Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily

Template:Distinguish2 Template:Infobox French Royalty

Maria Amalia Teresa of the Two Sicilies (26 April 1782-24 March 1866) was Queen of the French from 1830-1848, consort to King Louis-Philippe.

Marie-Amelie was born on April 26, 1782 in Caserta, Italy. Her parents were the King of Naples, Ferdinand IV, and his wife, Maria Carolina. Her mother’s sister, Marie-Antoinette, was queen of France at the time of Marie-Amelie’s birth and her grandmother was Maria-Theresa ^[1]. As a young Italian princess, she was educated in the Catholic tradition which she appears to have taken to heart ^[2]. Her mother, Maria Carolina, like her famous mother before her, Marie-Therese, made an effort to be a part of her daughter’s life, though she was cared for daily by her governess, Donna Vicenza Rizzi ^[3] As a child, Marie-Amelie’s mother and her aunt, Marie-Antoinette, arranged for her to be engaged to Marie-Antoinette’s son, the future king of France, due to which, her mother encouraged her to remember that she would someday be his queen ^[4]. Tragically, her young finance passed away in 1789 ^[5].

Marie-Amelie faced chaos and upheaval from a young age. The death of her aunt Marie-Antoinette during the French Revolution and her mother’s subsequent dramatic actions emblazoned the event in the young girl’s memory ^[6]. She was forced to leave her home at the age of 18 and spent the next few years jumping from various royal dwellings to escape turbulent times in Italy. While in flight, she encountered her future husband, Louis-Philippe, also forced from his home in France due to political complications of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon ^[7]. [Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orleans|Louis-Philippe’s father], the previous Duc d’Orleans, had been guillotined during the French Revolution, though he had advocated it in the early years ^[8]. The two were married in 1809, three years after they met in Italy whereupon Marlie-Amelie became the Duchess d’Orleans ^[9]. Unfortunately for Marlie-Amelie, she went to France with her new husband in 1814, where she attempted to make a home with her growing family, but with Napoleon’s brief return, she was forced to flee yet again ^[10].

Prior to her husband’s rise to power, Marie-Amelie and her husband had to cope with a persistent money problem due to the fact that they had no income aside from that which they were given by the English crown ^[11]. During the d’Orleans’ time in France prior to Louis-Philippe’s coronation, the family lived in the Palais-Royale which had been the home of Louis-Philippe’s father, the previous Duc d’Orleans. In total, house was returned to its original splendor at the cost of eleven million francs ^[12].

In 1830, following what is known as the July Revolution, Louis-Philippe became king of France, with Marie-Amelie as his consort and queen of the July Monarchy. Marie-Amelie did not play an active role in politics and made a concerted effort to remove herself from it^[13]. This seems to have been the result of her personality, training, and conception of the role of monarchy. She may also have been aware of the backlash in France against women asserting power over politics where, it was thought, they had undue influence. This became painfully clear with the example of her late aunt, Marie-Antoinette. Though she was not a political woman, as a queen known to be a staunch supporter of monarchy in its traditional conception, Marie-Amelie was able to escape the suspicion of many of the French who worried that her husband’s ideology was not monarchical enough and tended toward middle class, bourgeois, values at the expense of the proper treatment and conduct of royalty ^[14].

After her husband was forced from kingship in the extremely turbulent events of the Revolution of 1848, the royal family fled to England. Louis-Philippe died two years later. After the death of her husband, Marie-Amelie continued to live in England where she attended daily Mass and was well known to Queen Victoria^[15]. Queen Marie-Amelie passed away on March 24, 1866^[16]. After her death, the dress she had kept since 1848 when her husband had left France was put on her, according to her desire^[17].

• Prince Ferdinand Philippe d'Orléans, duc d'Orléans (3 September 1810-1842) married Duchess Helene Louise Elizabeth of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (b.1814-d.1858)
• Princesse Louise Marie d'Orléans (3 April 1812-1850) later Queen consort of Léopold I of Belgium. Children included Leopold II and Carlota of Mexico.
• Princess Marie (12 April 1813-1839) married Duke Alexander of Württemberg (b.1804-d.1881).
• Prince Louis d'Orléans, duc de Nemours (25 October 1814-1896) married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary.
• Princess Françoise d'Orléans (28 March 1816-1818)
• Princesse Clémentine d'Orléans (3 June 1817-1907) married August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, 5th Prince of Kohary.
• Prince François d'Orléans, prince de Joinville (14 August 1818-1900) married Princess Francisca of Brazil.
• Prince Charles d'Orléans, duc de Penthièvre (1 January 1820-1828)
• Prince Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale (16 June 1822-1897) married Princess Maria Carolina Augusta of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (b.1822-d.1869), daughter of Leopoldo, Prince of Salerno.
• Prince Antoine d'Orléans (31 July 1824-1890) became a prince of Spain after marrying Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Spain (b.1832-d.1897), daughter of Ferdinand VII of Spain and sister of Isabella II of Spain.

Howarth, T.E.B. Citizen-King, The Life of Louis-Philippe, King of the French. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1961. Margadant, Jo Burr. "The Duchesse de Berry and Royalist Political Culture in Postrevolutionary France. History Workshop Journal, No. 43, (Spring, 1997). Margadant, Jo Burr. “Gender, Vice, and the Political Imagery in Postrevolutionary France: Reinterpreting the Failure of the July Monarchy 1830-1848.” American Historical Review 104.5, (1995).

Paris, Isabelle comtesse de. La Reine Marie-Amelie, Grand-mere de l'Europe. Paris: Perrin, 1998.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)