The Duchess of Angouleme and the Two Restorations

The Famous Women of the French Court series covers notable women – many of them wives of Napoleon Bonaparte or associated with him – and their lives before, during, and after Napoleon’s reign. This volume concerns Marie-Therese Charlotte of France (1778-1851), Madame Royale, who was the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (and the only one of their children to reach adulthood; her siblings all died before the age of 20). She married to Louis Antoine, Duke of Angouleme, the eldest son of the future Charles X, Louis XVI’s brother. After her marriage, she was known as the Duchess of Angouleme. She became the Dauphine of France upon the accession of her father-in-law to the throne of France in 1824. Technically she was Queen of France for twenty minutes, on 2 August 1830, between the time her father-in-law signed the instrument of abdication and the time her husband, reluctantly, signed the same document.