Marie-Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe (Italian: Maria Teresa Luisa; 8 September 1749 – 3 September 1792) was an Italian noblewoman and member of the Savoy-Carignano cadet branch of the House of Savoy. She was married at the age of 17 to Louis Alexandre de Bourbon-Penthièvre, Prince de Lamballe, the heir to the greatest fortune in France. After her marriage, which lasted a year, she went to the French royal court and became the confidante of Queen Marie Antoinette. She was killed in the massacres of September 1792 during the French Revolution.
Contents
Youth
Maria Teresa Luisa was born on 8 September 1749 at the Palazzo Carignano in Turin. She was the sixth child and fifth daughter of Louis Victor of Savoy, Prince of Carignano, a maternal grandson of King Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia and his mistress Jeanne d'Albert de Luynes. Her mother was Landgravine Christine Henriette of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg. At her birth, it is said that many civilians lined the streets, cheering and singing over the birth of Maria Teresa. Little is known about her childhood.
Marriage
On 31 January 1767, Maria Teresa was married by proxy marriage to Louis Alexandre de Bourbon-Penthièvre. He was a son of Louis de Bourbon-Toulouse, Duke of Penthièvre and Princess Maria Teresa d'Este, thus making him a grandson of Louis XIV's legitimised son Louis Alexandre de Bourbon.
The marriage was arranged after it had been suggested by Louis XV as a suitable match as both the bride and the groom were members of the collateral branch of both ruling families, and it was accepted by her family because the King of Sardinia had long wished for an alliance between the House of Savoy and the House of Bourbon.
The wedding by proxy, followed by a bedding ceremony and a banquet, was held at the Savoyard royal court in Turin and attended by the King of Sardinia and his court. On 24 January, the bride crossed the bridge of Beauvoisin between Savoy and France, where she left her Italian entourage and was welcomed by her new French retinue, who escorted her to her groom and father-in-law at the Chateau de Nangis. She was introduced to the French royal court at the Palace of Versailles by Maria Fortunata, Countess de La Marche in February, where she made a favourable impression. In France, she adopted the French version of her name, Marie Thérèse Louise.
The marriage was initially described as very happy, as both parties were attracted to each other's beauty; after only a few months, though, Louis Alexandre was unfaithful with two actresses, which reportedly devastated Marie Thérèse. She was comforted by her father-in-law, to whom she became close.
In 1768, at the age of 19, having been married for just a year, Marie Thérèse became a widow when her husband died of a venereal disease at the Château de Louveciennes, nursed by his spouse and sister. Marie Thérèse inherited her husband's considerable fortune, making her wealthy in her own right. Her father-in-law successfully persuaded her to abandon her wish to become a nun and instead stay with him as his daughter. She comforted him in his grief, and joined him in his extensive charitable projects at Rambouillet, an activity which earned him the name "King of the Poor" and her the nickname "The Angel of Penthièvre".
In 1768, after the death of Marie Leszczyńska, the Queen of France who was immediately fond of Marie Therese Louise, Madame Marie Adélaïde supported a match between her father, Louis XV and the dowager Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Thérèse. Madame Adélaïde, reportedly, preferred a queen who was young and beautiful but lacked ambition; who could attract and distract her father from state affairs, leaving them to Madame Adélaïde herself. The match was supported by the Noailles family. However, Marie Thérèse was not willing to encourage the match herself, and her former father-in-law, the Duke of Penthièvre, was not willing to consent. The marriage plan never materialised.
Lady-in-waiting
Marie Thérèse had a role to play in royal ceremonies, and when the new dauphine, Marie Antoinette, arrived in France in 1770, she was presented to her along with the Dukes and Duchesses of Orléans, Chartres, Bourbon, and the other "Princes of the Blood" with her father-in-law in Compiégne. During 1771, the Duke de Penthiévre started to entertain more, among others the Crown Prince of Sweden and the King of Denmark; Marie Thérèse acted as his hostess and started to attend court more often, participating in the balls held by Madame de Noailles in the name of Marie Antoinette, who was reportedly charmed by Marie Thérèse and overwhelmed her with attention and affection that spectators did not fail to notice. In March 1771 the Austrian ambassador reported:
For some time past the Dauphine has shown a great affection for the Princesse de Lamballe. ... This young princess is sweet and amiable, and enjoying the privileges of a Princess of the Blood Royal, is in a position to avail herself of her Royal Highness's favour.
