Marie Joséphine of Savoy (; 2 September 1753 – 13 November 1810) was a princess of France and Countess of Provence by marriage to the future King Louis XVIII of France. She was regarded by Bourbon royalist Legitimists as the titular 'Queen of France' when her husband assumed the title of king in 1795 upon the death of his nephew, the titular King Louis XVII of France, until her death. She was never practically queen, as she died before her husband actually became king in 1814.
Early life and marriage (1753–1773)
Marie Joséphine was born at the Royal Palace of Turin on 2 September 1753 as the third child and second daughter of Prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy and Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain. At the time of her birth, her paternal grandfather, Charles Emmanuel III, was the King of Sardinia, thus her parents were styled Duke and Duchess of Savoy. Her brothers included the last three kings of Sardinia from the senior line of the House of Savoy: the future Charles Emmanuel IV, Victor Emmanuel I, and Charles Felix.
Marriage Marie Joséphine was engaged to the French prince Louis Stanislas, the Count of Provence. Her aunts, Maria Luisa of Savoy and Eleonora of Savoy, were once proposed as brides for Louis Stanislas's father Louis Ferdinand.
Marie Joséphine was by view of rank and connections deemed very suitable for a marriage to a French prince, and she had been regarded as a suitable bride of the dauphin prior to his marriage in 1770.Sandars, Mary Frances. Louis XVIII (Kelly - University of Toronto, 1910). The marriage was supported by Madame du Barry, who wished to create an ally within the royal family and who the king allowed to form the household of the new princess with her allies, notably the Countess de Valentinois as the principal lady-in-waiting.
Marie Joséphine was married on 16 April 1771 by proxy in the Kingdom of Sardinia, then again in person on 14 May 1771 at the Palace of Versailles. The wedding ceremony by proxy, followed by a bedding ceremony and a banquet, was held at the Sardinian royal court in Turin, after which the bride crossed the Bridge of Beauvoisin between Savoy and France, where she left her Sabaudian entourage and was welcomed by her new French retinue. She was introduced to the French royal family and court at the Palace of Fontainebleau, where she was met by her cousin, the Princesse de Lamballe. A ball followed the wedding on 20 May.
The marriage was arranged as a part of a series of Franco-Sardinian dynastic marriages taking place in a time span of eight years: after the wedding between her first cousin the Princesse de Lamballe and Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Prince of Lamballe, and the wedding between Marie Joséphine and Louis Stanislas, her younger sister Maria Theresa was married to her younger brother-in-law, the Count of Artois (future King Charles X of France) in 1773, and her eldest brother Prince Charles Emmanuel of Savoy (the future king of Sardinia) was married to her sister-in-law Princess Clotilde of France in 1775. Her eldest brother-in-law, Dauphin Louis Auguste (the future Louis XVI of France), had married Marie Antoinette one year earlier.
Her marriage to a Petit-fils de France (Grandson of France) allowed her to assume the rank of petite-fille de France (Granddaughter of France). At the death of her husband's grandfather Louis XV in 1774, her brother-in-law succeeded as Louis XVI; as the eldest brother of the king, her spouse took on the style Monsieur, and Marie Joséphine was thus under the reign of her brother-in-law known under the style of Madame.
Countess of Provence (1773–1791)
The marriage of Marie Joséphine had been deemed necessary by Louis XV because the dauphin had not consummated his marriage, and there may thus prove to be necessary to leave the task to provide the next heir to the throne to the Count of Provence, who was second in line in succession after his brother. The Franco-Sardinian marriage alliance was greatly disliked by Austria and Empress Maria Theresa, who feared that Marie Joséphine might gain influence upon Louis XV in France in favour of Sardinia, (which was the rival of Austria) in Northern Italy, and that she would undermine the position of the childless Marie Antoinette if she gave birth to an heir to the French throne while the marriage of the dauphin was still unconsummated.
Marie Joséphine received 300,000 livres' worth of jewels from Louis XV, three-quarters of the dauphine's casket, and from the Count of Provence his portrait as "a pledge of the sentiments that are engraved in my heart for you."Fraser, Antonia, ORION, London 2002,
She did not make a good impression upon her arrival in France, and was described as small, plain, with sallow skin and what Louis XV called “a villainous nose”, and as a person as timid, gauche and "ill educated in all those graces considered so important at Versailles", coming from the more strict Sardinian court, where rouge was found repugnant. It was alleged that she never brushed her teeth, plucked her eyebrows, or used any perfumes.Mansel, 13–14 In order to rectify the bad impression of her appearance, the ambassador to France from Sardinia was required to ask her father to tell her about the necessity for a careful toilette, in particular with regard to her teeth and hair: “It is embarrassing for me to discuss such things, but these mere details to us are vital matters in this country”. After Madame du Barry told Marie-Josephine rouge would please her husband, she bought an ample supply and told her chief lady-in-waiting, the Countess de Valentinois, to apply it copiously, agreeing to adjust herself to the customs in France.
