Children of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

[Marengo]

I own & have read the same book as well & Marie-Antoinette was not that terrible. However, her daughter could not have become Queen-regnant in France only men could inherit the throne. After the napoleontic area the throne went to the brothers of Louis XVI, the childless Louis XVIII and Charles X. Charles X had to abdicate in 1830 in favour of the Orleans family. The son of Charles X married Marie-Therese, only daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette of Austria. The marriage was childless so all rights went to the next in line, the Orleans family. But because the Bourbon-supporters (legetimists) hated the Orleans family because in their eyes they had upsurped the throne in 1830, they turned their eye to the spanish Bourbons.
Most people see agree that the Orleans family are the true pretenders to the throne & that the self claimed Duke of Anjou has no base for his claim. Leading geneologists, most of the french aristocracy, magazines and other royal families all support the Orleans claim, even King Juan-Carlos of Spain!
I have a much higher opinion of the duke de Vendome then of Luis-Alfonso de Borbon y Martinez. As I said, the entire issue is caused by the dislike of some people of the Orleans family & that is why they searched & searched untill they found someone vein enough to support them in their childish battle.
The house of Napoleon is very modest about their claims & do not realy participate in this matter.

[hillary_nugent]

don't you think her life was so fascinating? well fascinating until the last few years of her life...golly her mother the Empress was soooooooooo dominating...i wouldn't stand it if i had a mother like her...and in reading the book i learnt that the 'let them eat cake' story has been linked to many princesses and queens before and after her...the book illustrates a Marie-Antoinette that totally contradicts the image people have portrayed about her...she seemed genuinely kind and nice, i only wished she had descendants...

hey was all of Louis XVI siblings executed during the revolution as well? wouldn't their descendants be the heir to the French throne?

[queenanne]

There have been several rumors that the Dauphin survived and was taken somewhere else. One says he lived in Canada, one somewhere else and so on. Marie Therese did survive the Revolution, but died childless.

[EmpressRouge]

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there is a con-man who calls himself the Dauphin and claims to be "Loo-ie" the son of Louis XVI and heir to the French throne, so the rumor that the Dauphin survived did circle around.

[hillary_nugent]

wow interesting...lets say if the Dauphin did survive and his descendents exist, would they have the rights to claim any properties or items of the royal family? sorry for these silly questions but i'm very curious =]

[queenanne]

Originally Posted by hillary_nugent

wow interesting...lets say if the Dauphin did survive and his descendents exist, would they have the rights to claim any properties or items of the royal family? sorry for these silly questions but i'm very curious =]

I would imagine that they would have every right, but I may be wrong. There may be legal technicalities to prevent such a thing. Anyone else?

[Queen Mary I]

This is a fascinating thread! And so sad! :( Quite haunting really. Forensics experts were going to something similar to Mozart's alleged skull next year I believe. With the advent of DNA they can prove once and for all if the skull is Mozart's. They exhumed the remains of his relatives and are going to attempt to prove if it is really the Music Man himself as it were.

Any updates on the mysterious Madame Royale?

[mardam]

Pictures of her grave are on www.royaltyguide.nl
Choose: Countries: Germany: Hildburghausen

[Harry's polo shirt]

So have they found any information about the grave?
I like how the quotes in #4 are, it goes from anger to forgivness. It is sad but an interesting thing that she wanted forgivness for those who wronged her family.

[bbb]

sad and fascinating thanks for the story
i'm interested in what the dna will reveal, i love this site, i would never have known about something so interesting.

[RubyPrincess168]

Wow! When will they have the results? It'll be interesting to see what the goverments would do as far as reburiel, etc. if it matched.

[norwegianne]

There is a book out about Marie Therese, wherein the mystery is mentioned: MARIE-THÉRÈSE, CHILD OF TERROR: The Fate of Marie Antoinette’s Daughter. By Susan Nagel.

New York Times has a review of the book here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/bo...0A&oref=slogin

[Empress]

I am actually in the middle of reading that book. So far it's pretty good.

