Maria Teresa Holy Roman Empress

Her palaces are all along the Danube from Vienna to Budapest. Sometimes she only slept in them one night! But had her say in their design and decor.

I forgot to link her wikipedia page, which is a fking rabbit hole for any Euro history buff.

Between Maria Teresa and Queen Victoria, I think this is 99% DNA of all gentry in Europe and Russia.

She hit me in the head with a fondue pot.

Austrians are very fond of her.

Anti-Semitic

She was virulently anti-semitic, but then again most white people were back then.

Franz Joseph Haydn composed a brisk and brilliant symphony for her; one of my favorites. Love the use of horns in the opening and the Mannheim Rockets at the end of the exposition!

She was amazing. Started off her reign by warding off the cabal of foreign rulers that tried to steal her territories in the War of the Austrian Succession, introduced universal primary education to the world, ran her territories efficiently despite the fact that as a woman she could never become empress in her own right, and bore 16 children on the side, thereby single-handedly (or single-womb-edly) permitting the Habsburg bloodline to survive.

I always thought it was a delightful historical irony that fiercely misogynistic Frederick the Great had to deal with two empresses (Maria Theresa and Catherine) on his flanks for much of his reign.

I think I'd like to be an Archduchess. Sounds more fabulous even than being a queen.

Citation R7? Her son Joseph II championed Jewish Emancipation. And his officers are responsible for the funny sounding Jewish names (Rosenblatt, Goldstein, etc.)

She also birthed a couple of Charles and Louis or maybe the were Charles Louis or Louis Charles I forget

I saw the palace in Budapest but we didn't go in. It looks magnificent lit up at night on the hill. She slept there one night. And because she never used it she turned ot into a University during her lifetime. It's a yellow colour.

Odd that someone started this thread when just recently in the last month or so I bought two new biographies of Maria Theresa.

For those interested I strongly recommend Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger. This is the major biography of the Empress in more than a hundred years. Unlike other biographies that are almost hagiographies, this one really digs deep in her life and doesn't slide over her flaws. This book is for those who want a more scholar approach to her life.

The other, is a joint biography of Maria Theresa and three of her daughters (Maria Christina, Maria Carolinaand Marie Antoinette) and the relationship between them: In the Shadow of the Empress by Nancy Goldstone. This one is pretty good too tho written in a more popular history style.

A problem with Goldstone book is that she states as fact Marie Antoinettes two younger children where byCount Axel von Ferson her alleged lover. There has been much speculation but no one has been able to prove it and some timelines would make it impossible.

She owed her position to Prince Eugene, who was not a threat since he was gay. He brokered the Pragmatic Sanction which elevated a woman to head the Holy Roman Empire.

r13 sadly the palace is a museum and probably bombed during the war or stripped of a lot of grandeur by the Soviets. Either way, not much to really see. It's better to imagine it from the outside then go see it's refurbished sister palaces in Vienna a few hours away.

I love a good palace but on a walking tour the guide told me that you really don't have much to see in there beyond the art held by the museum, think white walls. The Dictator type PM of Hungry may one day move into the palace, or so my tour guide joked. The President of Austria resides in a wing of the Hapsburg's Winter Palace in Vienna.

I take it back, there are a few interesting corridors, but Buda Castle was always a sort of outback station for the Hapsburgs. They didn't really give a damn about it, but needed somewhere to stay that matched the grandeur of their station the few times they'd visit. But, everything about it is second rate.

There is no proof Prince Eugene was gay just speculation. It would be great if he was but again no proof.

He was a Tasteful Friend, R19. That's good enough.

R19. Look a t hid official portrait.

^^ his

R8. Beautiful. Thank you for this.

[quote]She owed her position to Prince Eugene, who was not a threat since he was gay.

Not sure what this means. How does being gay make him not a threat? Threat to whom? Why? What are you saying here?

She's #GOALS.

R16 the Pragmatic Sanction was nothing to do with the Holy Roman Empire, which could never be and was never ruled by a woman. It was about the hereditary Habsburg territories (Austrian, bohemia, Hungary etc, etc). When Maria Theresa took these over, the elector of Bavaria was elected Holy Roman Emperor. However, when he died, her husband Francis of Lorraine was elected, followed by their son Joseph II. She was Empress because her husband was Emperor

She ran the show, R26.

She ran the show in her hereditary lands. By the 18th Century the Holy Roman Emperor position was largely symbolic.

She was almost constantly pregnant, which was no small feat since her husband was a noted philanderer. One of her daughters was rumored to be a lesbian who was in love with the wife of one of her brothers.

