Princess Isabella of Parma

Early life

Birth and family

Infanta Isabel María Luisa Antonieta of Spain was born on 31 December 1741 at Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid as the first child of Infante Philip of Spain and his wife, Louise-Élisabeth of France (known as “Madame Infante”), both from the House of Bourbon.

Isabella's parents were first cousins once removed with an age difference of six years (her mother had been twelve and her father eighteen years old when they married). Madame Infante was the eldest daughter of Louis XV of France and Queen Marie Leszczyńska. She and her contemporaries thought that she should only marry a (future) monarch, yet the Infante Philip was only Philip V of Spain's third son. Madame Infante was ambitious and strong-willed, unlike her husband. She worked through her international connections to secure a higher position for herself and her husband and more power for the Bourbons as a whole. She had a contentious relationship with her mother-in-law Elisabeth Farnese, the de facto ruler of Spain, whom she threatened in her influence over her son, but they worked together to advance the Infante Philip's career.

Madame Infante was fourteen years old when she gave birth to Isabella. The delivery was difficult and lasted for two days. Two months later, Philip left to fight in the War of the Austrian Succession. He did not see his family again until Isabella was eight years old, although he kept up an intensive correspondence with his wife and mother, learning about his daughter from them.

Early life in Madrid

For the first seven years of her life, Isabella was raised at the Madrid court of her paternal grandparents. Her grandmother, Queen Elisabeth, loved her, reporting regularly on her well-being, development, and behaviour to her absent son. Based on these letters, her mother never displayed affection towards Isabella, whom she found “stubborn” and “unbearable”. She was impatient with her, and if Isabella threw tantrums, Madame Infante chastised her so severely that Queen Elisabeth called it a “military drill”. Isabella was raised by an aya (governess), the French-born widow Marie-Catherine de Bassecourt-Grigny, Marquise of Gonzalez (later suo jure marquise of Borghetto; 1693–1770). The Marquise retained a strong sense of etiquette and hierarchy from her previous position as dame d'honneur to Isabella's aunt by marriage, Barbara of Portugal. Isabella developed a close bond with her aya, which inspired jealousy in her mother.

Isabella's education was structured around contemporary ideals for princesses. The use of corporal punishment was ordered by her father and endorsed by her mother. According to a work by her that is probably autobiographical in part, she appers to have been an energetic and mischievous child. The character, l'Étourderie (“Amazement”) personified, that she wrote about as an adult, was always loud, “jumping, climbing, falling”, breaking furniture and ornaments as a child. Her favourite pastimes were chasing after butterflies, horse-riding, and performing stunts with a rope, but she also liked to write, sing, and draw. Because her behaviour was considered unsuitable, her governess forbade her access to ropes, horses, and swings. “What to do in this sad situation? [...] But I eventually learned to be reasonable”, Isabella commented, writing as l'Étourderie. She started to entertain herself silently, later recalling that her head was “always in the clouds, occupying itself with a hundred thousand ideas at once”. Badinter argues that these scenes reveal the character and difficulties of Isabella as a young child, and Seth agrees that the work is at least somewhat autobiographical. In 1746, when Isabella was four, a French envoy complimented her “dignity”, saying that she already knew “who she is, to whom she belongs, and what she must be one day”. He also remarked on the coldness of Madame Infante towards Isabella. Growing up as an only child until the age of ten with no playmates and under strict control, her childhood has been characterised as “lonely and austere” by Élisabeth Badinter.

Visit to Versailles

Between 6 January and 7 October 1749, Isabella lived in Versailles, visiting her maternal family on her way to Parma. As the then-only grandchild of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska, she received more attention and affection than ever before. The luxury and cheerfulness of the French court was a shock compared to the rigidity of Spanish courtly customs. Aged eight, she participated in court functions fully and attended the theatre, the opera, balls, and concerts. Paul d'Albert de Luynes recorded that she did not seem to enjoy these and was considered “timid”. At this time, Isabella was more comfortable speaking Spanish (which she had learned from her aya) than French (which she had always used with her mother and paternal grandmother).

