Leopold: Don't worry, Dad, I'll just follow your example... in some things.
Leopold: *proceeds to have 16 kids by his wife and cheats on her the whole time*
It was otherwise according to gossip a harmonious marriage, though. His wife, Maria Luisa, was Spanish by birth but had grown up in Naples. They were happiest while Leopold was Grand Duke of Tuscany and they lived there. Maria Luisa supposedly was a private person not inclined to the public life (bad for a royal), but she did her duty with must-have public appearances. She also wasn't into politics at all and never disputed her husband, which is lucky, given his opinion on women disputing politics with men as voiced in that letter to Joseph about Joseph's circle of five.
(Joseph: You are aware I spent fifteen years arguing, err, ruling with Mom, aren't you, brother? Leopold: Your point?)
Isabella actually sounds really fascinating -- I feel like a lot of what she's saying here is, while perhaps manipulative, actually true (e.g., what she says about MT) and the best way to familial and marital harmony under these circumstances -- I feel like it comes across as manipulative in large part because she actually thought about it and analyzed it for MC rather than just doing it.
Oh, absolutely, and Isabella comes across as one of the smartest people at court. Incidentally, you may have wondered why we have her letters but only one of MCs. We also have various essays by her (not just the "men suck" one). The reason is that when she died, MT ordered Isabella's waiting woman Erdödy to provide her not just with a lock of Isabella's hair as a memory (you probably know this was common) but to immediately collect all of Isabella's papers. (Said instructions are in German, not French, as MT is writing to a lower ranking person: "Und auff all die Schriften gebe wohl acht, das kein kleiner Zettel verlohren gehe" (and pay attention to get all the writings, don't miss even the shortest note); said papers, MT wrote, would later provide comfort to Joseph and an example to Isabella's little daughter and allow her to get to know her mother. She got the papers, and while indeed Isabella's theological writings were collected and printed in a small private edition by the court printer Trattner, methinks MT had at least an inkling there might be something in these papers Joseph shouldn't read. (And as much as she argued with her oldest son, she didn't want him to be hurt this way.) In any event, that's why by the time Joseph did read his late wife's papers, there was only one (harmless) letter by his sister included.
(Meawhile, MC of course kept all her letters by Isabella, and Albert inherited them from her after her death. He, in turn, had no problem publishing them, though edited (no arse-kissing intentions included, and just enough love declarations to still pass it off as "passionate romantic friendship", making it clear who Isabella's favourite person at court had been.)
Re: Franz Stefan's status in the marriage market going down while MT's went up in their adolescence: per se, the Duchy of Lorraine was nothing to sneeze at. (I don't know whether you recall, but that's why Catherine de' Medici married her middle daughter, Claude, to the then Duke, and you don't get more ambitious for your kids than Catherine.) Nice big territory, used to be a kingdom in ye dark ages, even, and as mentioned several posts ago, Franz was the grandson of Liselotte and Philippe on his mother's side, thus had direct blood connections to both French royalty and various other German principalities. Its location between France and the German speaking territories gives it strategic value, too. So: as long as MT is just supposed to be an arch duchess and the future Emperor is her mythical to be had future brother, it's a suitable match, and having Lorraine as an ally can be useful for said future brother, especially given the then still raging Habsburg/Bourbon feud. (Remember, MT's dad lost the Habsburg claim to Spain to the French. Grudge, grudge, grudge. He still displayed the Spanish court of arms in Vienna, never mind the Bourbon ruling there.)
...but now the future brother refuses to show up. And Poland is an issue for the European powers already. (August makes a play for it, remember, it's an elective monarchy.) And MT's Dad really, really, REALLY needs everyone to come on board and pledge themselves to respect the Pragmatic Sanction after his death, or he'll be the last Habsburg ruler. While Lorraine provides nice revenues, it doesn't provide, say, a useful big army. Franz, recently back from his Grand Tour through Europe, is a nice guy to go hunting with (which MT's dad does a lot) and a hit with the ladies, but he doesn't have any military gifts, and he's not burning with ruling charisma, either. Why the hell should anyone vote for him as Emperor? Even the fact he's willing to give up his duchy as a prize for being allowed to marry MT also speaks against him: how will this guy be able to hold the Empire together? (Remember, Dad doesn't even consider it might be MT herself holding the Empire together.)