The Emperorship was what you made of it and her husband Emperor Francis was an effective emperor and in the process made an absolutely vast fortune, though it's quite hard to work out how.

That's a lovely piece R8. Thanks for sharing.

This portrait Maria Teresa at Age 35 is amazing. First the regal orange brocade and lace sleeves of the dress. On the pillow to the left sit all her crowns for all her empressing, queening and archduchessing. In the top right the masonic eye shines down on a pedestal covered by a sword and cornucopia. Not sure what all the messy drape cords are about. Maybe she is playing a game of "Let's Make a Deal" and pulls the cords to reveal Room 1, 2 or 3!

^^forgot to add she def looks pregnant here.

What a remarkable woman and marital partnership. Apparently her husband was good at finances and put her realms in the black.

I often wonder how things would have turned out if she was alive during the run up to the French Revolution. I know there wasn't time for a back and forth conversation but someone needed to slap some sense into her air headed daughter and tell her to get her and the children out of harm's way.

[quote]someone needed to slap some sense into her air headed daughter and tell her to get her and the children out of harm's way.

Wasn't that why they took Flight to Varennes?

Even tho very strict with her herself and she demanded the same strictness from everyone, from her family to all her subjects, she had some sort of self-deprecating humor. She called herself fat Theresa.

[quote] By the 18th Century the Holy Roman Emperor position was largely symbolic.

The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. Discuss.

She was played by Marianne Faithfull in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”.

I love that film! The costumes!

MT was an early pro vaxxer and sponsored inoculation trials against small pox.

She was after losing three teenaged children (one son and two daughters) to smallpox in the 1760s. The interesting thing is that if either one or both of the daughters who died from smallpox (Maria Johanna 1750-62 and Maria Josepha 1751-67) had lived, the marriages of the daughters would have been shifted, with Marie Antoinette probably not marrying the future Louis XVI. Maria Carolina would most likely have married him, and she was made of MUCH, MUCH, stronger material than her younger sister.

Another daughter, Maria Elisabeth, also almost died from smallpox. She was in fact the most beautiful of Maria Theresa's daughters and was left horribly scarred that made her un-marriagable. Tho, her not marrying probably accounted for her being the, of all Maria Theresa's children, the one who lived the most (and the only one who surpassed her mother in age at time of death).

Maria Christina was Maria Theresa's favorite daughter (and child) by a mile, in fact she was favored to the detriment of all the others. Tho much has been said of her being the only daughter who was allowed to marry for love, her husband, even tho a younger son with no prospects of inheriting a throne, had excellent pedigree. His father was the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and his mother was a first cousin of Maria Theresa, the oldest daughter of Emperor Jospeh I.

And last but not least, Maria Amalia. If her younger sisters (Johanna and Josepha) has lived, she would not have been forced to marry the much (for the time) younger Ferdinand of Parma. She was in love and had wanted to marry Charles of Zweibrucken, who was a minor german prince, but who chance made would have made him the next Elector of Bavaria if he had lived 4 years more (in fact it was his brother who eventually succeeded to the Bavarian Electorate and who would become the first King of Bavaria). If Maria Amalia would have been allowed to marry him, and seeing that she was capable of bearing children, the Bavarian royal line would have been descended from Maria Theres.

So, if the daughers would have survived, the marriages would have been: Johanna to Ferdinand of Parma, Josepha to Ferdinand of Naples, and Maria Carolina to Louis XVI. With Marie Antoinette probably marrying a younger brother of Louis XVI or some other prince.

If she carried all the babies to term, then she spent 12 years pregnant! Sheesh. They must have just tumbled out in the end.

R45 MT had 16 children in 20 years - no twins in all that either. That's about as full-time pregnant as you can get!

Was she related to the fey King of Hungary Peter the Venetian? I saw his portrait in a museum of the Kings in Croatia which made me laugh. What a kaween

She was a cunt.

r36 that flight to Varennes doomed the King, Queen, and their son. The only reason Louis XVI's brothers became the next two kings of France (Napoleon was an emperor or whatever) is because they fled hours before the mob arrived at Versailles, along with the rest of the court. Louis XVI was foolish to let his sole heir and his hated wife remain by his side. MA insisted on staying in Versailles because of her wifely duty, but it was a terrible decision because their young son ended up neglected in a cold damp jail cell, and at one point spent 3 months in complete isolation (only food was thrown into his cell or his shit bucket removed). When he was finally assigned a guardian to examine him the boy stopped talking completely. There is gossip of the guards kick the young boy in his groin (no future heirs) and making him drink alcohol then sing Revolutionary songs, before his 3 month isolation. They even had a hooker with a venereal disease "sleep" with the boy to make sure he could have children. He had it worse than even his mother or father.

