HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Maria Josepha of Saxony (Maria Josepha Karolina Eleonore Franziska Xaveria; 4 November 1731 - 13 March 1767) was Dauphine of France through her marriage to Louis, the son and heir 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 ...
. Marie Josèphe was the mother of three kings of France,
Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
,
Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 â€“ 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 y ...
and
Charles X Charles X may refer to: * Charles X of France (1757–1836) * Charles X Gustav (1622–1660), King of Sweden * Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon (1523–1590), recognized as Charles X of France but renounced the royal title See also * * King Charle ...
, as well as the Queen of Sardinia and Madame Élisabeth.


Childhood

Maria Josepha was born on 4 November 1731 in
Dresden Castle Dresden Castle or Royal Palace ( or ) is one of the oldest buildings in Dresden, Germany. For almost 400 years, it was the residence of the electors (1547–1806) and List of rulers of Saxony, kings (1806–1918) of Kingdom of Saxony, Saxony from ...
to Augustus III,
Prince-Elector The prince-electors ( pl. , , ) were the members of the Electoral College of the Holy Roman Empire, which elected the Holy Roman Emperor. Usually, half of the electors were archbishops. From the 13th century onwards, a small group of prince- ...
of
Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
,
King of Poland Poland was ruled at various times either by dukes and princes (10th to 14th centuries) or by kings (11th to 18th centuries). During the latter period, a tradition of Royal elections in Poland, free election of monarchs made it a uniquely electab ...
"Maria Josepha of Saxony, Dauphine of France", The British Museum
/ref> and
Grand Duke of Lithuania This is a list of Lithuanian monarchs who ruled Lithuania from its inception until the fall of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1795. The Lithuanian monarch bore the title of Grand duke, Grand Duke, with the exception of Mindaugas, who was crown ...
and Maria Josepha of Austria. Maria Josepha was the ninth of sixteen children born to the couple, and their fifth daughter. Dauphin Louis, eldest son of King Louis XV of France, was widowed on 22 July 1746 when his wife, Infanta Maria Teresa, died giving birth to their only child, a daughter named after herself. Elisabeth Farnese, Maria Teresa's mother, had offered the Dauphin another sister, Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda. Instead, the King of France and his mistress the Marquise de Pompadour wanted to open up diplomatic channels. The marriage between Maria Josepha and the Dauphin had first been suggested by her uncle Maurice de Saxe. Louis XV and his mistress were convinced that the marriage would be advantageous to French foreign affairs. France and Saxony had been on opposing sides in the recent
War of the Austrian Succession The War of the Austrian Succession was a European conflict fought between 1740 and 1748, primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italian Peninsula, Italy, the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Related conflicts include King Ge ...
and thus the marriage between the Saxon princess and the Dauphin would form a new alliance between the two nations. There was one problem with the suggested bride: Maria Josepha's father
Augustus III of Poland Augustus III (; – "the Saxon"; ; 17 October 1696 5 October 1763) was List of Polish monarchs, King of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1733 until 1763, as well as List of rulers of Saxony, Elector of Saxony i ...
had deposed Stanislaus I Leszczyński from the Polish throne. Leszczyński was the father of Maria Leszczyńska, Louis XV's wife and mother of the Dauphin. The marriage was said to have humiliated the simple-living Queen, even though she and Maria Josepha would later get on well. Other proposals came from
Savoy Savoy (; )  is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Vall ...
in the form of Princess Eleonora of Savoy or her sister Maria Luisa of Savoy. Both were refused. Despite the disapproval of the Queen, Maria Josepha married the Dauphin on 9 February 1747.