By the way, Franz Stefan is AWESOME.
This is as good a point as any to voice my opinions on the two 2017 MT biographies. The way shorter one is by Èlisabeth Balantier. It's informative and pacefully written, but has two big drawbacks, imo. One is that the author, as she mentions in the afterword, does not speak German; she thanks in said afterword someone for translating "the most important documents" for her. This is a problem because while MT's family correspondance (and correspondance with other royals and nobles) is mostly in French, her entire administrative correspondance is in German. (And by administrative I don't mean her secretary writing "her highness wishes you to do this and that" to some civil servant but MT herself writing (well, often dictating, but in first person and with a distinct style). And whoever translated for Balantier obviously already made a selection. This means she's missing out on MT's inner politics a lot.
The other problem is that Balantier doesn't consider source bias, or if she does quickly dismisses it. For example, she admits that the French ambassador reporting negatively about Franz Stefan in ye early years is influenced on France backing Karl Albrecht of Wittelsbach for Emperor and fearing a Lorraine man with Imperial power would just spell trouble. She also admits that some of the ambassador's claims, as for example MT being putty in her husband's hands, were subsequently proven to be ridiculously off base. But then she goes and gives us three pages of the French ambassador's gleeful "Franz Stefan is the worst!!!!" report, not for the last time. She adds other negative reports by other ambassadors about how he's idle and worthless later, without telling her readers that by "idle", they mean he's not governing and lets MT do it. That he's actually doing something other than hunting and partying is hidden in a brief footnote on Joseph inheriting 20 Millions Gulden cash as a private (not state) fortune by his father as the result of his father's successful business managements (which Joseph then used to fix the state debts. Siblings Leopold and MC were pissed off because, they argued, this being Dad's private fortune they deserved a share). There is nothing on FS's interest in the natural sciences at all. So if all I knew about Franz hailed from this biography, I'd be utterly bemused as to what MT ever saw in him, why she kept defending him during the early years of their marriage (when trying to prove himself militarily he joined the war against the Turks and lost, badly, causing even more tauntings back home along the lines of "can't sire sons AND sucks as as an officer, is there anything manly he can do?", why it was so important to her that he'd be crowned as Emperor in Frankfurt (whereas she refused to be crowned as Empress, considering this to be a pointless thing, she already had power), or why, when she was dying, she was wearing his old brown bathrobe dressing gown she'd kept.
Luckily, though, I also have the other 2017 biography to through. This one is far more voluminous and by Barbara Stollberg-Rillinger. It's titled "Maria Theresia. The Empress in her time", and the title is program; she very much puts emphasis on the contemporary context MT is operating in. Of course, she also uses the ambassadorial reports as sources, but not as the only sources, and she mentions which country and ambassador had which interest and bias first. Most importantly, she provides such primary source stuff as the Franz Stefan letter to Leopold about marriage I quoted from, points out the unprecedent gender expectation reversal both MT and FS faced (and if her contemporaries finally decides she rose "above" womanhood, not striving to rule both the country and his family remained seen as shameful for a man), and also shows what FS did do (in modern terms, he was an entrepeneur - all that money hailed from the fact that he ordered the use of modern instead of antiquated agrarian methods in his estates, and established and ran silk and other textile manufacturing within the empire (so instead of importing textiles from non-Austria ruled Italy or France, suddenly there was a closer market). (He also was interested in the sciences and personally responsible for Gerard van Swieten, the founder of the Vienna School of Medicine, coming to Vienna, oh, and he founded the zoo in Schönbrunn.)
Incidentally, the estimation of MT herself is basically identical in both biographies (both in her virtues and flaws), though where Balantier, say, just provides the traditional legend of MT making her appeal to the Hungarian Assembly with baby Joseph in her arms, Barbara Stollberg-Rillinger points out baby Joseph didn't arrive in Hungary until a few weeks after that appeal; she's very determined not to let herself be seduced by the drama which as she ruefully admits in the foreword is powerful ("Young beautiful woman comes to the throne beset by enemies, finds arch nemesis in the most ruthless and most brilliant big bad her era could have provided for her") and to remain aware both MT and Fritz were really good at propaganda, not to mention that later historians each had their agenda as well.
