Time frame: yep, that doesn't naturally occur to us, living (thankfully) in a very different society. And how young everyone was. Isabella and Joseph were both 18 (six months apart), MC aka Mimi was 17. (Yes, she and Joseph were born not even a year apart.) (During the first Silesian War. As I said: MT must have had a consitution of iron.)
And now for the MT daughter who had it worst in terms of husbands. Now, even young Mozart was shocked when he visited Naples, and if you shock Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of the scatological jokes and sex talk, well. Carolina was the sister closest to Marie Antoinette in age and emotionally, and when she heard about MA getting married, she wrote to their shared governess: "When I imagine that her fate could be the same as mine, I want to write entire volumes to her about this, and I wish she finds a confidant like me in her new home, for without one, I shall be frank, it drives you to despair, and you endure true martyrdom. (...) I know what it is like, and I pity those who have yet to experience it. (...) If my faith hadn't told me to think of God, I'd have killed myself."
(Luckily for MA, Louis wasn't a bad fellow. Lethargy and sexual ignorance was the worst you could accuse him off, and he was a loyal husband even when people everwhere made her their go-to-hate-person to blame for all that was wrong in France. Not coincidentally, I think, MA refused all escape plans for herself alone, come the revolution, and insisted he had to be saved as well.)
So when Joseph did his "check on my sisters abroad" tour, and came to Naples, this resulted in an absolutely scathing letter about this particular brother-in-law. Starting with his exterior: according to Joseph, Ferdinand was revoltingly ugly to look at, with a shrill voice. He kicked and punched people around (literally), when he was feeling nice pinched and tickled the ladies at court at random, was into pranks involving throwing living mice at ladies and marmelade at courtiers, lived with lots of animals shitting all over the place in his palaces, made people watch him when he relieved himself, wanted to make Joseph the witness when he, Ferdinand, was fingering Joseph's sister Carolina, didn't read, did barely know how to write, couldn't list the ten commandments, had no problem lying, stealing, and having people killed. An utter incomprehension of morality rather than deliberate menace, tough, and a childlike mind.
(Why yes, Naples had a revolution in its future, too. One that was bloodily repressed by Horatio Nelson because Emma asked him to, who in turn wanted to save her friend the Queen. This being after Caroline's sister MA had already been executed, you can imagine what Caroline feared. But the beating down of the revolution was still so brutal that even the anti-revolution-minded British public got queasy and held it against Nelson for a while until more anti Napoleon heroics on his part ensued.)
His sister, otoh, Joseph described only in positive terms, virtuous, smart and modest and while not able to love her husband for obvious reasons, having developed more compassion than loathing for him.
Anyway, since talking to his brother-in-law was pointless in this case and annulment was out (they already had had kids, plus the Naples marriage had had strategic reasons), Joseph basically reccommended that his sister should get rid of Tannucci, the most powerful minister in Naples who profitted from the King's infantile mind leaving a power vaccuum, familiarize herself with all the details and basically take over government herself.
One more bit of trivia: Carolina was accused to have had a lesbian relationship with Emma, Lady Hamilton, though this might just have been the British press having a go at Emma who'd become the go to hate person for them, the one dragging national hero Nelson down, etc. It might also have been a reflection of a popular accusation the French Revolutionaries had flung at her sister (Marie Antoinette had been accused of having slept with at least two of her ladies in waiting in addition to having male lovers). But it's still worth noting three of MT's daughters were rumored to have had female love interests.
A footnote on Joseph and younger sisters who weren't Mimi: he had stood in for Marie Antoinette's various official godparents and had carried her when she was baptized (remember, she was the last but one of MT's children), and he always felt a bit extra protective of her. When MT had died, MA wrote to him: "Crushed by the most dreadful misfortune, I cannot stop crying as I write you. Oh, my brother, oh, my friend! You only are now left to me in a country which is, which will always be, dear to me! Take care of yourself, watch over yourself (…) Adieu, I no longer see what I write. Remember we are friends, allies; love me."
In the end, she outlived Joseph, but she and Louis were already under house arrest by the time Joseph died, and he'd been involved in early rescue plots. Leopold, otoh, was more reluctant about this. (That MA kept trying to contact her Austrian family encouraging them to invade was one of the things condemning her to death in the end, though the terreur being what it was, it probably would have happened regardless.