With time, Isabella started to enjoy her stay. She liked to accompany Queen Marie to operas, plays, and concerts, and she was delighted by being treated as a French royal princess: the royal guard saluted her, and she was seated in an identical armchair to that of her mother and aunts. Once, she performed in a play in the apartment of Dauphine Maria Josepha of Saxony to general acclaim. After her stay in Versailles, she corresponded with her maternal family until the end of her life and her primary language had become French.

[The French] are lively and stay so to the grave. [...] Their books are witty, their conversations also; few nations are so gifted in this. Their spirit is brilliant and full of fire, it is capable of designing anything with promptness and accuracy, it is vast, it understands everything, it is precise, few things escape it, it is inventive in every way.

Adolescence in Parma

With the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Isabella's father became duke of Parma, a title formerly belonging to his mother's family. Isabella and her mother arrived in Parma on 20 November 1749. The duchy was impoverished, its palaces in ruins. Whereas Isabella thought highly of Spaniards and the French, she considered Italians to be “ignorant of the art of thinking” and immediately wanted to leave.

Isabella's parents had two children in 1751: Ferdinand on 20 January and Luisa on 9 December, to whom their mother showed more affection. Isabella seems not to have been jealous and to have enjoyed having company. Her mother, resenting her low status and relative poverty, focussed on arranging prestigious marriages for her children. She visited Versailles twice to negotiate a match for Isabella, first between August 1752 and October 1753, then in the summer of 1757, when she died. Both times, her husband and children stayed in Parma.

During Madame Infante's absences, Isabella reported on her siblings' well-being to their father and maternal grandmother. The Infante Philip lived apart from his children for seven months every year to be closer to the best hunting grounds in the Ducal Palace of Colorno. Isabella sent short notes to him on the sleeping habits and teething of the two infants. Between November and April, Philip lived with his younger children in the Palazzo della Pilotta and Isabella stayed with her aya in the Palazzo del Giardino.

While Isabella certainly exchanged letters with her mother, these have been lost. Around this time, her French friends questioned Madame Infante about her coldness towards her eldest child. She replied that her own “character was too serious” to “make a friend of [her] daughter” and she believed that Isabella should be “satisfied” with the affection shown to her Madame Infante's “cold nature” did not allow for more. The Marshal of France, Adrien-Maurice de Noailles, officially urged Madame Infante to show more love to Isabella as it was feared that rumours about her cold treatment could diminish the chances of a politically advantageous marriage. The French ambassador to Parma assured Noailles that more attention was being paid to Isabella, while Madame Infante protested that “all the world must see […] how much I love her. For those who know me, it is certain”.

In the summer of 1749, Isabella's parents hired Pierre Cerou, an educated French comedy writer and tutor to manage their property and instruct Isabella in history, literature, and French. The Madrid court was concerned about Cerou's religiosity, and at their request he was replaced by a French Jesuit, Thomas Fumeron in 1754. Fumeron, however, was assigned to Ferdinand, not Isabella. From then on, she did not officially have a teacher. In 1757 and 1758 respectively, a governor and a tutor were hired for Ferdinand: Auguste de Keralio, a soldier and scientist, and Étienne Bonnot, Abbot of Condillac, a philosopher and close friend of Rousseau, Diderot, and d'Alembert. Isabella was instructed by her confessors, Fathers Fumeron and Belgrado, in the lives of the saints. She continued to practice drawing, painting, and music with her aya. She excelled at singing and playing the violin and the harpsichord. While there is no proof that she attended lectures by Keralion and Condillac, Badinter argues that her later knowledge of military theory, history, and Enlightenment ideals shows that she did. She was certainly exposed to Enlightenment ideas in Parma, where her father was engaged in an extensive project of modernisation with the help of Keralio, Bonnot de Condillac, and Alexandre Deleyre, the court librarian.