Dauphine

Prior to the marriage, tradition demanded that the bride wear a bracelet which had a picture of her father on it; the Queen seeing the Dauphine asked to see the bracelet. The clever Maria Josepha then revealed the bracelet to the Queen, which showed a portrait of the Queen's father. The Dauphine said that the portrait represented the fact that the Duke of Lorraine was Maria Josepha's grandfather by marriage. The Queen and the court were strongly impressed by the tact of this girl of 15 years. The Dauphine was also very close to her father-in-law Louis XV. At the time of the marriage, the Dauphin was still grieving for his Spanish wife. This grief was very public on the part of the Dauphin but Maria Josepha was praised greatly for conquering the heart of the Dauphin "bit by bit". Despite Maria Josepha being the patient wife, the Dauphin's grief worsened in April 1748 when his only child with the Infanta died at the age of two. The Dauphin was deeply affected by the child's death. Maria Josepha later commissioned a painting (now lost) of her stepdaughter to be left over her cradle. The new Dauphine was very grateful to Madame de Pompadour for helping arrange her marriage, and always maintained a good relationship with the royal mistress. Like the Dauphin, Maria Josepha was very devout. Together with her mother-in-law and husband, she formed a counterbalance to the libertine behaviour of her father-in-law and his court. The couple were not fond of the various entertainments held at Versailles every week, preferring to stay in their apartments which can still be seen on the ground floor of Versailles overlooking the '' Orangerie''. The couple's first child was a daughter, born in 1750 on the
feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...
of Saint Zephyrinus and named Marie Zéphyrine. The birth was greeted with much joy by her parents even though Louis XV had been disappointed the child was not a male. She died in 1755. Their second child, Louis, was born on 13 September 1751. The Dauphine was a devoted and loving mother, but favored her eldest son at the expense of her other children. He died on 22 March 1761 of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis. The couple's second son, Xavier, was born in 1753, and died in infancy. As a result, their third son, Louis Auguste, born on 23 August 1754, became second in line to the French throne after his father. Thanks to Maria Josepha's close relationship with the King and the Dauphin, the relationship between father and son was soon repaired. The Dauphin was at the center of the '' Dévots'', a group of religious-minded men who hoped to gain power when he succeeded to the throne. They were against the way Louis XV openly had affairs at court in blatant view of the Queen. Naturally they were not popular with Louis XV. Her father-in-law named his loving daughter-in-law ''la triste Pepa''; in 1756, Frederick II of Prussia invaded her native Saxony and that started the
Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...
, which France later joined. Politically reserved, she exerted herself only once, in 1762, in vain, for the preservation of the
Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...
in France. The Society had been dissolved by order of the
Parlement Under the French Ancien Régime, a ''parlement'' () was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 ''parlements'', the original and most important of which was the ''Parlement'' of Paris. Though both th ...
of Paris, inspired by Jansenist magistrates, against the will of the King.


Later life

The death of her husband, on 20 December 1765, dealt Maria Josepha a devastating blow from which she never recovered, sinking into a deep depression which lasted till her own death 15 months later. Henriette Campan described the state of Maria Josepha during her widowhood: :“The Dauphiness, his widow, was deeply afflicted; but the immoderate despair which characterised her grief induced many to suspect that the loss of the crown was an important part of the calamity she lamented. She long refused to eat enough to support life; she encouraged her tears to flow by placing portraits of the Dauphin in every retired part of her apartments. She had him represented pale, and ready to expire, in a picture placed at the foot of her bed, under draperies of gray cloth, with which the chambers of the Princesses were always hung in court mournings. Their grand cabinet was hung with black cloth, with an alcove, a canopy, and a throne, on which they received compliments of condolence after the first period of the deep mourning. The Dauphiness, some months before the end of her career, regretted her conduct in abridging it; but it was too late; the fatal blow had been struck. It may also be presumed that living with a consumptive man had contributed to her complaint. This Princess had no opportunity of displaying her qualities; living in a Court in which she was eclipsed by the King and Queen, the only characteristics that could be remarked in her were her extreme attachment to her husband, and her great piety." To save her the torment of remaining with memories of her dead husband, Louis XV re-arranged the allocation of apartments within Versailles, so that Maria Josepha moved out of the apartments that she had shared with her husband and into the apartments of Madame de Pompadour, who had died in 1764. There, the king visited her more than he had in the past, paid her many kind attentions, and discussed with her the possible wedding of her son, the new dauphin. Maria Josepha was not pleased with the idea of her eldest son marrying a daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria, in whose favour Maria Josepha's own mother (a cousin of Maria Theresa) had been disinherited. Maria Josepha's health declined. She died on 13 March 1767 of
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
, and was buried in the Cathedral of Saint-Étienne in Sens. The marriage of her son, the future Louis XVl, with Maria Theresa's daughter
Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette (; ; Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last List of French royal consorts, queen of France before the French Revolution and the establishment of the French First Republic. She was the ...
was celebrated three years later.


Issue

*Stillborn son* (30 January 1748) *Stillborn son* (10 May 1749) * Marie Zéphyrine (26 August 1750 – 1 September 1755); died in childhood. * Louis Joseph of France, Duke of Burgundy (13 September 1751 – 22 March 1761); died in childhood. *Stillborn daughter* (9 March 1752) * Xavier of France, Duke of Aquitaine (8 September 1753 – 22 February 1754); died in infancy. *
Louis XVI of France Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
(23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793); married Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria and had issue. * Louis XVIII of France (17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824); married Princess Maria Giuseppina of Savoy, no issue. *Stillborn son* (1756) *
Charles X of France Charles X (Charles Philippe; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother of reigning kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported th ...
(9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836); married Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy and had issue. * Clotilde, Queen of Sardinia (23 September 1759 – 7 March 1802); married Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia, no issue. *Stillborn son* (1762) * Élisabeth (3 May 1764 – 10 May 1794); died unmarried.


Ancestry


References


Sources

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Maria Josepha Of Saxony, Duchess House of Wettin Dauphines of Viennois Dauphines of France Princesses of France (Bourbon) Nobility from Dresden Princesses of Poland 1731 births 1767 deaths 18th-century Polish women 18th-century German people 18th-century German women Albertine branch Daughters of kings Mothers of French monarchs Mothers of Navarrese monarchs Daughters of prince-electors