Marie-Thérèse

Queen consort of France

• Born: September 10, 1638
• Birthplace: El Escorial Palace, Madrid, Spain
• Died: July 30, 1683
• Place of death: Versailles, France

Marie-Thérèse of Spain had a great influence on seventeenth century world events, as Spain’s inability to pay her large dowry to France led to the downfall of Spain—and the growth of France—as a world power.

Early Life

Like all royal princesses of her day, the future marriage of Marie-Thérèse (mah-ree-tay-rehz) was of primary concern from the moment of her birth. Although she wielded limited direct power in her lifetime, the daughter of Philip IV of Spain and of Elizabeth (Isabella) of France (1602-1644) was destined to have an influential life. She was raised in the Spanish court of her strict, puritanical father, whom, it was rumored, smiled only three times in his entire life. Indeed, her early childhood lessons included the extremely strict court etiquette of the era and serious Catholic religious instruction, which was to influence her life profoundly.

Although she remained in the background, behind the throne, so to speak, for most of her life, Marie-Thérèse was to play a major role in the seventeenth century political arena. In 1659, her father signed the Treaty of the Pyrenees to end the Thirty Years’ War between France and Spain. Part of the treaty arranged marriage between Marie-Thérèse and her cousin, who was the son of her aunt, Anne of Austria . After lengthy negotiations with the French chief minister, Cardinal Jules Mazarin , Philip of Spain permitted a diplomatic mission to court his daughter on behalf of her future husband, King Louis XIV . The formal proposal occurred in the throne room of the Alhambra.

At the age of twenty-two, the highly virtuous and devout Marie-Thérèse was wed in a diplomatic marriage of convenience in June of 1660. The whole Spanish court, including the Spanish king, accompanied her to the Ile des Faisans (Isle of Pheasants) near the Basque coast to meet her groom, Louis. Her marriage brought peace between Spain and France for the first time in twenty-four years.

Life’s Work

While her early role in life as a princess of the Spanish crown was to marry well, Marie-Thérèse came to fully realize, after fulfilling this duty, that her real life’s work as queen consort was to produce as many royal children as possible for France. However, while many men would have found her good nature and her deep sense of religious devotion favorable, Louis, also known as the Sun King (Le Roi de Soleil), favored other women for his sexual pleasures. Louis, who ruled as monarch of France for seventy-two years, came to neglect Marie-Thérèse early on and continued to disregard her throughout their marriage by taking a string of mistresses, primarily Françoise-Louise de la Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière(1644-1710), the love of his life, and Françoise-Athénaïs, Rochechouart de Mortemart (1641-1707), the marquise of Montespan. However, the extremely patient and pious Marie-Thérèse, although severely jealous and deeply in love with her husband, kept her anger to herself and never showed resentment to the king’s open infidelities.

After just a year into their marriage, Marie-Thérèse found out that her royal husband was passionately in love with the very docile Vallière, who provided him with four children and who remained his mistress until 1667, when he fell in love with the power-hungry Montespan. Unlike Vallière, Montespan attempted to gain personal power over the king by usurping Queen Marie-Thérèse’s position at court. Marie-Thérèse had to suffer through the open resentment of Montespan, a woman who had once been her maid of honor and who ultimately became the mother of six of the king’s children. However, in time, the queen came to show great kindness toward Montespan when, as a matter of course, the king’s reliance on his mistress forced him to pay more loving attention to his wife.

At some unknown point, though, Marie-Thérèse’s jealousy and despair led her into the arms of a teenage lover, a slave and jester named Nabo, who was “given” to her as a gift by members of the Spanish court. Also, in 1664, she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Louise Marie-Thérèse, who became known as the Black Nun of Moret (1664-1732). The girl was confined from birth and spent most of her life in a Benedictine convent, where she was visited by her mother and other members of the royal court throughout her life. Her father, however, disappeared. This little-known fact of history is highlighted in Las Meninas, a 1997 play by Lynn Nottage.

In 1670, Marie-Thérèse found herself in despair as the work of her life—bearing children—became imperiled. She had given birth to five of the king’s children (four of whom were dead: three daughters died shortly after birth and her son survived until he was three years old). To her great chagrin, however, her husband’s illegitimate children flourished. Only the heir, her son Louis, survived to adulthood.

Although she was to affect world events, indirectly, Marie-Thérèse had no part in political affairs, except in 1672, when she acted as regent during Louis XIV’s campaign in Holland. She died suddenly at her palace in Versailles on July 30, 1683, in the arms of Madame de Maintenon, who was to replace her as Louis XIV’s wife. Although it was rumored that Marie-Thérèse was poisoned by her doctors, no proof of this has been found. Marie-Thérèse is perhaps most famous for saying, “If they have no bread then let them eat cake!” Even though Marie-Thérèse was the one who voiced this renowned line, its authorship has been passed on to her unfortunate descendant Marie-Antoinette, who was to lose her head to the guillotine (in 1793) during the French Revolution.

Significance

As queen consort to Louis XIV, Marie-Thérèse wielded minimal direct power, but she was destined to have an influential and significant life. As part of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, Marie-Thérèse was to relinquish any claim to the Spanish throne in return for an enormous dowry. Unfortunately, because of Spain’s increasing financial difficulties, the dowry was never paid. The failure to pay the dowry resulted in the War of Devolution, which was fought between France and Spain. Louis XIV claimed that the possession of the Spanish Netherlands would devolve to his wife, Marie-Thérèse, upon the death of her father, Philip IV of Spain.

When the unfit Charles II inherited the Spanish throne, France invaded and conquered the area of what is now Belgium and also seized the Franche-Comté, a Spanish possession that bordered Switzerland. The failure to pay Marie-Thérèse’s dowry also played a major factor in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), which in effect ruined Spain’s preeminent power in Europe and greatly heightened the status of France in the eyes of the world, bringing France to the summit of its power. Until this time, Spain had been the most significant world power, dominating Europe and with an enormous treasure in the Americas.

Bibliography

Frey, Linda, and Marsha Frey, eds. The Treaties of the War of the Spanish Succession. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. An excellent reference source with short articles on European rulers and the partition treaties.

Levi, Anthony. Louis XIV. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004. Although this book deals with the king and his court, a large amount of attention is paid to Marie-Thérèse and, in particular, her role as a possible heir to the Spanish throne.

Lewis, W. H. The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1997. Lewis explores the political, economic, and social forces that influenced the lives of Marie-Thérèse and her husband Louis XIV. Originally published in 1953.

Mitford, Nancy. The Sun King. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. A large, illustrated volume that covers the daily life of the court and the government during the period of France’s greatest power. Makes many references to Marie-Thérèse’s life at Versailles.

Montespan, Madame la Marquise de. Memoirs of Madame de Montespan. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2004. A modern translation of a work written by the longest reigning of Louis XIV’s mistresses.