Life in Vienna

Marriage with Archduke Joseph

The family policy of Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress was intended to strengthen the relationship between the Bourbons and the Habsburgs. In 1756, influenced by Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV decided to shift alliances and join Austria against Great-Britain and Prussia in the Diplomatic Revolution. Maria Theresa's eldest son and heir, Joseph, was unenthusiastic about marriage because of his low opinion of women. He relied completely on on his mother to choose a bride. In the aftermath of the alliance between Austria and France, Joseph's betrothal to Isabella's cousin, Maria Luisa of Spain, was broken off with the excuse that he had fallen in love with Isabella, although the decision was a political one made by his mother. On the bride's side, negotiations were led by Madame Infante. On 30 April 1759, she reported to her husband that the betrothal had been made. Eight months later, on 6 December, aged thirty-two, Madame Infante died of smallpox in France, devastating her daughter. Isabella might have become convinced at this time that she was to die within four years. She repeatedly stated that she would die before turning twenty-two.

After the betrothal, the parties decided to wait so that the young couple could mature. Madame Infante's death further delayed the plans. Isabella started to learn German, devoting seven hours a day to it. Isabella was anxious to please her future mother-in-law, and she prepared methodically for her future: she studied the political situation of the Habsburg monarchy and followed its ongoing war with Prussia closely. To please her new family, she was ready to pretend and manipulate. Meanwhile, Joseph wrote to a friend that he would try to win his bride's “respect and trust”, but he considered it impossible to “pose as a lover”, which would go against his “nature” that had never understood romantic love. Thoughts of his approaching wedding made him “tremble” and feel melancholic.

I am extremely worried about my future happiness; I am certainly not entering this [married] state out of curiosity or bestial lust; only the thought of duty brings me to this, which costs me infinitely and disgusts me. [...] A victim of the State, I am sacrificing myself, hoping that God will repay me...

Following a marriage by proxy, Isabella was sent to Vienna in the company of Joseph Wenzel I, Prince of Liechtenstein in late 1760. While she was sad to say goodbye to her family, she was happy to leave Parma. Maria Theresa refused to let anyone of her former staff accompany her. Publicly, Isabella disguised her sadness, but she cried in private with her father, siblings, confessor, and aya. She travelled through the Alps and was greeted at the border by her Oberhofmeisterin, the widowed Countess Erdődy, Antónia Battyhány. They reached a castle near Vienna on 1 October, where they were received by Isabella's father-in-law Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Relationship with Archduchess Maria Christina

Her sister-in-law, Archduchess Maria Christina (known as Marie) was Isabella's best friend and only confidante in Vienna. Marie was the third surviving child of the imperial couple, less than five months younger than Isabella, and the Empress' favourite. She was intelligent and artistically inclined. The two quickly developed a close relationship, spending so much time together that they earned a comparison with Orpheus and Eurydice. Despite living in the same palace, they exchanged letters and small notes daily, which Freyermuth connects to the popularity of intimate correspondence and epistolary novels at the time. Two hundred pieces of correspondence by Isabella survived (those by Marie were burned after her death).

It seems that Isabella soon became romantically and perhaps sexually attracted to Marie. The latter's feelings developed more gradually and remained more reserved. She was recovering from her love for Louis Eugene of Württemberg, whom she could not marry as Maria Theresa considered him socially inferior. Soon after Isabella's arrival, in October or November 1760, she started to playfully court Marie, writing that “love, that cruel god, torment[ed]” her and that death “would be surely sweet”, except for not being able to love Marie anymore. In the beginning of their relationship, she addressed Marie formally, calling her “my lady my dear Sister”, but soon started calling her “my dear angel”, “my most precious treasure”, or “my consolation”. Marie's regular nicknames were mon Alte (“my old [one]”) and mon âne, mein Engerl, or Eserl (all words meaning donkey). She once asked Isabella to call her baadwaschl, Viennese slang for washcloth, an object with erotic connotations. Isabelle regularly portrayed the two of them as a heterosexual couple (for example, Marie as Eurydice and herself as Orpheus or as couples from popular contemporary comedies). She called herself the “lover” (amant) of Mimi. Isabella combined the superlatives fashionable at the time between close friends with genuine signs of her obsession and adoration for Marie.

