Print - Die Welt der Habsburger

Maria Theresa:
Europe’s mother-in-law
The ‘changement des alliances’, the rapprochement of
the Habsburg Monarchy with France, constituted the
diplomatic revolution of the 1750s: the hostile
dynasties of Bourbon and Habsburg united to take on
their mutual enemies Prussia and Britain.
In order to strengthen the alliance between the dynasties
marriages were arranged with the various lines of the
Bourbons who ruled in Parma, Naples and Spain as well
as France.
This change had been wrought by State Chancellor Wenzel
Anton von Kaunitz (1711–1794), who initially started secret
negotiations with France, ruled at the time by Louis XV. Maria
Theresa found an important point of contact in the king’s
mistress of several years, Madame de Pompadour, who had
great influence over the monarch. Although the circumstances
at the court of Versailles were deeply abhorrent to the
puritanically inclined Maria Theresa, she was pragmatic enough
to overlook them.
The new policy of alliance was to be tested in 1756, when the
Seven Years’ War broke out, a conflict between the leading
powers of Europe that assumed the dimensions of a global war
through the spread of hostilities between France and Britain to
their overseas colonies. From Maria Theresa’s point of view the
object of contention was Silesia, the war a last attempt at reconquering the wealthy province.
In 1760, as a sign of the new unity between Austria and
France, while the Seven Years’ War raged in Europe, the first of
the Bourbon-Habsburg marriages was celebrated, between
Maria Theresa’s eldest son and heir Joseph and Isabella of
Bourbon-Parma. The bride was from a collateral northern Italian
line of the royal French dynasty but was a granddaughter of
Louis XV on her mother’s side.
In 1765 a second marriage followed: Maria Theresa’s secondeldest son Leopold married Maria Luisa, the daughter of
Charles III, the Bourbon king of Spain. The wedding
celebrations in Innsbruck were overshadowed by the sudden
death of Franz Stephan.
The death of Franz Stephan removed a major opponent of the
rapprochement with France. Maria Theresa’s husband greatly
mistrusted France and what he saw as an ‘unnatural’ alliance.
He resisted the marriage schemes of his wife for their children
and thus became increasingly isolated from the political arena.
Following his death in 1765 Kaunitz was now free to act, and a
whole series of marriages with members of the Bourbon
dynasty took place.
Archduchess Maria Josepha was chosen as the bride for King
Ferdinand of Naples and Sicily. The bridegroom was considered
unprepossessing and described as uncouth and mentally
retarded. The bride escaped her fate by dying suddenly of
smallpox shortly before the wedding was due to take place.
Fearing that this important match might otherwise be lost,
Maria Theresa offered her next-eldest daughter Maria Karolina
as a replacement. The Bourbon king accepted the proposal and
thus Maria Karoline moved to Naples in 1768.
Yet another union with the Bourbon dynasty was forged with
the marriage of Archduchess Maria Amalie to Ferdinand of
Bourbon-Parma in 1769. However, the most important of these
unions and at the same time the crowning of Maria Theresa’s
endeavours to establish a dynastic network in Europe, was the
marriage of her youngest daughter, Maria Antonia, to the
future king of France Louis XVI, in 1770.
Author
Martin Mutschlechner
Literature
Hamann, Brigitte (Hg.): Die Habsburger. Ein biographisches
Lexikon, Wien 1988
Herre, Franz: Maria Theresia. Die große Habsburgerin, Köln 1994
Iby, Elfriede: Maria Theresia (1717–1780). Biographie einer
Kaiserin, Wien 2009
McGuigan, Dorothy Gies: Familie Habsburg 1273–1918. Glanz und
Elend eines Herrscherhauses (Ungekürzte Taschenbuchausgabe,
12. Auflage), Wien / München 2011
Pangels, Charlotte: Die Kinder Maria Theresias. Leben und
Schicksal in kaiserlichem Glanz, München 1980
Rothe, Carl (Hg.): Die Mutter und die Kaiserin. Briefe der Maria
Theresia an ihre Kinder und Vertraute, Berlin 1940
Telesko, Werner: Maria Theresia. Ein europäischer Mythos,
Wien/Köln/Weimar 2012
Vocelka, Karl: Glanz und Untergang der höfischen Welt.
Repräsentation, Reform und Reaktion im habsburgischen
Vielvölkerstaat (= Österreichische Geschichte 1699–1815, hg. von
Herwig Wolfram), Wien 2001
Yonan, Michael E.: Empress Maria Theresa and the Politics of
Habsburg Imperial Art, The Pennsylvania State University
Press 2011