Maria Theresa, Queen of France
By MIGNARD.
Born, 1638. Married, 1660. Died, 1683.—Daughter of Philip IV., King of Spain, by his first wife, Elizabeth of France. Mazarin arranged this marriage to ensure peace. The Duke de Grammont went to Madrid, as Plenipotentiary in 1659, and thus addressed the King of Spain: “Sire, le Roi mon maître vous accorde la paix, et à vous, Madame, il offre son cœur, et sa couronne.” She accepted both, but was compelled to share the first, with innumerable rivals. Gentle, modest, loving, and sensitive, she was constantly insulted by the King’s favourites; yet her devotion to him, never wavered, and a kind word from her royal master, made her happy for the rest of the day. He appointed her Regent, when he went to Holland, but she was not fitted for public life. “To serve God, and honour the King,” was her golden rule. Madame d’Orléans, (the German Princess), one of the other few good women of that age, pays her sister-in-law, this tribute: “Elle étoit d’une extrême simplicité en tout; la femme la plus vertueuse, et la meilleure, du monde. Elle avoit de la grandeur, et elle savoit représenter, et tenir sa cour; elle avoit une foi entière, et sans réserve pour tout ce que le Roi lui disoit. Le Roi l’aimoit à cause de sa vertu, et de l’ardent amour qu’elle lui a constamment conservé, quoiqu’il lui fût infidèle.” On her return from an expedition she had made, with her husband to Alsace and Bourgogne, the Queen fell ill and died. “Voilà,” observed “le Grand Monarque” on that occasion, “le premier chagrin qu’elle m’ait donné.” Had she been the survivor, she could not assuredly have paid Louis a similar tribute.
These two portraits, formed part of the collection of the celebrated “Capability Brown.”