The two women agreed to meet in hidden places and Isabella wrote short notes to Marie during mass. They gifted each other close stools and Isabella commented that she hoped Marie would think of her each time she used it. If the weather prevented Joseph from going on a hunt, the sisters-in-law cancelled their meeting in hurried, disappointed notes. They were worried to keep their relationship a secret; in March 1761, Isabella reminded Marie of her “given word” to never talk about something (she does not specify what), because “there is nothing in the world as shameful as going against nature”.

Death and aftermath

The imperial court spent summers in Schönbrunn. In autumn 1763, it was recorded that Isabella did not want to move back to the Hofburg, their winter home. She was around six months pregnant and believed that she might be carrying twins, and smallpox cases were reported in Vienna. Her 22nd birthday was approaching, and she had been certain for years that she would not live to see it. On 18 November, four days after her arrival in Vienna, Isabella developed a fever and was soon diagnosed with smallpox. Maria Theresa, who had been nursing her, was persuaded to leave her room, as she had not had the disease yet and thus could have caught it. Afterwards her husband Joseph and her eldest sisters-in-law Marianne and Marie took care of her. The fever induced labour, and on 22 November, she gave birth prematurely. On her request, the baby was baptised Maria Christina after her friend and possible lover Marie, but died the same day.

Following the birth, Isabella was rarely conscious and displayed a “courage” bordering on indifference to death. On 26 November, the doctors informed Joseph that his wife was dying, and she died on the next day at dawn, a month before her 22nd birthday. As her body was still infectious, it was buried without an autopsy or embalming in the Maria Theresa Vault of the Imperial Crypt. The coffin of her daughter Maria Christina was placed beneath hers. Isabella's death contributed to Maria Theresa's 1768 decision to have younger members of the family variolated (three or four of the Empress' children had also died of the disease, while almost all other members of her family, including Maria Theresa herself, almost died of it). The practice subsequently became accepted in Austria.

I have lost everything. My adorable wife and only friend is no more. (...) What a frightful separation! Can I survive it? Yes, and only to be unhappy all my life. (...) There is nothing I will enjoy ever again.

Impact on Joseph and Maria Christina

Joseph was devastated by Isabella's death and never fully recovered. He considered marrying Isabella's younger sister Luisa, but she was already engaged to Charles, Prince of Asturias (later Charles V of Spain). Under pressure from his mother, he married his second cousin Maria Josepha of Bavaria in 1765. Maria Josepha physically repulsed him, and he mistreated her despite her attempts to accommodate him. She died of smallpox after two years of marriage. He adored his only living child, Maria Theresa, who died of pleurisy in 1770, aged seven. Joseph, who was considered to have a difficult personality, changed positively during his marriage to Isabella, but after her death, he became even more sarcastic, easily irritable, and aggressive after her death than he had been before.

There is no record of Marie's reaction to Isabella's death. She took care of her daughter until she died in childhood. She married Prince Albert Casimir of Saxony in 1766 as the only one of Maria Theresa's children to be allowed to choose their own spouse. Later, she wrote that Isabella's death had been “to the great regret of all, but above all of me”.

What a loss to humanity such a princess [is]! What a disaster for the whole State, for the whole family, and for me, wretched one! She is incomparable! There has never been, there is not, there will never be such a princess or such a woman.

