Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain - Louis XV 's Daughter In Law

Marie-Thérèse Antoinette Raphael de Bourbon, Infanta of Spain and the later Dauphine of France, was born on June 11, 1726 in the Royal Alcazar of Madrid. She was the daughter of Philip V, King of Spain, and his second wife, Elisabeth Farnese. Marie-Thérèse was described as being beautiful and tall with dignity, However, her reddish hair earned her some inattentive remarks upon her arrival in France. Her marriage to the French Dauphin Louis Ferdinand de France, alongside that of Madame Première with Philip, Duc de Parma, marked the reconciliation of France and Spain after the failure of the engagement of Louis XV and the Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain. The engagement between Louis XV and Mariana Victoria was broken as she was too young to bear children. The wedding between Marie-Thérèse and Louis Ferdinand took place on February 23, 1745. It was during those wedding festivities that Louis XV met Madame de Pompadour, who would be despised by Marie-Thérèse, her husband and several other courtiers, among whom the Madame de France. Marie-Thérèse was very shy, distant and pious, but she was also uncompromising. The young Dauphin disliked the impertinent, scandalous and gossiping French court, she hated gambling and preferred to stay in her apartments most of the time. The Dauphin, who was 3 years younger than his wife, was barely 16 years old when the couple married, and the marriage was not consummated in its early days, which embarrassed the Dauphin and her husband as the court rumored that the 16-year-old Louis Ferdinand was clueless. Nonetheless, the union was not consummated until 7 months after the wedding in September 1745. Despite the non-consummation of the marriage in its early stages, the union between Louis Ferdinand and Marie-Thérèse was a very happy one, as the couple loved each other deeply. Soon after the consummation of their marriage, Marie-Thérèse found herself pregnant for the first time. The birth of her first child was scheduled for early July 1746, but it was delayed, which really tried the patience of Louis XV, the diplomats present at court, the court itself, and the people of France. When Philippe V of Spain, who was the father of Marie-Thérèse, died on July 9, 1746, Marie-Thérèse was not informed in order not to upset her and thus to avoid danger to the unborn child. Finally, on July 19, 1746, the Dauphin gave birth to a little girl whom the Dauphin, deeply in love, had baptized with the name of Marie-Thérèse to pay homage to his deeply beloved wife. Initially, Marie-Thérèse recovered well from giving birth, but her condition deteriorated suddenly and, on July 22, she died. Marie-Thérèse lived three days past her 20th birthday. Louis Ferdinand was extremely distraught by her death, so much so that he had to be led away from her deathbed by his father in order to have Marie-Thérèse prepared for burial. She was buried in the royal crypt of the Basilica of Saint-Denis on August 6, 1746. Marie-Thérèse had hardly died when Louis XV already started speculating about the second marriage of Louis Ferdinand. The court of Madrid, which wanted to keep its connection to France, immediately proposed the Infanta Maria Antoinette, the younger sister of Marie-Thérèse, who was at the time 16 years old. However, Louis XV refused the proposal. As the War of the Austrian Succession raged, the importance of alliances had changed. Even though the Queen, Maria Leszczynska, leaned towards a renewed Spanish alliance, the king preferred the Princess of Savoie, while the heroic Maurice of Saxony, General Marshal of France, proposed a Princess of Saxony. The Pompadour supported this proposal and Louis XV was persuaded. Thus, the following year, the Dauphin reluctantly married Maria Josepha of Saxony, an intelligent 15-year-old princess who, despite her youth, learned how to console the 19-year-old widower who had become her husband. The daughter of Louis Ferdinand and Marie-Thérèse, Louis Ferdinand's first wife, soon followed her mother to the grave. She died in April 1748, aged 21 months. Little Marie-Thérèse's heart was buried in the Chapel Saint-Anne, also known as the Chapel of Hearts, as it contained the embalmed hearts of 45 members of the royal family of France. When this small chapel was desecrated by the revolutionaries in 1793, the architect Petit Radel seized the vase containing the heart of little Marie-Thérèse and sold it. This concludes this week's video. Thank you for watching. Join me next week for a video on Karel Wilhelm Naumdorf, one of the pretenders claiming to be Louis XVII. Don't miss it!