The Gazette de France mentions Marie Thérèse's presence in the chapel at high mass on Holy Thursday, at which the king was present, accompanied by the royal family, including the Duke de Bourbon and the Duke de Penthièvre. In May 1771, Marie Thérèse went to Fontainebleau, and was there presented by the king to her cousin, the future Comtesse de Provence, attending the supper after. In November 1773, another one of her cousins married the third prince, the Count of Artois, and she was present at the birth of Louis-Philippe in Paris in October 1773. After her cousins had married Marie Antoinette's brothers-in-law, Marie Thérèse came to be treated by Marie Antoinette as a relation, and during these first years, the Counts and Countesses of Provence and Artois formed a circle of friends with Marie Antoinette and Marie Thérèse, and were known to have spent a lot of their time together, Marie Thérèse being described as almost constantly by Marie Antoinette's side. Marie Antoinette's mother, Maria Theresa, somewhat disliked the attachment, because she disliked favourites and intimate friends of royalty in general, though Marie Thérèse was, because of her rank, regarded as an acceptable choice, if such an intimate friend was needed.
On 18 September 1775, following the ascension of Marie Antoinette's husband to the throne in May 1774, Marie Antoinette appointed Marie Thérèse "Superintendent of the Queen's Household", the highest rank possible for a lady-in-waiting at Versailles. This appointment was controversial: the office had been vacant for over thirty years because the position was expensive, superfluous, and gave far too much power and influence to the bearer, giving her rank and power over all other ladies-in-waiting and requiring all orders given by any other female office holder to be confirmed by her before it could be carried out, and Marie Thérèse, though of sufficient rank to be appointed, was regarded as too young, which would offend those placed under her, but the queen regarded it as just a reward for her friend.
French Revolution
During the Storming of the Bastille in July 1789 and the outbreak of the French Revolution, Marie Thérèse was on a leisurely visit to Switzerland with her favourite lady-in-waiting, the Countess de Lâge, and when she returned to France in September, she stayed with her father-in-law in the countryside to nurse him while he was ill, and thus was not present at court during the Women's March on Versailles, which took place on 5 October 1789, when she was with her father-in-law in Aumale.
On 7 October 1789, she was informed of the events of the Revolution and immediately joined the royal family in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where she reassumed the duties of her office. She and Madame Élisabeth shared the apartments of the Pavillon de Flore in the Tuileries Palace, in level with the queen's, and except for brief visits to her father-in-law or her villa in Passy, she settled there permanently.
In the Tuileries Palace, the ritual court entertainments and representational life was to some level reinstated. As the king held his levées and couchers, the queen held a card party every Sunday and Tuesday, and held a court reception on Sundays and Thursdays before attending mass and dining in public with the king, as well as giving audience to the foreign envoys and the official deputations each week; all events in which Marie Thérèse, in her office of Superintendent, participated, being always seen at the queen's side both in public as well as in private. She accompanied the royal family to St. Cloud in the summer of 1790, and also attended the Fête de la Fédération at the Champ de Mars in Paris in July.
Previously unwilling to entertain in the queen's name as her office required, during these years she entertained lavishly and widely in her office at the Tuileries Palace, where she hoped to gather loyal nobles to help the queen's cause, and her salon came to serve as a meeting place for the queen and the members of the National Constituent Assembly, many of whom the queen wished to win over to the cause of the Bourbon monarchy. It was reportedly in the apartment of Marie Thérèse that the queen had her political meetings with Mirabeau.
In parallel, she also investigated the loyalty of the court staff through a network of informers. Madame Campan described how she was once interviewed by Marie Thérèse, who explained that she had been informed that Madame Campan had been receiving deputies in her room and that her loyalty toward the monarchy had been questioned, but that Marie Thérèse had investigated the accusations by use of spies, which had cleared Madame Campan from the charges. Madame Campan writes, "The Princesse then showed me a list of the names of all those employed about the Queen's chamber, and asked me for information concerning them. Fortunately, I had only favorable information to give, and she wrote down everything I told her."
Imprisonment
On 19 August 1792, Marie Thérèse, Louise-Élisabeth de Croÿ de Tourzel and Pauline de Tourzel were separated from the royal family and transferred to the La Force prison, where they were allowed to share a cell. They were removed from the Temple at the same time as two valets and three female servants, as it was decided that the royal family should not be allowed to keep their retainers.
During the September Massacres, the prisons were seized by mobs, and the prisoners were placed before hastily assembled people's tribunals, which judged and executed them summarily. Each prisoner was asked a handful of questions, after which the prisoner was either freed with the words "Vive la nation", and permitted to leave, or sentenced to death with the words "Conduct him to the Abbaye" or "Let him go", after which the condemned was taken to a yard where they were immediately killed by a mob of men, women and children.
The massacres were opposed by prison staff, who allowed many prisoners to escape, particularly women. Of about two hundred women, only two were ultimately killed.
Pauline de Tourzel was smuggled out of the prison, but her mother and the Princesse de Lamballe were too well known to be able to escape in this way. Their escape would have risked attracting too much notice.
Almost all women prisoners tried before the tribunals in the La Force prison were freed of charges.
