Noble Blood - "And Historians Will Call Them..."

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Isabella of Parma had a fairy tale wedding to Joseph, the son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. But he wasn't the great love of her life: his sister was. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Merch! — Order Dana's book,  'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. In the heart of Sean Brun Palace, the summer home of the Austrian Hapsburgs is the Hall of Ceremoner. In the 18th century, Empress Maria Teresa would welcome guests there, awing them with the room's elaborate gold decorations. Today, the hall still has the power to awe, for it's here that the cycle of paintings depicting the 1760 wedding of Archduke Joseph of Austria, the Empress's son, and Princess Isabella of Parma, are hung. Even 300 years later, the scale of the celebration, as depicted on the artist Martin Van Maiton's enormous canvases, is almost hard to absorb. The wedding was classic imperial pageantry at its finest.

The bride wore cloth woven with silver, and she rode into the city in a procession of 90 carriages. Through a series of decorative arches built just for the occasion, musicians serenaded her from every street corner. After the church ceremony, wedding guests followed a trail of 3,000 glowing lanterns to the Imperial Palace, where the guests ate off of solid gold dishware as they toasted the newlyweds. There was a reason for all of this conspicuous. consumption. Austria was in the middle of the seven years' war, and the public's patience for the war's costs, both in money and in lives, was wearing thin. The wedding of her son,

Empress Maria Teresa hoped, would serve as both a pleasant diversion for the Austrians, and as a symbol to her foreign allies that her empire could sustain the costs of war. But what about the young people at the heart of this grand wedding? How did they feel about it all? Not particularly happy, as you might have guessed by the other royal weddings we've covered on this podcast. The 19-year-old Archduke would have rather been off fighting. In fact, he was more scared of marriage than of going into battle and was only agreeing to the marriage out of duty.

quote, as a victim of the state, I sacrifice myself, he wrote to an advisor. The 18-year-old princess Isabella of Parma was similarly reluctant. Reflecting on the painful life of noble women several years later, Isabella would write that princesses are, quote, condemned to abandon everything. For an unknown person whose character and manner of thinking she does not know in a sacrifice for the supposed public good." Fortunately for Joseph and Isabella, their marriage would not be quite as miserable as many

other such sacrificial matches. Joseph, like nearly everyone the brilliant Isabella came into contact with, would soon be thoroughly charmed and infatuated by his new bride. Isabella too would come to find love. Not with her husband, though, but with his sister. Today I'll tell you about the doomed romance of Princess Isabella of Parma and her sister-in-law, Archduchess Maria Christina. It's a story of love and loss and the way that these forces shape our lives. It's also a story about history and historians, how the historical record is shaped by contemporary beliefs, how narratives are created and erased, and how the truth has a way, as Shakespeare once said, of outing. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Before we talk about Maria and

Christina, we need to spend a little bit more talking about Joseph and Isabella. The couple's wedding wasn't just about putting on a show for the world. The marriage itself was an important act of political alliance, in this case an alliance between Austria and France. Though Isabella's father was Spanish, her mother was French, the beloved eldest daughter of King Louis the 15th. Isabella herself had spent nearly a year at Versailles as a child, during which time she won over the court with her precocious intelligence and vivacious spirit. She had much the same effect on the Austrians, her gift for knowing exactly the right thing to say, having only grown with time. By the time she arrived in Vienna in October 1760, she spoke four languages, played violin,

beautifully, could shoot well and was conversant in the latest development of science and philosophy. She also knew when to make jokes and when to stay serious, an important skill at court. She could be everything to everybody, a skill that served her particularly well in the chaotic Habsburg court, where the Empress and Emperor lived alongside their 11 children, each of whom had their own distinct personalities. These children would grow up to rule much of Western Europe, either in their own right or through marriage. You're likely familiar with several of them, probably especially the youngest daughter, one Marie Antoinette. Isabella managed to find her place in this boisterous household and charm nearly all of the Habsburgs in turn. But the princess

has had a dark side too. In 1759, shortly after the marriage contract between Isabella and Joseph was finalized, Isabella's mother, Elizabeth, died of smallpox. Elizabeth had been only 14 when she had Isabella, and so the two were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Imagine a Gilmore girl's style relationship. Their relationship had not always been easy, but they were but Elizabeth's sudden death devastated Isabella. Years later, a rumor would circulate that upon Elizabeth's death, Isabella had heard a voice, telling her that she herself would only live a few more years. And while Isabella herself never told such a story, its core idea wasn't entirely basis.