Re: The awfulness of being a royal woman
And now for the MT daughter who had it worst in terms of husbands. Now, even young Mozart was shocked when he visited Naples, and if you shock Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of the scatological jokes and sex talk, well. Carolina was the sister closest to Marie Antoinette in age and emotionally, and when she heard about MA getting married, she wrote to their shared governess: "When I imagine that her fate could be the same as mine, I want to write entire volumes to her about this, and I wish she finds a confidant like me in her new home, for without one, I shall be frank, it drives you to despair, and you endure true martyrdom. (...) I know what it is like, and I pity those who have yet to experience it. (...) If my faith hadn't told me to think of God, I'd have killed myself."
(Luckily for MA, Louis wasn't a bad fellow. Lethargy and sexual ignorance was the worst you could accuse him off, and he was a loyal husband even when people everwhere made her their go-to-hate-person to blame for all that was wrong in France. Not coincidentally, I think, MA refused all escape plans for herself alone, come the revolution, and insisted he had to be saved as well.)
So when Joseph did his "check on my sisters abroad" tour, and came to Naples, this resulted in an absolutely scathing letter about this particular brother-in-law. Starting with his exterior: according to Joseph, Ferdinand was revoltingly ugly to look at, with a shrill voice. He kicked and punched people around (literally), when he was feeling nice pinched and tickled the ladies at court at random, was into pranks involving throwing living mice at ladies and marmelade at courtiers, lived with lots of animals shitting all over the place in his palaces, made people watch him when he relieved himself, wanted to make Joseph the witness when he, Ferdinand, was fingering Joseph's sister Carolina, didn't read, did barely know how to write, couldn't list the ten commandments, had no problem lying, stealing, and having people killed. An utter incomprehension of morality rather than deliberate menace, tough, and a childlike mind.
(Why yes, Naples had a revolution in its future, too. One that was bloodily repressed by Horatio Nelson because Emma asked him to, who in turn wanted to save her friend the Queen. This being after Caroline's sister MA had already been executed, you can imagine what Caroline feared. But the beating down of the revolution was still so brutal that even the anti-revolution-minded British public got queasy and held it against Nelson for a while until more anti Napoleon heroics on his part ensued.)
His sister, otoh, Joseph described only in positive terms, virtuous, smart and modest and while not able to love her husband for obvious reasons, having developed more compassion than loathing for him.
Anyway, since talking to his brother-in-law was pointless in this case and annulment was out (they already had had kids, plus the Naples marriage had had strategic reasons), Joseph basically reccommended that his sister should get rid of Tannucci, the most powerful minister in Naples who profitted from the King's infantile mind leaving a power vaccuum, familiarize herself with all the details and basically take over government herself.
One more bit of trivia: Carolina was accused to have had a lesbian relationship with Emma, Lady Hamilton, though this might just have been the British press having a go at Emma who'd become the go to hate person for them, the one dragging national hero Nelson down, etc. It might also have been a reflection of a popular accusation the French Revolutionaries had flung at her sister (Marie Antoinette had been accused of having slept with at least two of her ladies in waiting in addition to having male lovers). But it's still worth noting three of MT's daughters were rumored to have had female love interests.
A footnote on Joseph and younger sisters who weren't Mimi: he had stood in for Marie Antoinette's various official godparents and had carried her when she was baptized (remember, she was the last but one of MT's children), and he always felt a bit extra protective of her. When MT had died, MA wrote to him: "Crushed by the most dreadful misfortune, I cannot stop crying as I write you. Oh, my brother, oh, my friend! You only are now left to me in a country which is, which will always be, dear to me! Take care of yourself, watch over yourself (…) Adieu, I no longer see what I write. Remember we are friends, allies; love me."
In the end, she outlived Joseph, but she and Louis were already under house arrest by the time Joseph died, and he'd been involved in early rescue plots. Leopold, otoh, was more reluctant about this. (That MA kept trying to contact her Austrian family encouraging them to invade was one of the things condemning her to death in the end, though the terreur being what it was, it probably would have happened regardless.