Marie Thérèse of Savoy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marie-Thérèse of Savoy (31 January 1756 - 1805), princess of Sardinia and of Piedmont, was the wife of Charles, Comte d'Artois, the youngest grandson of Louis XV of France, who would become Charles X of France.
'Maria Teresa di Savoia was the fifth child and third daughter of Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and his Queen consort Maria Antonieta Fernanda of Bourbon, Infanta of Spain. Her paternal grandparents were Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia and his wife Polixena Christina of Hesse-Rotenburg. Polixena was a daughter of Ernest Leopold, Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg. Her maternal grandparents were Philip V of Spain and his second wife, Elizabeth Farnese.
Marie-Thérèse married Charles-Philippe, Comte d'Artois, on 16 November 1773; her sister, Marie Josephine, had married his brother, Louis de Provence, some two and a half years before. Charles had previously been intended to marry the Princesse de Condé, and was emotionally close to his other sister-in-law, Marie Antoinette of Austria; his marriage to Marie-Thérèse's failed to interest either bride or groom. She was one of the most disliked figures at the French court of the time, although she avoided the worst of the abuse directed at Marie Antoinette.
Marie-Thérèse and Charles produced four children, the last direct line of the Bourbons:
- Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angouleme (1775 – 1844)
- Sophie (1776 – 1783)
- Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry (1778 – 1820)
- Marie-Thérèse (1783)
She fled France with her husband in 1789, after the beginning of the French Revolution. She died in exile at Gratz in 1805. Because she died before her husband became Charles X of France, she was not Queen, instead being buried as the Countess of Artois.