Isabella was obsessed with thoughts of her own death, and sometimes even with a longing for it. She wrote countless letters about her yearning for death to close friends and family members, who mostly responded with annoyance. In fairness to them, Isabella was not explicitly suicidal. She simply pondered that death would have more to offer her than the constrained life of a princess.

And she also had a family history of what we would have, would now likely identify as depression, particularly on her father's side. Despite her inner turmoil, Isabella was an expert at maintaining a happy facade. Joseph became more and more besotted with his beautiful bride, although many at court observed that his love was not returned quite as eagerly as it was given. Poor Joseph, who was consistently described as aloof and awkward, he seemed to be the only one who didn't notice. The couple's misaligned interests didn't help matters, nor did the discrepancy between their maturity levels. Nonetheless, Isabella fulfilled her marital and dynastic responsibilities and gave birth to her first child, a daughter, on March 20th, 1762.

The baby was named Maria Teresa, after the Empress, Joseph's mother, Isabella's mother-in-law. As we all know, royal daughters are all well and good, but what was really needed was a son, so the pressure to get pregnant resumed the second Isabella recovered from birth. Only five months after Little Maria Teresa's birth, Isabella had a miscarriage, followed by another miscarriage only five months after that. I know that the Empress wishes to see me pregnant, she wrote in a letter, but you can't do as you want.

The physical and emotional toll of these constant attempts weighed on Isabella heavily, but through the pain, one bright spot was coming. her relationship with her sister-in-law, the Archduchess Maria Christina. Isabella and Maria Christina had begun corresponding even before Isabella came to Vienna, as the princess attempted to get to know her new family-in-law. The two young women were only six months apart in age and shared many interests. Both were artistic, sensitive, and intelligent. The timeline of their relationship, how and when it grew from friendship to love, has been lost to history.

But by the time Isabella arrived in Austria at 19, the two were writing to one another constantly. We only have one of Maria Christina's letters to Isabella, but Maria Christina saved many of Isabella's letters to her, revealing the shape of their playful, teasing, and occasionally melodramatic relationship. The women spent as much time together as possible, arranging private rendezvous whenever Joseph was out. When they could not be together physically, they expressed their longing in letters. I love you madly, wrote Isabella in one such letter. I will be delighted to see you, kiss you, and be kissed by you. you. I report that I am impatient to die in your bosom." End quote. The joy of loving Maria

Christina even soothed Isabella's desire to die. Quote, let me adore you forever, Isabella once wrote, while noting in another letter that, quote, I thought about death again last night, but the more I think about it, the less I can tame myself with this idea, since it would be a separation from you. The one remaining letter we have from Maria Christina is no less romantic. Responding to Isabella's request that Maria Christina describe her, Marie Christina noted that Isabella could, quote, turn to no one who understands your personality and your significant qualities better than I, who loves you tenderly, end quote.

Maria Christina begins by describing Isabella's appearance. writing, quote, I don't know anyone more agreeable, beautiful eyes and hair, a pretty mouth and everything so expressive that, despite your mischievous expression, one recognizes the spirit that you possess, a bosom that couldn't be lovelier. And Maria Christina continues, quote, as for what's on the inside, it's even more lovable than what's on the outside. an utterly tender heart for your friends, of which I receive daily evidence. A good daughter, a good wife, a good sister, a good mistress. Goodness is the basis of your whole character, a bit mischievous but never hurtful."

The women could indeed be mischievous. They gifted each other chamber pots, with Isabella reminding Maria Christina to think of her whenever she used hers. They were also passionate. Isabella wrote of kissing Maria Christina's, quote, lovely ass of, quote, kissing Maria Christina with all my might, and of, quote, kissing each other to utter exhaustion. Despite the fairly explicitness of these letters,

historians long shied away from calling Maria Christina and Isabella's relationship a romantic or sexual. This isn't to say that historians didn't recognize it for what it was. Alfred von Arneth, the preeminent 19th century biographer of Empress Maria Teresa and keeper of the Austrian state archives, remarked upon reading Isabella's letters, that, quote, her infatuation almost exceeds the limit within which, according to our modern concepts, it seems desirable that such affections should move. As a result, he recommended that some of the letters be either destroyed or, at the very

