conspiracy, Marie Thérèse was imprisoned with her family in the

Sainte-Pélagie Prison Sainte-Pélagie was a prison in Paris, in active use from 1790 to 1899. It was founded earlier than that, however, in 1662, as place for "repentant girls" and later "debauched women and girls." The former Parisian prison was located between the ...

. Her small daughters were left in the care of their governess. She was condemned to death. To delay the execution, she pretended to be pregnant, but was discovered not to be with child. She admitted having lied about her pregnancy, but explained that she had done so to delay the execution only for a day, so that she may have time to cut off her own hair and give it to her daughters as a memory, rather than have it cut by the executioner. She applied for a meeting with

Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville (, 10 June 17467 May 1795), also called Fouquier-Tinville and nicknamed posthumously the Provider of the Guillotine was a French lawyer and accusateur public of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the French R ...

, and spent her last day in his waiting room, but was forced to leave without having had time to meet him. Her execution on 27 July would be one of the last during the

Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...

; on the same day, the

Thermidorian Reaction In the historiography of the French Revolution, the Thermidorian Reaction ( or ''Convention thermidorienne'', "Thermidorian Convention") is the common term for the period between the ousting of Maximilien Robespierre on 9 Thermidor II, or 27 J ...

saw the violent fall of the

Jacobin The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential political cl ...

government, which saw the executions of

Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; ; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognised as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre ferv ...

as well as

René-François Dumas René-François Dumas (14 December 1753 – 28 July 1794) was a revolutionary French lawyer and politician, regarded as an ally of Maximilien Robespierre. He was guillotined along with Robespierre in Paris. Biography Dumas was born in Jussey, in ...

, the prosecutor in the princess's trial.

Issue

* Princess ''Marie Camille'' Grimaldi of Monaco (22 Apr 1784 – 8 May 1879); married René, Marquis of La Tour-du-Pin, and had issue. * Princess ''Athénais'' Grimaldi of Monaco (2 June 1786 – 11 September 1860); married Auguste Le Tellier, Marquis of Louvois, and had no issue. * Princess Delphine Grimaldi of Monaco (born 22 July 1788); died young.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Choiseul, Marie Therese de 1766 births 1794 deaths Marie Therese French people executed by guillotine during the French Revolution Place of birth missing House of Grimaldi Executed French women Executed royalty Executed French nobility