Children of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

[RubyPrincess168]

Wow! When will they have the results? It'll be interesting to see what the goverments would do as far as reburiel, etc. if it matched.

 

[norwegianne]

There is a book out about Marie Therese, wherein the mystery is mentioned: MARIE-THÉRÈSE, CHILD OF TERROR: The Fate of Marie Antoinette’s Daughter. By Susan Nagel.

New York Times has a review of the book here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/b...4000&en=0eaf8022239eb00c&ei=5087 &oref=slogin

 

[Empress]

I am actually in the middle of reading that book. So far it's pretty good.

 

[Susana]

Dark Countess vs Duchesse d' Angouleme

I too am just finishing this book; I had no idea in spite of voracious reading on the French and the Revolution that Ernestine was a half-sister to the Children of France. However in regard to the identity of the Dark Countess I cannot believe that the hundreds of courtiers surrounding Marie-Therese Charlotte after her release from the Temple would a. not have noticed that she was actually not 'she' but another female AND b. that if they had noticed they would have all been able to keep the secret. Has there been a DNA test? Is there a resolution to this mystery? Please post if you know the results. Thank you.

 

[Warren]

I don't know the resolution but here are two sites which discuss the mystery:

Dunkelgrafen (Wiki - The "Dark Counts")

Community of interest Madame Royale ("The Dark Countess of Hildburghausen")
.

 

[Vasaborg]

The Dauphin.

An American woman claims the Dauphin survived ! she says she is descended from him! She even wrote a book about it !

 

[V.F.H.78]

Many people said the Dauphin Louis XVII wasn't dead and many people pretended to BE the Dauphin.
But Louis XVII is really dead in the prison of the Temple and they were all usurpers.
The most famous usurper is Karl-Wilhelm Naundorff.

 

[AnnaDeBorn]

Some time ago there was an article about the Dauphin in the Catalan-language history magazine Sàpiens. It gathers all the details known so far including recent DNA tests but it’s no closer o solving the mystery. There is plenty of room to doubt that the boy who died in The Temple was Louis XVII though. Apparently he was almost literally walled so that nobody could actually see him and, curiously enough, it’s documented that on 23 May 1794 Robespierre took him out only to bring him back 24 hours later. Was he the same child?
Furthermore, when Paul Barras (who had never seen the Dauphin before) visited him in July 1794 he found a half-demented deaf and dumb teenager, when Louis should have been 9 years old. The body of the dead boy was dug out and analyzed twice, in 1846 and 1894, and it was agreed that it belonged to a 15 or 16 year-old. He was certainly not the Dauphin.
The article does not give credibility to any of the usurpers either, it just states that the Dauphin’s fate remains a mystery to this day….

 

[monica17]

don't you think her life was so fascinating? well fascinating until the last few years of her life...golly her mother the Empress was soooooooooo dominating...i wouldn't stand it if i had a mother like her....the book illustrates a Marie-Antoinette that totally contradicts the image people have portrayed about her...she seemed genuinely kind and nice, i only wished she had descendants...

MA may have been kind and nice and being that may have helped....but it wasn't enough. Although I like her a lot, I have to admit that she was also proud, heedless, lazy, pleasure-loving, extravagant, and did not appear to make any serious efforts to befriend either the nobility or the common people nor understand France's situation. Personally, I can compare her with Empress Sisi of Austria, both partook of the privileges of being Queen/Empress while avoiding any real work. MA and her husband did nothing effective to counter the lampoons against them. While they were both very young when wed, they had more or less 15 years to make themselves a bit more receptive to the times and realities of their country. I have the book by Antonia Fraser but there are many other good ones on her as well. I am of the opinion that it is a bit too sympathetic to her although I like the vast amount of details in it. That being said, I do like MA and her sisters very much and find them very fascinating. But she (and her husband too) was the wrong person to effectively counter the tremendous challenges sweeping the nation and their enemies. So IMHO, she wasn't certainly blameless although I do not think she deserved her fate at the end.