Personality and appearance

Isabella was interested in philosophy, morality, music, history, physics, and metaphysics. She was also artistically inclined: she painted, drew, sang, played the violin and the harpsichord with both enjoyment and talent, and wrote poems and studies. In 1758, French historian Pierre-Jean Grosley visited Parma and described Isabella as “one of the main wonders” of the city because of her “marked talent” in all “useful and pleasurable arts” and her “good knowledge of the world”. Freyermuth argues that the travels she undertook as a child and her diverse experiences in Spain, France, Parma, and later Austria stimulated her intellectual development and critical thinking skills.

During negotiations for her marriage, Austrian observers reported that Isabella spoke French, Spanish, Italian, and some Latin, studied sciences and maps, and followed military movements in Austria's ongoing Third Silesian War. She had also started to learn German. In a report commissioned by Maria Theresa, she was praised as “beautiful”, “kind”, and “dignified” but never “affected”, an “angel of beauty and goodness”. She liked to read but “did not wish to appear a savant”—she was able to express her intelligence and knowledge while remaining in line with contemporary expectations of proper feminine behaviour. Contemporaries appreciated that she was both “erudite” and good-hearted. She enjoyed dancing at balls but not card games, horse-riding, or hunting, preferring brisk-paced walks as physical exercise. Inspired by her grandmother Marie Leszczyńska, she distributed much of her income to the poor.

Despite her shy and reserved nature, Isabella was well-liked by most people. She observed others consciously and analysed their personalities, strengths, and weaknesses to build good relationships. When her best friend and possible lover, Archduchess Maria Christina, wrote a description of Isabella, she listed her negative traits as being biased in favour of those she loved and a reluctance to change her opinions. She also stated that Isabella liked to mock people, but once she had reached her goal and upset them, she was devastated.

Mental health problems

Isabella was considered melancholic, the contemporary name for depressive tendencies. Despite her usual liveliness and love of sports, she had sudden periods of being unable to move and sitting in one place, staring in front of herself for hours. It has been suggested by Tamussino that her problems may have been a form of bipolar disorder and partially hereditary, as both of her grandfathers (who were uncle and nephew) and her father showed similar symptoms. Her mother's death had a strong effect on her and convinced her that she would not live for more than four years longer. Burdened by her marriage, difficult pregnancies and homosexual desires, she became suicidal. She admitted in a letter that she would feel “great temptation” to die by suicide if it was not forbidden by the church because she felt that she was “good for nothing”, “only did bad things”, and saw no way to reach salvation. In 1763, she declared that she had heard a voice telling her that death was near, which put her in a “gentle, peaceful, festive” mood, encouraged her to “do anything” and gave her a “mysterious power over [herself]”.

Writings

Isabella left numerous writings in which she analysed her life and the world around her. Her first surviving work, Remarques politiques et militaires, 'Political and Military Observations' is dated to 1758, when she was aged seventeen. She wrote an autobiography titled Les Aventures de l'étourderie, 'The Adventures of Amazement'. In her Christian Reflections, which was published on Maria Theresa's orders in 1764, she contemplated religious questions and death from a Catholic perspective. She was planning a longer study titled On the Customs of Peoples, but could only write its first part (about ancient Egyptians) before her death. In a shorter dissertation, she summarised the Viennese court's efforts to join the Habsburg monarchy into world trade.

Réflexions sur l'éducation

Reflections on Education was Isabella's rejection of the contemporary upbringing of upper-class children and a covert condemnation of her own parents and teachers, especially the abusive tutors of her brother Ferdinand. She called parents who allow strangers to raise their offspring “lazy, indifferent, and weak”.

She rejected authoritarianism and corporal punishment, as she believed these made children “violent, stubborn, and harsh” immediately and in adulthood. She argued that unexplained restrictions and harsh punishments deprived children of the experience of “fulfilling their duties willingly”, giving them the only behavioural example of violence. She believed that children had “inherent goodwill and confidence”, but those raised authoritatively would learn to act out of a “servile fear of humiliation”. In Isabella's opinion, abusing parental authority leads children to think of themselves as “slaves” and become “unfeeling and self-mocking” to cope with their low self-esteem.

