French Royal Women during the Restoration and July Monarchy: Redefining Women and Power (Queenship and Power)

This book examines public discussions around France's four most prominent royal women during the first and second Restoration and July Monarchy: the duchesse d’Angoulême, the duchesse de Berry, Queen of the French Marie-Amélie, and Adélaïde d’Orléans. These were the most powerful women of the last decades of the French monarchy, but the new roles women were assigned in post-revolutionary France did not permit them to openly exercise political influence. This book explores continuities and variations in narratives of royal legitimacy, and how historians, authors, and politicians used national history - particularly medieval and early modern history - to either legitimize or undermine the French monarchy, and to define women's social and political roles. Acknowledgements 6 Contents 8 Chapter 1: Introduction 10 1.1 Using National Memory 13 1.2 The Four Royal Women 16 1.3 Publications and Biographies 19 1.4 Structure of the Volume 21 Chapter 2: The Return of the Bourbon Family (1814–1819) 28 2.1 Marie-Thérèse de France, Acting Queen of France 28 2.2 Marie-Caroline, Young Mother and a Wife 45 Chapter 3: The Last Bourbon Moment (1820–1830) 59 3.1 Duchesse de Berry, Mother of the Bourbon Hope 59 3.2 Duchesse d’Angoulême, the Dauphine 76 3.3 The Rising Star of the Orléans Family 94 Chapter 4: New Dynasty, Old History (1830–1839) 116 4.1 Saintly Queen Marie-Amélie 116 4.2 Adélaïde d’Orléans, Power Behind the Throne 131 4.3 Duchesse de Berry and the Crisis of the Bourbons 146 4.4 Exiled Madame Royale 165 Chapter 5: Dying Royal Power (1840–1848) 191 5.1 Marie-Amélie and the Catholic Revival 191 5.2 No More Revolutions for Adélaïde d’Orléans 205 5.3 Remembering the Exiled Bourbon Women 214 Chapter 6: Conclusion 236 Annex 1 241 Bibliography 243 Primary Sources 243 Newspapers 250 Images 250 Secondary Sources 250 Index 259 This book examines public discussions around France's four most prominent royal women during the first and second Restoration and July Monarchy: the duchesse d'Angoulême, the duchesse de Berry, Queen of the French Marie-Amélie, and Adélaïde d'Orléans. These were the most powerful women of the last decades of the French monarchy but the new roles women were assigned in post-revolutionary France did not permit them to openly exercise political influence. This book explores continuities and variations in narratives of royal legitimacy, and how historians, authors, and politicians used national history - particularly medieval and early modern history - to either legitimize or undermine the French monarchy, and to define women's social and political roles. Heta Aali is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, and has published widely on French cultural history, nineteenth-century historiography, and medievalism. This book examines public discussions around France's four most prominent royal women during the first and second Restoration and July Monarchy: the duchesse dAngouleme, the duchesse de Berry, Queen of the French Marie-Amelie, and Adelaide dOrleans. These were the most powerful women of the last decades of the French monarchy but the new roles women were assigned in post-revolutionary France did not permit them to openly exercise political influence. This book explores continuities and variations in narratives of royal legitimacy, and how historians, authors, and politicians used national history - particularly medieval and early modern history - to either legitimize or undermine the French monarchy, and to define women's social and political roles. Heta Aali is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, and has published widely on French cultural history, nineteenth-century historiography, and medievalism