Her life is indeed very fascinating -- and with such extreme contrasts in the beginning and the end of it. I think all but two children--perhaps with the only exceptions were Leopold and Maximilian -- of Empress Maria Theresa's children had tragedies and/ or misfortunes in their lives. Maria Theresa was indeed too dominating/harsh. Many of her children, her favorite child Mimi seemed to be the only exception, resented their mother's control and domination.

If Vasaborg and I have read of the same woman, then American woman who claims to be descended from MA and Louis XVI through Louis VII is a member of another royalty forum that I go to. I don't think she has any documentary proof yet of her claim. She did say that she has done research on their family's genealogy for decades and wants to do some DNA testing later on. She has a bunch of pictures and perhaps some family legends, I think. If I'm not mistaken the book is called "Could Marie Antoinette have been my Great-great-great Grandmother....?' or similar.

 

[Vasaborg]

Yes that is the American Woman , it was in that royalty forum that you are a member of that i found out about this claim.

 

[Dierna23]

The story of the dark countess is very fascinating. It is said that the Madame Royale was pregnant when she escaped because she was raped before - is there any information if she gave birth to her child? And if so, what happened to the child?

 

[Warren]

Posts requesting information on family histories have been moved to the Help with family histories and mysteries thread in Members' Corner.

 

[Grace Angel]

The story of the dark countess is very fascinating. It is said that the Madame Royale was pregnant when she escaped because she was raped before - is there any information if she gave birth to her child? And if so, what happened to the child?

Madame Royale was never pregnant. She was basically officially released not escaped, and she went to Austria after that before later marrying her French royal cousin.

 

[The Walrus Club]

Marie-Therese Charlotte

Has anyone ever proven or disproven the truth behind Madame Royale?
My G grandmother (Antoinette Brodak/Mc Dermott), born Feb.18,1874, used to tell us a story about how Madame Royale actually escaped the prison by having someone impersonate her.This would mean that the marriage between the impersonator and her cousin wouldn't have been legal or true because she wasn't actually Madame Royale.
If the decendants of the real Madame Royale were alive today wouldn't that cancell the claim to the French Crown by both the Orleans and Spanish pretenders?
My family is doing a genealogy study to trace the "direct maternal" line backwards from my G grandmother,to her mother,to her mother,to her mother, which would take us to France during the revolution.
We have traced it back to Breslau,Germany(now Wroclaw,Poland) from her to her mother Ottilie Schindler,who married John Brodak in 1850 and am now getting to her mother Matilde Gusman who married August Schindler, date unknown so far.
We have also traced the maternal lineage forward from Antoinette Brodak/Mc Dermott to her G granddaughter who is alive today.She is willing to take a DNA test to prove the "direct maternal lineage".We already have the test results on Marie Antoinettes hair to match to.
Can anyone tell me how we should go about proving our claim after we have all the info. we are seeking? Is there anybody in Europe who could help us out?

Thanks

 

[EmpressRouge]

If the decendants of the real Madame Royale were alive today wouldn't that cancell the claim to the French Crown by both the Orleans and Spanish pretenders?

No it would not. The French throne is inherited by Salic Law, i.e. strictly through the male line. "Direct maternal line" means nothing. Regardless of whether the real Madame Royale escaped, her children are barred from inheritance unless a daughter (or female descendant) married a legitimate Bourbon in the male line, then their children have a shot through the male line.

 

[The Walrus Club]

Marie-Therese Charlotte "Madame Royale"

Hello

I've heard several stories madame royale escaping from the prison by having someone impersonate her.I've read the account of the "Dark Countess", but are there others that I can read about?
I'm trying to trace a story once told to me by my G grandmother.She said madame royale did escape,then went back to her Austrian relatives.She also said we are decendants of her.
I realize that the crown can't be claimed by decendants from the female line, but we are trying to verify the story she told us as part of our family genealogy project.
Can someone give me some more stories to investigate? Any info. you might have would be greatly appreciated.
You may contact me = thewalrusclub@gmail.com

Thanks

 

[Marengo]

I have never read that Madame Royale escaped from her emprisonment. However, she was released in 1795 and indeed went to her relatives in Vienna.

She married her cousin, Louis Antoine, son of Charles X. The couple had no children.