[Susana]

I too am just finishing this book; I had no idea in spite of voracious reading on the French and the Revolution that Ernestine was a half-sister to the Children of France. However in regard to the identity of the Dark Countess I cannot believe that the hundreds of courtiers surrounding Marie-Therese Charlotte after her release from the Temple would a. not have noticed that she was actually not 'she' but another female AND b. that if they had noticed they would have all been able to keep the secret. Has there been a DNA test? Is there a resolution to this mystery? Please post if you know the results. Thank you.

[Warren]

I don't know the resolution but here are two sites which discuss the mystery:

Dunkelgrafen (Wiki - The "Dark Counts")

Community of interest Madame Royale ("The Dark Countess of Hildburghausen")
.

[Vasaborg]

An American woman claims the Dauphin survived ! she says she is descended from him! She even wrote a book about it !

[V.F.H.78]

Many people said the Dauphin Louis XVII wasn't dead and many people pretended to BE the Dauphin.
But Louis XVII is really dead in the prison of the Temple and they were all usurpers.
The most famous usurper is Karl-Wilhelm Naundorff.

[AnnaDeBorn]

Some time ago there was an article about the Dauphin in the Catalan-language history magazine Sàpiens. It gathers all the details known so far including recent DNA tests but it’s no closer o solving the mystery. There is plenty of room to doubt that the boy who died in The Temple was Louis XVII though. Apparently he was almost literally walled so that nobody could actually see him and, curiously enough, it’s documented that on 23 May 1794 Robespierre took him out only to bring him back 24 hours later. Was he the same child?
Furthermore, when Paul Barras (who had never seen the Dauphin before) visited him in July 1794 he found a half-demented deaf and dumb teenager, when Louis should have been 9 years old. The body of the dead boy was dug out and analyzed twice, in 1846 and 1894, and it was agreed that it belonged to a 15 or 16 year-old. He was certainly not the Dauphin.
The article does not give credibility to any of the usurpers either, it just states that the Dauphin’s fate remains a mystery to this day….

[monica17]

Originally Posted by hillary_nugent

don't you think her life was so fascinating? well fascinating until the last few years of her life...golly her mother the Empress was soooooooooo dominating...i wouldn't stand it if i had a mother like her....the book illustrates a Marie-Antoinette that totally contradicts the image people have portrayed about her...she seemed genuinely kind and nice, i only wished she had descendants...

MA may have been kind and nice and being that may have helped....but it wasn't enough. Although I like her a lot, I have to admit that she was also proud, heedless, lazy, pleasure-loving, extravagant, and did not appear to make any serious efforts to befriend either the nobility or the common people nor understand France's situation. Personally, I can compare her with Empress Sisi of Austria, both partook of the privileges of being Queen/Empress while avoiding any real work. MA and her husband did nothing effective to counter the lampoons against them. While they were both very young when wed, they had more or less 15 years to make themselves a bit more receptive to the times and realities of their country. I have the book by Antonia Fraser but there are many other good ones on her as well. I am of the opinion that it is a bit too sympathetic to her although I like the vast amount of details in it. That being said, I do like MA and her sisters very much and find them very fascinating. But she (and her husband too) was the wrong person to effectively counter the tremendous challenges sweeping the nation and their enemies. So IMHO, she wasn't certainly blameless although I do not think she deserved her fate at the end.

Her life is indeed very fascinating -- and with such extreme contrasts in the beginning and the end of it. I think all but two children--perhaps with the only exceptions were Leopold and Maximilian -- of Empress Maria Theresa's children had tragedies and/ or misfortunes in their lives. Maria Theresa was indeed too dominating/harsh. Many of her children, her favorite child Mimi seemed to be the only exception, resented their mother's control and domination.

If Vasaborg and I have read of the same woman, then American woman who claims to be descended from MA and Louis XVI through Louis VII is a member of another royalty forum that I go to. I don't think she has any documentary proof yet of her claim. She did say that she has done research on their family's genealogy for decades and wants to do some DNA testing later on. She has a bunch of pictures and perhaps some family legends, I think. If I'm not mistaken the book is called "Could Marie Antoinette have been my Great-great-great Grandmother....?' or similar.

[Vasaborg]

Yes that is the American Woman , it was in that royalty forum that you are a member of that i found out about this claim.