least, kept from the public. Fortunately for us, the letters were not destroyed, but Van Arneth was not the only historian who wanted to suppress the intimacies of that relationship. The modern historian Barbara Stolberg Rillinger argues that as sexual behaviors and identities were increasingly pathologized in the 19th century, contemporary historians became more and more unwilling to admit the existence of a homosexual relationship within the Austrian royal family. This reluctance continued into the 20th century, when Isabella's letters were were first transcribed and published in the 1950s, many of the most explicit passages and letters

were omitted. It was not until 2008 that the letters were published in full by the French historian Elizabeth Barinter, though some historians, like Ursula Tamucino, wrote about the romantic connection between the two women as early as the 1980s. As one of the first to write openly about the relationship, Temasino was aware that she was up against 200 years of historians who had actively tried to cover it up. She noted, quote, should the suspicion arise that only such quotations were selected that suggest an intense relationship between Isabella and Maria, I would like to emphasize, with all possible emphasis, that there is hardly a note in the collection of letters that does not contain such a reference."

That's the beautiful thing about history. In the end, despite our biases and beliefs, all we truly have are the primary sources, and in this case the primary source is a series of letters from one woman to another in which she writes about, quote, what inner satisfaction I would feel

if I could only contemplate that nose turned with such grace and attractiveness, that mouth so suited to console with its kisses, those eyes whose language is so touching, I forget where I am, I forget those with whom I am, I think only of this new desire that I seek to satisfy whatever the price, end quote. To quote the lyrics of a song I heard on TikTok by the artist, and I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly, Oblare, and historians will call them close friends, besties, roommates, colleagues, anything but lovers, history hates lovers. Unfortunately for Isabella and Maria Christina, they would not have long to satisfy their desires.

Isabella's premonitions about an early death came to fruition. In November 1763, pregnant. once again, Isabella came down with a fever. Over night, her condition worsened, and soon the truth could not be denied. She had smallpox. Because of the infectious nature of the disease, only those who had already had smallpox were allowed to visit sufferers. This meant that Joseph, who had survived about, could see Isabella his wife. Maria Christina, however, could not. In the middle of the night on November 22nd, Isabella went into premature labor, likely caused by her illness. She gave birth to a girl in the early morning, a baby that passed away quickly, but not before being baptized.

Isabella named her daughter Maria Christina. For a painful period of several days after the birth, it seemed that Isabella might recover She sat up on her own, drank some broth, ate some biscuits, but it was a false hope. On November 26th, she slipped into unconsciousness, awakening only once more before dying on the morning of November 27th, aged 21. All of Vienna mourned the passing of their brilliant princess, though likely none grieved more deeply than those who, who had loved her best, Joseph, her husband, and Maria Christina, whose lives would both be forever shaped by Isabella's impact. Joseph had barely left his wife's bedside throughout her nine-day illness. Though it's doubtful that Isabella truly romantically loved Joseph, she had given him attention,

care and respect, and he felt unmoored without her. I lost everything, Joseph wrote his father-in-law, my adorable wife, the object of all my tenderness, my only friend, is no more, end quote. He would, in some ways, never recover from this loss. Four months later, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor and crowned in Frankfurt. He wrote to his mother, of the torture of keeping a stiff upper lip at such a time, quote,

I'm a burden to everyone with my grief, so I have to choke it all down and pretend all day long. And quote, Unfortunately, his charade couldn't end with his coronation. Because Isabella had not had a son during their brief marriage, Joseph didn't have an heir, and so within a year of Isabella's death, The pressure to remarry had grown intense.

He reluctantly agreed and married Maria Josepha of Bavaria in January 1765. It was a deeply unhappy marriage for both. Maria Josepha was constantly compared unfavorably to her predecessor. The couple had no children. When Maria Josepha contracted smallpox two years later, Joseph never visited her sick room. when she died a week later, he did not attend her burial. Three years later, tragedy struck again when Joseph's living daughter with Isabella died at age seven of pleuracy.

That daughter had been the emperor's closest link to his late wife, and he had had the girl raised on an educational program that Isabella herself had designed before her death. An observer wrote of Joseph. Joseph, after his daughter's death, quote, The Emperor's grief is extreme. It is frightful that every person who would naturally engage his feelings should be snatched away from him.

And since he has none too many feelings, it's to be feared that, through inability to give them reign, he may entirely lose the habit. And quote, in many ways it seems that he did. Joseph would not remarry a third time, forever haunted by the ghost of his idealized first wife. Maria Christina's life, too, was forever shaped by Isabella, although in her case the haunting was a more beneficial one.

