Non-censored bits: "I overwhelm you with my kisses" or "I kiss everything you're letting me kiss", or "despite your saintliness, I kiss you from all my soul, so we can say these are pious kisses, for what hails from the soul is spiritual and not earthly, though I love earthly matters - le terre à terre."
Censored bit: for example a rare German sentence in an otherwise French correspondance: "Ich küsse dein erzenglisches Arscherl", "I kiss your arch angelic arse". "Englisch" here in the sense of "angelic", not in the sense of "English". Erz is arch, as in arch duchess, Maria Christina's title. Except for one, all the 200 plus letters still existing are Isabella's.
It's a sad story for everyone concerned, other than Maria Christina, aka Mimi, who was MT's favourite daughter and after Isabella's death became the only one of MT's children to be allowed to marry for love, not politics, the man of her choice. (BTW, in the two Marie Antoinette novels I've read that include her pre-France chldhood, MC is a villain because the rest of the kids, not blind to the favouritism, resented her. Antoinette didn't allow MC to visit her at her personal refugee, the Petit Trianon when MC visited Paris with her husband later, she only received her in the main palace of Versailles.) The Isabella/Joseph match was, like Marie Antoinette/Louis meant to strengthen the new Austria/France alliance. (Isabella being a Bourbon.) The future couple were incredibly nervous going into the match, as we know from their letters. Joseph, unlike his father, was still a virgin when marrying, and a shy, slightly stammering one. Isabella was more outwardly confident, but she also had inherited marriage trauma. Her mother had been a child bride, only 14 years old at the time of Isabella's birth, and said "I turn to ice every time he touches me" about her husband, whom she loathed. She also died when only in her 30s. Moreover, and most importantly, without "no homo" blinders of older biographers it's pretty clear that Isabella just didn't like men and preferred women. She wrote those 200 plus letters while being mostly in the same city with Maria Christina, whom she had corresponded with even before meeting her in person, and pretty much adored her on sight. And vice versa.
Meanwhile, Joseph also fell for his bride on sight, nervous or not. As well he might. On the surface, he'd hit the jackpot of arranged marriages. She was beautiful, smart, and very musical - she played the violin, which as you'll recall from Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling Mara, was considered a bit scandalous for a woman at least by non-royalty. He remained smitten, and when she died only three years later, he'd nursed her through her painful illness, the smallpox, likelihood of infection be damned. (Maria Theresia was also present at Isabella's sick bed a lot; Isabella was the sole family member whom she never as much as mildly critisized but only had praise for. Maria Christina, otoh, was not there, but she may not have been allowed to, being yet unmarried, and a smallpox infection even if she'd survived it would have ruined her marriage chances. Remember, this was before MT allowed her to marry for love.)
If Joseph ever figured out she never loved him, and had in fact loved his sister, passionately, we don't have any evidence to go with it. And emotionally, she barely tolerated and not even respected him. In the letters to MC, he's ridiculed for not noticing she much prefers his sister, and Isabella wrote a pamphlet called "On the nature of men" which can be summed up with "men are scum, led by their dicks, never as much as noticing we don't want to have sex with them, and incapable of higher feelings". Don't get me wrong, being in an enforced sexual relationship is awful, legally licensed rape, and she wasn't obliged to feel anything for him. But it's still sad that not even friendship on her part was possible, because he did adore her, and was also a devoted father to their daughter instead of doing the period thing of being disappointed for her not being a son. (Who turned out to be his only child, and she died before growing up.)
(Joseph's second marriage was also a disaster but for oppposite reasons. He didn't want to marry again in the first place, since Isabella's death had devasteded him, but both his parents - Franz Stefan was still alive then - insisted, because dynastic duty. And then he pulled a Fritz on the princess he did end up with, going out of his way to avoid her, and being in her presence in the few years they were married mere hours. When she died as well, he stuck to his guns and refused to marry till the rest of his admittedly none too long life, which is why brother Leopold became Emperor after him.)
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The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina
Date: 2019-10-21 09:35 am (UTC)Censored bit: for example a rare German sentence in an otherwise French correspondance: "Ich küsse dein erzenglisches Arscherl", "I kiss your arch angelic arse". "Englisch" here in the sense of "angelic", not in the sense of "English". Erz is arch, as in arch duchess, Maria Christina's title. Except for one, all the 200 plus letters still existing are Isabella's.
It's a sad story for everyone concerned, other than Maria Christina, aka Mimi, who was MT's favourite daughter and after Isabella's death became the only one of MT's children to be allowed to marry for love, not politics, the man of her choice. (BTW, in the two Marie Antoinette novels I've read that include her pre-France chldhood, MC is a villain because the rest of the kids, not blind to the favouritism, resented her. Antoinette didn't allow MC to visit her at her personal refugee, the Petit Trianon when MC visited Paris with her husband later, she only received her in the main palace of Versailles.) The Isabella/Joseph match was, like Marie Antoinette/Louis meant to strengthen the new Austria/France alliance. (Isabella being a Bourbon.) The future couple were incredibly nervous going into the match, as we know from their letters. Joseph, unlike his father, was still a virgin when marrying, and a shy, slightly stammering one. Isabella was more outwardly confident, but she also had inherited marriage trauma. Her mother had been a child bride, only 14 years old at the time of Isabella's birth, and said "I turn to ice every time he touches me" about her husband, whom she loathed. She also died when only in her 30s. Moreover, and most importantly, without "no homo" blinders of older biographers it's pretty clear that Isabella just didn't like men and preferred women. She wrote those 200 plus letters while being mostly in the same city with Maria Christina, whom she had corresponded with even before meeting her in person, and pretty much adored her on sight. And vice versa.
Meanwhile, Joseph also fell for his bride on sight, nervous or not. As well he might. On the surface, he'd hit the jackpot of arranged marriages. She was beautiful, smart, and very musical - she played the violin, which as you'll recall from Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling Mara, was considered a bit scandalous for a woman at least by non-royalty. He remained smitten, and when she died only three years later, he'd nursed her through her painful illness, the smallpox, likelihood of infection be damned. (Maria Theresia was also present at Isabella's sick bed a lot; Isabella was the sole family member whom she never as much as mildly critisized but only had praise for. Maria Christina, otoh, was not there, but she may not have been allowed to, being yet unmarried, and a smallpox infection even if she'd survived it would have ruined her marriage chances. Remember, this was before MT allowed her to marry for love.)
If Joseph ever figured out she never loved him, and had in fact loved his sister, passionately, we don't have any evidence to go with it. And emotionally, she barely tolerated and not even respected him. In the letters to MC, he's ridiculed for not noticing she much prefers his sister, and Isabella wrote a pamphlet called "On the nature of men" which can be summed up with "men are scum, led by their dicks, never as much as noticing we don't want to have sex with them, and incapable of higher feelings". Don't get me wrong, being in an enforced sexual relationship is awful, legally licensed rape, and she wasn't obliged to feel anything for him. But it's still sad that not even friendship on her part was possible, because he did adore her, and was also a devoted father to their daughter instead of doing the period thing of being disappointed for her not being a son. (Who turned out to be his only child, and she died before growing up.)
(Joseph's second marriage was also a disaster but for oppposite reasons. He didn't want to marry again in the first place, since Isabella's death had devasteded him, but both his parents - Franz Stefan was still alive then - insisted, because dynastic duty. And then he pulled a Fritz on the princess he did end up with, going out of his way to avoid her, and being in her presence in the few years they were married mere hours. When she died as well, he stuck to his guns and refused to marry till the rest of his admittedly none too long life, which is why brother Leopold became Emperor after him.)