She considered corporal punishment (which her parents had embraced) futile and dangerous, originating in “hardened hearts”, “lowly sentiments”, and the “false belief” that humans are “no better than animals” and cannot be persuaded through reason. For her, violence against children showed adults' lack of “understanding” and pedagogical talent. Painting an anonymous portrait of her brother, she concluded that beatings inspired “hate”, dishonesty, and a desire to “avenge themselves” in children. Instead of these methods, which she say had been gaining popularity, she advocated for kindness, “almost unknown” as it was regarded as “a weakness, a failure of firmness and reason”.

Sur le sort des princesses

In the study The Fate of Princesses, Isabella wrote that a princess was the “victim of a minister's unfortunate policies”, sacrificed for the supposed public good. She criticised the idea of allying countries through marriages, arguing that this cannot lead to a lasting alliance. She concluded that a princess was in a “sad situation” which she could nevertheless make “enviable” by invoking the will of God and serving Him.

What can the daughter of a great prince expect? [...] Already at birth she is a slave to the prejudices of the people; she is born only to be subjected to this welter of honours, to this etiquette attached to greatness. [...] Her position deprives her of knowing [those] by whom she is surrounded. [...] The rank which she bears, far from bringing her the slightest advantage, deprives her of the greatest pleasure of life. [...] [O]bligated to live in the world, she hardly has any acquaintances or friends. [...] This is not all. In the end, they want to marry her off. She is therefore condemned to leave everything behind, her family, her homeland, and for whom? For a stranger, for a person whose character and way of thinking she does not know, for a family who will perhaps only look at her with jealousy, but in the best case with suspicion.

Traité sur les hommes

Isabella wrote a critical piece examining the status and behaviour of men in patriarchal contemporary European society, titled Traité sur les hommes ('Treatise on Men'). She argued that women were at least as good and intellectually capable as men and mocked the male sex whom he described as “useless animals” who only exist to “do bad things, be impatient, and create confusion”. Based on her experiences and maybe her opinion of her husband, she concluded that men were “deprived of feelings, [and] only loved themselves”. In her opinion, a man is born to think but instead spends his life with “entertainment, yelling, playing heroes, running up and down, in other words, doing nothing but what flatters his vanity or requires no thought of him”. She summarised why, in her opinion, men were nevertheless above women in society: so that their “faults can make [women's] virtues shine brighter”, to become better every day, and “to be endured in the world, from which, if they did not hold all power in their hands, they would be exiled entirely”. Isabella concluded that the “slavery” of women is caused by men sensing that women are superior to them.

Conseils à Marie

Isabella wrote a long letter to her sister-in-law and possible lover, Archduchess Maria Christina, as part of her preparations for death. The Conseils à Marie ('Advice to Marie') consists of descriptions of their family members and ways of nurturing a good relationship with each. In her view, her husband was “not primarily emotional” and viewed usual expressions of love such as terms of endearment or embraces as flattery or hypocrisy. She described her father-in-law Emperor Francis as an “honourable, good-hearted” man and a “reliable, true friend”, but someone who is prone to listening to bad advisors. Of Empress Maria Theresa, she wrote that “a kind of mistrust and seeming coldness” is mixed in her love for her children. She stated that her death will not be a great loss for her mother-in-law, but nevertheless cause her pain and that she will “transfer all of the friendship she feels for [Isabella] to [Marie]”.

Do you know the chaos that reigns in a certain drawer at my [apartment], where—all scattered together without any rhyme or reason—you’ll find a political essay, a heap of letters, an opéra comique, a vaudeville, a treatise on education, a harpsichord piece, moral reflections, a sermon attached to the treatise on all forms of irrationality, prayers mingled with papers dedicated to declaring my love for you, messages from the Empress lost among letters from a hundred people who mean nothing to me, these messages that are so dear to me and sweeten my life.