Among them were almost all the former members of the royal household who were kept in La Force at the time. The former royal governesses
Madame de Tourzel and Marie Angélique de Mackau, as well as the lady-in-waiting the Princesse de Tarente, the queen's lady's maid Marie-Élisabeth Thibault, Madame Royale's lady's maid Madame Bazile, the dauphin's nurse Madame Marie Jorel de Saint-Brice, and Madame Elsabeth's lady's-maid Madame Marie-Thérèse de Navarre, as well as the wife of the king's valet Madame de Septeuil, were all allowed to depart - as were even two male members of the royal household; the king's valet Claude Lorimier de Chamilly and the dauphin's valet François Hue.
Death
On 3 September 1792, Marie Thérèse and Madame de Tourzel were taken out to a courtyard with other prisoners, waiting to be taken to the tribunal. She was brought before a hastily assembled tribunal which demanded she "take an oath to love liberty and equality and to swear hatred to the King and the Queen and to the monarchy". She agreed to take the oath to liberty but refused to denounce the king, queen, and monarchy. Her trial was summarily ended with the words "emmenez madame" ("take madame away"). She was in the company of Madame de Tourzel until she was called into the tribunal, and the exact wording of the summary trial is stated to have consisted of the following swift interrogation:
She was then quickly escorted by two guards to the door of the yard where the massacre was taking place; on her way there, the agents of her father-in-law followed and again encouraged her to swear the oath, but she appeared not to hear them. When the door was finally opened and she was exposed to the sight of bloody corpses in the yard, she reportedly cried "Fi horreur!" ("fear be damned") or "I am lost!", and fell back, but was pulled out into the front of the yard by the two guards. Reportedly, the agents of her father-in-law were among the crowd, crying "Grâce! Grâce!", but were soon silenced with the shouts of "Death to the disguised lackeys of the Duc de Penthièvre!" One of the killers, who was tried years later, described her as "a little lady dressed in white", standing for a moment alone. Reportedly, she was first struck by a man with a pike on her head, which caused her hair to fall upon her shoulders, revealing a letter from Marie Antoinette which she had hidden in her hair; she was then wounded on the forehead, which caused her to bleed, after which she was stabbed to death by the crowd.
There are many different variations of the exact manner of her death, which attracted great attention and were used in propaganda for many years after the Revolution, during which it was embellished and exaggerated. Some reports, for example, allege that she was raped, and her breasts sliced off in addition to other bodily mutilations. There is, however, nothing to indicate that she was exposed to any sexual mutilations or atrocities, which was widely alleged in the sensationalist stories surrounding her infamous death.
Treatment of remains
The treatment of her remains has also been the subject of many conflicting stories. After her death, her corpse was reportedly undressed, eviscerated and decapitated, with its head placed upon a pike. It is confirmed by several witnesses that her head was paraded through the streets on a pike and her body dragged after by a crowd of people shrieking "La Lamballe! La Lamballe!". This procession was witnessed by a M. de Lamotte, who purchased a strand of her hair which he later gave to her father-in-law, as well as by the brother of Laure Junot.
Some reports say that the head was brought to a nearby café where it was laid in front of the customers, who were asked to drink in celebration of her death. Some reports state that the head was taken to a barber in order to dress the hair to make it instantly recognizable, though this has been contested. Following this, the head was put on the pike again and paraded beneath Marie Antoinette's window at the Temple.
Marie Antoinette and her family were not present in the room outside which the head was displayed at the time and thus did not see it. However, the wife of one of the prison officials, Madame Tison, saw it and screamed, upon which the crowd, hearing a woman scream from inside the Temple, assumed it was Marie Antoinette. Those who were carrying it wished her to kiss the lips of her favourite, as it was a frequent slander that the two had been lovers, but the head was not allowed to be brought into the building. The crowd demanded to be allowed inside the Temple to show the head to Marie Antoinette in person, but the officers of the Temple managed to convince them not to break into the prison. In Antonia Fraser's historical biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, Fraser claims Marie Antoinette did not actually see the head of her long-time friend, but was aware of what was occurring, stating, "...the municipal officers had had the decency to close the shutters and the commissioners kept them away from the windows...one of these officers told the king '...they are trying to show you the head of Madame de Lamballe'...Mercifully, the Queen then fainted away".
After this, the head and the corpse were taken by the crowd to the Palais-Royal, where the Duke of Orléans and his lover Marguerite Françoise de Buffon were entertaining a party of Englishmen for supper. The Duke of Orléans reportedly commented "Oh, it is Lamballe's head: I know it by the long hair. Let us sit down to supper", while Buffon cried out "O God! They will carry my head like that someday!"
In media
The Princesse de Lamballe has been portrayed in several films and miniseries. Two of the more notable portrayals were by Anita Louise in W. S. Van Dyke's 1938 film Marie Antoinette, and by Mary Nighy in the 2006 film Marie Antoinette, directed by Sofia Coppola. In the 1989 miniseries La Révolution française she was played by Gabrielle Lazure. In the television series Marie Antoinette, which began airing in 2022, she is played by Jasmine Blackborow. She is also mentioned in the 1905 children's book A Little Princess--the main character, Sara, is fascinated with the French Revolution and recounts the Princess's death to her friend.