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Re: The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina
Date: 2019-10-23 05:33 am (UTC)Leopold: *proceeds to have 16 kids by his wife and cheats on her the whole time*
It was otherwise according to gossip a harmonious marriage, though. His wife, Maria Luisa, was Spanish by birth but had grown up in Naples. They were happiest while Leopold was Grand Duke of Tuscany and they lived there. Maria Luisa supposedly was a private person not inclined to the public life (bad for a royal), but she did her duty with must-have public appearances. She also wasn't into politics at all and never disputed her husband, which is lucky, given his opinion on women disputing politics with men as voiced in that letter to Joseph about Joseph's circle of five.
(Joseph: You are aware I spent fifteen years arguing, err, ruling with Mom, aren't you, brother?
Leopold: Your point?)
Isabella actually sounds really fascinating -- I feel like a lot of what she's saying here is, while perhaps manipulative, actually true (e.g., what she says about MT) and the best way to familial and marital harmony under these circumstances -- I feel like it comes across as manipulative in large part because she actually thought about it and analyzed it for MC rather than just doing it.
Oh, absolutely, and Isabella comes across as one of the smartest people at court. Incidentally, you may have wondered why we have her letters but only one of MCs. We also have various essays by her (not just the "men suck" one). The reason is that when she died, MT ordered Isabella's waiting woman Erdödy to provide her not just with a lock of Isabella's hair as a memory (you probably know this was common) but to immediately collect all of Isabella's papers. (Said instructions are in German, not French, as MT is writing to a lower ranking person: "Und auff all die Schriften gebe wohl acht, das kein kleiner Zettel verlohren gehe" (and pay attention to get all the writings, don't miss even the shortest note); said papers, MT wrote, would later provide comfort to Joseph and an example to Isabella's little daughter and allow her to get to know her mother. She got the papers, and while indeed Isabella's theological writings were collected and printed in a small private edition by the court printer Trattner, methinks MT had at least an inkling there might be something in these papers Joseph shouldn't read. (And as much as she argued with her oldest son, she didn't want him to be hurt this way.) In any event, that's why by the time Joseph did read his late wife's papers, there was only one (harmless) letter by his sister included.
(Meawhile, MC of course kept all her letters by Isabella, and Albert inherited them from her after her death. He, in turn, had no problem publishing them, though edited (no arse-kissing intentions included, and just enough love declarations to still pass it off as "passionate romantic friendship", making it clear who Isabella's favourite person at court had been.)
Re: Franz Stefan's status in the marriage market going down while MT's went up in their adolescence: per se, the Duchy of Lorraine was nothing to sneeze at. (I don't know whether you recall, but that's why Catherine de' Medici married her middle daughter, Claude, to the then Duke, and you don't get more ambitious for your kids than Catherine.) Nice big territory, used to be a kingdom in ye dark ages, even, and as mentioned several posts ago, Franz was the grandson of Liselotte and Philippe on his mother's side, thus had direct blood connections to both French royalty and various other German principalities. Its location between France and the German speaking territories gives it strategic value, too. So: as long as MT is just supposed to be an arch duchess and the future Emperor is her mythical to be had future brother, it's a suitable match, and having Lorraine as an ally can be useful for said future brother, especially given the then still raging Habsburg/Bourbon feud. (Remember, MT's dad lost the Habsburg claim to Spain to the French. Grudge, grudge, grudge. He still displayed the Spanish court of arms in Vienna, never mind the Bourbon ruling there.)
...but now the future brother refuses to show up. And Poland is an issue for the European powers already. (August makes a play for it, remember, it's an elective monarchy.) And MT's Dad really, really, REALLY needs everyone to come on board and pledge themselves to respect the Pragmatic Sanction after his death, or he'll be the last Habsburg ruler. While Lorraine provides nice revenues, it doesn't provide, say, a useful big army. Franz, recently back from his Grand Tour through Europe, is a nice guy to go hunting with (which MT's dad does a lot) and a hit with the ladies, but he doesn't have any military gifts, and he's not burning with ruling charisma, either. Why the hell should anyone vote for him as Emperor? Even the fact he's willing to give up his duchy as a prize for being allowed to marry MT also speaks against him: how will this guy be able to hold the Empire together? (Remember, Dad doesn't even consider it might be MT herself holding the Empire together.)