His uncle, Louis XVIII, had the detailed files of the princes neglect and abuse burned and was allegedly disgusted by what he head, so we don't know all of the abuse that poor kid went through.

His parents along with Romanovs and Windsors (WWII) were fools to keep the heirs at home and in danger. Worked this time for the Windsors, but in reality, it's best to get the children as far away as possible from danger or your entire line can be wiped out.

After the smallpox losses Maria Theresa reached out to British Queen Caroline, who had had her family inoculated in the new way by Edward Jenner. British experts went out and inoculated the surviving Habsburgs.

R32 the gesture of the left hand is something a true Datalounger would be able to emulate.

Duchess of Auschwitz was one of her titles, seriously.

[quote] Duchess of Auschwitz was one of her titles, seriously.

(Being in) labor makes one free.

She did try with her daughter Marie Antoinette with letters and with constant scoldings delivered through the Austrian ambassador to France.

They had the usual effect that these things have on teenage girls.

She always included her entire brood of children in every major court ceremony.

Other royal families basically ignored the younger children or they didn't include them in the court life back then, even in the 19th Century, Queen Victoria showed up to the Great Exhibition of 1851 with only her two elder children, when the next two in age (8 and 7 years old) could have been included as well.

This painting (one of a series by Meytens of the wedding festivies of the future Joseph II with Isabella of Parma) shows how she even included her youngest children: Marie Antoinette and Maximilian, who were only 5 and 4 years old.

People dressed funny back then!

r55 most children were excluded from public life because upper class parenting was different, but especially because of the cost. Obviously, expectations were much lower in Maria's empire because in France, Louis XV was forced to actually send his younger daughters away when younger because they were too costly. Dresses, jewelry, staff, and clothes for a multitude of occasions would have strained royal finances. His younger daughters were able to convince the king to let them return, but even then they only got to see the King once a day. An event that prompted them to wear their best dresses and stand at attention as the king a passed a specific part of Versailles in the afternoon. Sometimes he'd stop to acknowledge them, which would be the highlight of their week. Most of the time they received a simply smile from their father as he walked passed them. One of them, I forget the name, would literally run if late to meet the king and be in shambles if she missed him. Outside of actual formal events, they were shuffled off into a closet somewhere in Versailles.

Less attention Louis XV paid to his younger daughters, the less time he had to hear them squawking about money. He had 6 daughters, with 4 of them aging to adulthood.

I suppose if a lot of them wouldn't survive childhood one might not take much interest until it was time to broker a politically/financially beneficial marriage.

Maria Theresa was already 20 or so when she married Francis. She found 2 daughters too hideous to marry off but Maria Antonia was her little prize filly and was sent to become Queen of France at the age of 13.

Both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had double common ancestors. In their father's side they both descended from Louis XIII and on their mother's side from Leoplold I.

And even tho Marie Antoinette was more than a year younger than Louis XVI, she was his distant aunt on both sides. She was the great granddaughter of Leopold I whereas he was Louis XVI was Leopold's great-great grandson.

On the Bourbon side she was his distant great aunt. She was the great-great granddaughter of Louis XIII, whereas Louis XVI was the great-great-great-great grandson of Louis XIII.

Luis XVI married his distand aunt/great aunt.

Marie Antoinette was the cousin on the same generation of Louis XV.

The proposed marriage between her sister Maria Elisabeth and Louis XV (before she was disfugured by smallpox) was more generational appropiate than her's was.

Cunt!

Marie Antoinette was born on November 2 - All Soul’s Day/The Day of the Dead.

NOT an auspicious birthday!!

Well regardless r63 she was a most powerful queen, empress, and archduchess.

R64 - Marie Antoinette was never an Empress.

The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, or Roman or an empire.

Maria Theresa ad Catherine the Great loathed each other. Catherine thought Maria Theresa was a pious hypocrite and Maris Theresa thought Catherine was a godless whore. Both were right, of course.

They sound like jealous bitches r67, swanning around in ginormous dresses. I forget what those contraptions that made them super wide are called.

[quote] I forget what those contraptions that made them super wide are called.

Panniers

Yes! Thank you r69!

When they (Austria, Prussia and Russia) partitioned Poland, Frederick the great being the fag cunt that he was said of Maria Theresa: "She cries and she cries, but she takes and takes."

She was indeed a pious hypocrite.