Her spouse Louis Stanislas, aware of the gossip surrounding the unconsummated marriage of his elder brother the dauphin, made a point of boasting of vigorous conjugal relations between him and his spouse, so as to avoid the widespread suspicions that their marriage was not consummated. Later in his life Louis Stanislas suffered from obesity—all existing painted portraits and engravings of him in 1771 show him to be of normal weight, and the idea that he was too obese to consummate his marriage is without historical supporting evidence. Marie Antoinette did dismiss the Count of Provence's boasting, and assured her mother that a consummation of his marriage “would need a miracle.” Some contemporaries thought Louis Stanislas reportedly proclaimed his wife to be pregnant merely to spite Louis Auguste and Marie Antoinette, who had not yet consummated their marriage.Fraser, 115 Years later the Sardinian ambassador to France reported that there was never a question of a physical union between them. Marie Joséphine herself reported in February 1772 that she was quite sure she was not pregnant “and it’s not my fault.” The first of two confirmed pregnancies occurred in 1774, indicating consummation between the years 1772 and 1774. Marie Joséphine reportedly suffered a miscarriage in 1774.Mansel, 14–15 A second pregnancy in 1781 also miscarried, and the marriage remained childless.Mansel, 10 During these first years of their marriage, the couple lived together in some affection, and Marie Antoinette commissioned a sketch by Jean-Honoré Fragonard where a couple sits in front of a fireplace with cotton caps and muffs in their laps: the sketch was meant to mock the Count and Countess with a motive which hinted that they preferred to live secluded together.
During her first years in France, the three royal couples - the count and countess of Provence, the count and countess of Artois, the Dauphin and Dauphine - as well as the princesse de Lamballe, who was the favorite of Marie Antoinette, formed a circle of friends and acted in amateur theater plays together, before an audience only consisting of the dauphin. During these years, the count and countess of Provence are frequently mentioned as accompanying the crown prince couple on sleigh rides, masquerades, opera performances and other entertainments.Bertin, Georges: Madame de Lamballe, New York : G. A. S. Wieners, 1901 As the second lady of the French court after the queen, she alternated with the Mesdames de France in accompanying Marie Antoinette on official representational assignments.Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette. Stockholm: Norstedts Förlag AB. The seemingly good relationship between the four couples somewhat deteriorated, however, after the succession of Louis XVI to the throne in 1774. Louis XVI and Louis Stanislas did not enjoy a harmonious relationship. They often quarreled,Fraser, 120 as did their wives.Mansel, 111 The Count of Provence actually challenged the legitimacy of Marie Antoinette's first child, and until the birth of a male heir by Marie Antoinette, he did everything in his power to promote himself and his wife as better fitted to be next-in-line for the throne. Without children or political influence, Marie Joséphine intrigued against the Queen, but without much success, while her spouse orchestrated a true country-wide opposition against her. She was well educated in literature - she had her own library installed in her apartments - and was estimated to have been of no small intelligence and with a good ability to accustom to court intrigues. The brother of Marie Antoinette, Emperor Joseph II, said of her during his visit to France in 1777 that she was "ugly and vulgar, not a Piedmontese for nothing, a mess of intrigues." After the first few years, the Count and countess of Provence lived largely separate lives. Louis Stanislas was reputed to have a romantic relationship with his favorite courtier, the Duke d'Avaray (other biographers, like Mansel and Sanders, believe it was a friendship and nothing more). Marie Joséphine for her part was reputed to have a romantic relationship with her favorite lady-in-waiting Marguerite de Gourbillon. She preferred to spend most of her time in her private retreat villa, the Pavillon Madame in Montreuil, on which she spent lavishly and constructed a fashionable model village with a pavilion of music, and a model village with twelve houses, dovecotes and windmills, a dairy made of marble with silver vessels, as well as allegorical temples consecrated to love and friendship, a hermitage and a belvedere.
Prior to the meeting of the Estates General, every member of the royal family was publicly mocked by libelous verses, in which Marie Joséphine was satirized for her alleged alcoholism.
Revolution
In contrast to her sister and brother-in-law the count and countess of Artois, who left France soon after the Storming of the Bastille in July 1789, the count and countess of Provence remained in France after the outbreak of the revolution. They were present at the Palace of Versailles during The Women's March on Versailles, which took place on 5 October 1789.
After the Women's March, they were forced to move to Paris along with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. However, while the rest of the royal family stayed in the Tuileries Palace, Marie Joséphine and her spouse lodged in the Luxembourg Palace, which was their normal city residence in Paris.Fraser, 361–362 They regularly attended court in the Tuileries and were also present at the evening family suppers, where Marie Joséphine was described as humorous and entertained with character reading of people's faces. Their presence was welcomed by the queen at this point, as Marie Antoinette came to distrust strangers for political reasons and turned to her family for company.