By the way, Franz Stefan is AWESOME.
This is as good a point as any to voice my opinions on the two 2017 MT biographies. The way shorter one is by Èlisabeth Balantier. It's informative and pacefully written, but has two big drawbacks, imo. One is that the author, as she mentions in the afterword, does not speak German; she thanks in said afterword someone for translating "the most important documents" for her. This is a problem because while MT's family correspondance (and correspondance with other royals and nobles) is mostly in French, her entire administrative correspondance is in German. (And by administrative I don't mean her secretary writing "her highness wishes you to do this and that" to some civil servant but MT herself writing (well, often dictating, but in first person and with a distinct style). And whoever translated for Balantier obviously already made a selection. This means she's missing out on MT's inner politics a lot.
The other problem is that Balantier doesn't consider source bias, or if she does quickly dismisses it. For example, she admits that the French ambassador reporting negatively about Franz Stefan in ye early years is influenced on France backing Karl Albrecht of Wittelsbach for Emperor and fearing a Lorraine man with Imperial power would just spell trouble. She also admits that some of the ambassador's claims, as for example MT being putty in her husband's hands, were subsequently proven to be ridiculously off base. But then she goes and gives us three pages of the French ambassador's gleeful "Franz Stefan is the worst!!!!" report, not for the last time. She adds other negative reports by other ambassadors about how he's idle and worthless later, without telling her readers that by "idle", they mean he's not governing and lets MT do it. That he's actually doing something other than hunting and partying is hidden in a brief footnote on Joseph inheriting 20 Millions Gulden cash as a private (not state) fortune by his father as the result of his father's successful business managements (which Joseph then used to fix the state debts. Siblings Leopold and MC were pissed off because, they argued, this being Dad's private fortune they deserved a share). There is nothing on FS's interest in the natural sciences at all. So if all I knew about Franz hailed from this biography, I'd be utterly bemused as to what MT ever saw in him, why she kept defending him during the early years of their marriage (when trying to prove himself militarily he joined the war against the Turks and lost, badly, causing even more tauntings back home along the lines of "can't sire sons AND sucks as as an officer, is there anything manly he can do?", why it was so important to her that he'd be crowned as Emperor in Frankfurt (whereas she refused to be crowned as Empress, considering this to be a pointless thing, she already had power), or why, when she was dying, she was wearing his old brown
bathrobedressing gown she'd kept.Luckily, though, I also have the other 2017 biography to through. This one is far more voluminous and by Barbara Stollberg-Rillinger. It's titled "Maria Theresia. The Empress in her time", and the title is program; she very much puts emphasis on the contemporary context MT is operating in. Of course, she also uses the ambassadorial reports as sources, but not as the only sources, and she mentions which country and ambassador had which interest and bias first. Most importantly, she provides such primary source stuff as the Franz Stefan letter to Leopold about marriage I quoted from, points out the unprecedent gender expectation reversal both MT and FS faced (and if her contemporaries finally decides she rose "above" womanhood, not striving to rule both the country and his family remained seen as shameful for a man), and also shows what FS did do (in modern terms, he was an entrepeneur - all that money hailed from the fact that he ordered the use of modern instead of antiquated agrarian methods in his estates, and established and ran silk and other textile manufacturing within the empire (so instead of importing textiles from non-Austria ruled Italy or France, suddenly there was a closer market). (He also was interested in the sciences and personally responsible for Gerard van Swieten, the founder of the Vienna School of Medicine, coming to Vienna, oh, and he founded the zoo in Schönbrunn.)
Incidentally, the estimation of MT herself is basically identical in both biographies (both in her virtues and flaws), though where Balantier, say, just provides the traditional legend of MT making her appeal to the Hungarian Assembly with baby Joseph in her arms, Barbara Stollberg-Rillinger points out baby Joseph didn't arrive in Hungary until a few weeks after that appeal; she's very determined not to let herself be seduced by the drama which as she ruefully admits in the foreword is powerful ("Young beautiful woman comes to the throne beset by enemies, finds arch nemesis in the most ruthless and most brilliant big bad her era could have provided for her") and to remain aware both MT and Fritz were really good at propaganda, not to mention that later historians each had their agenda as well.