Panniers are ridiculous, but probably more convenient for sitting than the enormous hoop skirts and bustles of the19th century.

Though no-one was a bigger hypocrite and liar than Frederick the Great, the ultimate Machiavellian who wrote a book attacking Machiavellianism..

Maybe if you'd been a little more of a whore Maria T, your daughter might not have been such a clueless bitch when she showed up in France. Seven years without kids cause she didn't have a friggin clue!

[quote] Catherine the Great, and great at it

Great with horses maybe.

[quote] as a woman she could never become empress in her own right

That’s an odd statement — a woman who could not become empress. Could only men become empress?

But seriously, 500 kids and you couldn't even tell little Marie what that snatch was for?

Telling Maria Antonia what snatch was for would have been a bad idea. She was a virgin, and supposed to be clueless, and if she suddenly took charge and showed her husband what to do, the whole court would be asking who her secret lover was. No, the Hapsburgs allegedly did the right thing in the end, and send Marie's brother to privately give the king a bit of discrete sex education. Marie was already in a precarious position, having failed to produce an heir or to even get the king interested, if there had been any suspicion that she was unfaithful then she might have been sent back to Austria in disgrace.

I really wonder what was up with Louis, I mean he was highly insecure at baseline, but most highly insecure straight men would have had let some nice older woman seduce him by then. He was apparently a virgin seven years into his marriage, and was one of the few French kings to never have a mistress. He didn't even seem to mind that his wife had a special friiendship with a Swedish diplomat.

Actually, you are right r78. In those days, it was kind of up to the man to have a clue. Seriously, Grandpa was a total manslut. He never thought to send some bitch into the royal bedchamber and maybe show the kid what this and that were for?

Of course Catherine de Medici had the same issue (or lack of issue). That's apparently when she got so attached to Nostradamus, and his witchcraft. But anyway, for about 10 years, nothing, then she was a friggin factory. kid after kid after kid. Mostly sickly, and sometimes insane, but still, a job well done.

There was a blind item last week about Kirsten Dunst having a time travelling haunting experience while dressed as Marie Antoinette @ Versailles. I thought how crazy but there is another incident like this.

It's weird enough to see a ghost probably let alone be transported back to the era.

Dear OP, You finally exhausted the British royal family, so you came up with this. You are not a well woman.

[quote]He was apparently a virgin seven years into his marriage, and was one of the few French kings to never have a mistress.

I didn't need women, I was blissfully satisifed with my locksmithery. NO, my actual locksmithery, you perv!

If you wish to visit a city associated with her reforms, visit Trieste, where the harbor was rebuilt in her reign.

Great city with few American tourists.

R78, Louis was overweight and shy. His wife's reticence in the bedroom reinforced his own. And the lasciviousness of his grandfather also reinforced his initial aversion to sex. It took his brother-in-law to push him to overcome it.

Louis XVI was a bit like his forebear Louis XIII who did not initially consummate his marriage to Anne of Austria. His favorite/surrogate father Luynes gave him the push. Louis XIII in later life enjoyed the delicacies of both female and male lovers.

I have always liked the name Antonia.

[quote] The only reason Louis XVI's brothers became the next two kings of France (Napoleon was an emperor or whatever) is because they fled hours before the mob arrived at Versailles, along with the rest of the court.

The younger brother (the Comte of Artois) emigrated on July 17th 1789. The mob arrived in Versailles in October 1789. The other brother, the Comte of Provence, stayed there until 1791. He was at Versailles when the Royal Family was taken back to Paris (From Campan's journal: "The King and Queen set off from Versailles at one o’clock. The Dauphin, Madame, the King’s daughter, Monsieur, Madame,—[Madame, here, the wife of Monsieur le Comte de Provence.]—Madame Elisabeth, and Madame de Tourzel, were in the carriage; the Princesse de Chimay and the ladies of the bedchamber for the week, the King’s suite and servants, followed in Court carriages; a hundred deputies in carriages, and the bulk of the Parisian army, closed the procession."). He and his (lesbian, dirty) wife left the same day of the doomed Varennes flight but they reached Switzerland. They fled separately, much more low key and nobody noticed them.

Women couldn't rule rome

[quote] She bore 16 children (13 survived infancy)

Whore.

Read somewhere that for a royal she was very "middle class" in her private family life. The family ate dinner together informally which was not the norm and one of the reasons Marie Antoinette had a hard time adjusting to the French court. They were very family oriented in a time and class when togetherness was not a thing.

[quote]r87 I have always liked the name Antonia.

Well, this one was written for YOU!