 

[Thribette]

If the grave of this "Dark countess" is known, it would be easy to take mitochondrial DNA and show she was not a Marie-Antoinette relative; also one could take Madame Royale's mitochondrial for the same experiment, still using as a reference the mitochondrial DNA collected to establish the authenticity of her brother Louis XVII's heart.

 

[Lady of the Manor]

Not all of her children died during the French Revolution. The eldest boy fell ill and died before any of the revolution broke out and their other son died in prison from tuberculosis of the bones. Their only daughter to survive infancy also survived the revoution. She married her cousin and became the Duchess of Angouleme. Much to her sorrow, she and her husband were not able to have children, so the direct line ended there.

I did wonder about this. I had heard she didn't have any but some people think there may have been an illegitimate child...?

 

[Sonam]

I did wonder about this. I had heard she didn't have any but some people think there may have been an illegitimate child...?

I have heard from many sources that this couldn't have been possible. But I guess you can never know something 100%.

 

[PrincessKaimi]

Just downloaded the book on Marie Antoinette's daughter for Kindle..

...now I'm confused. Is she the Dark Countess? Who is the Dark Countess?

 

[monica17]

Just downloaded the book on Marie Antoinette's daughter for Kindle..

...now I'm confused. Is she the Dark Countess? Who is the Dark Countess?

The Dark Countess is supposed to be the real Marie-Therese-Charlotte (MTC), Madame Royale, who lived in seclusion afterwards and a "fake" MTC was put in her place and released to her relatives.

I'm just wondering if it were the fake MTC who was released, shouldn't people who knew her before have at least suspected that she wasn't the real one? Also, MTC should be able to recall those details (about events, people, royal life, among others) about her life (and those around her), how can a fake MTC have access to such. Unless it was a 'genius" substitute, who had someone to coach her about all that......

 

[Carminha Stalker]

What a tragic story that of the children of Louis XVI and Marie AntoinetteThe suffering they both went through and the awful death of the young boy.It´s not difficult to think how this girl, Madame Royale felt throughout her life about what had happened to her parents and brother.
After the bloodbath of the aristocrats, the French people who thought were "liberating" themselves, could witness the bloodbath during the reign of terror, when their so-called "liberators" were themselves guillotined!
And it took a man who didn´t want to be President or Prime Minister but Emperor, to start shaping things out.

 

[Grandduchess24]

Those children seemed like to have a happy life until the revolution ruined everything
-Sophie died as a baby
- Louis Joseph died of a condition he developed and died young
- Louis Charles , the proclaimed Louis XVII was taken prisoner with his family and psychologically changed and bad hygiene killed him
- Marie Therese lived until old age but went through some things upon being released from prison and taking on Nepoleon and her cousin Phillppe who took the throne from her and her husband Louis XIX

 

[Odette]

There were comments on a book (Marie Therese, the fate of Marie Antoinette's daughter) that Madame Royale was given poison by her captors while in prison to render her sterile. She was 17 years old when she was released and her Austrian relatives accepted her as the daughter of Marie Antoinette. Count Fersen who was a family intimate met her after her release in Vienna and he should have been able to determine if she was an impostor.
The "Dark Countess" is a mystery adding a bit more interest to all this but it was never proven one way or the other that she was the true Marie Therese. The family who actually knew her true identity were sworn to never reveal who the Dark Countess really was.

 

[Nice Nofret]

No, the mystery of the dark countess is solved .. she was totaly someone else but I have forgotten who she was .. too unimportend

 

[Sancia]

I haven't found any clue on Internet about the mystery being solved. Do you remember where you read it?

 

[IloveCP]

Was Madame Royale Infertile?

 

[Sancia]

Was Madame Royale Infertile?

One can't say who was infertile in the couple. The only thing sure is the couple remained childless.

 

[Kataryn]

I haven't found any clue on Internet about the mystery being solved. Do you remember where you read it?

I read that as ther Dark Countess obviously had no relatives, her remains "belong" to the community where she is buried and that the community council decided not to allow the opening of her grave for the taking of DNA-samples. Thus there is no way to establish who she might have been.