Before her death, Isabella had written a document entitled, Advice to Maria, in which she dissected the personalities of Empress Maria and Emperor Fran Stefan. Observant and astute, Isabella's psychological portraits of her in-laws are deeply revealing and surely would have been invaluable to any spy or political lackey

who stumbled upon them, but they were only for the eyes of Maria Christina, and Isabella intended them to be used by her lover in a very particular way, to secure her status after Isabella's death. Isabella's advice to Marie Christina for winning over her own parents

would soon pay off. After Isabella's death, Maria Christina, always close to her mother, became the Empress's clear favorite. This favoritism didn't endear her to her siblings, but it helped her enormously when it came to negotiating a good marriage. Maria Christina's father,

wanted her to marry, his nephew, her cousin, the Duke of Chablis. But Maria Christina had other ideas for herself, namely Prince Albert of Saxony. A good friend of Isabella before her death, Prince Albert was a poor match by imperial standards. He was a penniless sixth son. But Maria Christina and Albert had connected over their shared mourning for Isabella, and soon their friendship blossomed into love. The empress, who herself had enjoyed a marriage for love, was determined to help her favorite daughter. After the emperor's death in 1765, which ended the plan for Maria Christina to marry the Duke of Chablis, the Empress made the bold move to support Albert's proposal. Maria Teresa negotiated a marriage contract in which her daughter, Maria Christina,

was allowed to keep her titles and status as an arch-duchess, granted her an enormous dowry, and gave Albert a new title of his own. The Empress's other children were acutely aware of this favorite treatment, with one brother, Leopold, writing, quote, towards Maria and Prince Albert she has the utmost tenderness and trust. They twist the empress around their little finger, end quote. Clearly, Isabella's lesson that she left for Maria Christina had worked.

Maria Christina and Albert's marriage was a very happy one. Upon Maria Christina's death in 1798, Albert commissioned a famous sculptor to create her tomb, and he had it inscribed Uxuri Optime, the best wife. Albert is also the reason that we still have, Isabella's letters today, he saved them, calling them, quote, interesting because of her spirit and estimable character, which, sure, that's why they're interesting. Despite the years of happiness shared by Maria Christina and her husband, she seems never to

have forgotten the great love of her young life. After Maria Christina died, a miniature was found in her prayer book. It was a picture of Isabella and her daughter. The caption written by Maria Christina herself read, quote, portrait of my dear sister-in-law Isabella and her only daughter. The former died of smallpox in 1763 at the age of 21 on November 27th, mourned by all the world, but especially by me, who has lost the best and truest friend I have ever had in the world. This woman was endowed with every imaginable virtue and kindness. She lived and died as an angel. That's the story of the short life and early love affair of Isabella of Parma and Maria Christina,

but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more. about Isabella's writings. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wadam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.

It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.

I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come, look for up and coming. talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah. It would not be

Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot in luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever.

I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I was. want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot.

He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Throughout this episode, I've mentioned several of Isabella's writings, her advice to Maria Christina, and the educational program she designed for her daughter. Besides these more personal documents, Isabella also wrote a number of treatises of philosophy and public affairs, many of which feel surprisingly modern for the 18th century. There's her treaty on men, for example, where she dissects the patriarchy, writing, every woman in the world can do without a man, and argues that men have created a system that empowers them over women as a means of survival because if they did not, quote, have all the authority in hand, and quote, they would be, quote, exiled entirely. And then there's her discussion on the lot of royal women, which I briefly

mentioned in the prologue called On the Fate of Princesses. Quote, what can the daughter of a great prince expect? She asks in the text, not much, it turns out, quote, already at birth she is a slave to the prejudices of the people. Her position deprives her of knowing those by whom she surrounded. The rank which she bears, far from bringing her the slightest advantage, deprives her of the greatest pleasure of life. Obligated 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. end quote. A discussion of the hidden pain behind the privileged veil of royalty, an investigation into how one's humanity can be lost when one becomes a symbol of something larger,

to me it sounds a little bit like Isabella wrote the very first episode of Noble Blood, nearly 300 years ago. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio, and Grim and Mild from A. Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is created and hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and Rima I.A.L. K. Ali,

with supervising producer Josh Thane, and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I. Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.

It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.