May 4, 1814: King Fernando VII of Spain Abolishes the Constitution

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Absolutism, Battle of Trocadero, Cortes, King Fernando VII of Spain, King Louis XVIII of France, Liberal Constitution 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte

Fernando VII (October 14, 1784 – September 29, 1833) was the King of Spain during the early- to mid-19th century. He reigned over the Spanish Kingdom in 1808 and again from 1813 to his death in 1833. He was known to his supporters as el Deseado (the Desired) and to his detractors as el Rey Felón (the Felon King).

Fernando VII was born in Madrid at El Escorial, the eldest surviving son of King Carlos IV of Spain and Maria Luisa of Parma, the youngest daughter of Filippo, Duke of Parma and Louise Élisabeth of France.

Louise Élisabeth of France the eldest daughter of King Louis XV of France and Maria Leszczyńska and the elder twin of Anne Henriette de France.

Filippo, Duke of Parma was the second son of King Felipe V of Spain and his wife, Elisabeth Farnese.

Fernando VII spent his youth as heir apparent to the Spanish throne. Carlos IV detested his son and heir Fernando, who led the unsuccessful El Escorial Conspiracy and later forced his father, Carlos IV to abdicate after the Tumult of Aranjuez on March 19, 1808.

Fernando VII’s first reign lasted from March 19, 1808 until May 6 of the same year when Napoleon Bonaparte, forced Fernando VII to abdicate, paving the way for Napoleon to place his older brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Spain.

Five years later after experiencing serious setbacks on many fronts, Napoleon agreed to acknowledge Fernando VII as king of Spain on December 11, 1813 and signed the Treaty of Valençay, so that the king could return to Spain.

On March 24, 1814 the French handed Fernando over to the Spanish Army in Girona, and thus began his procession towards Madrid. During this process and in the following months, he was encouraged by conservatives and the Church hierarchy to reject the Constitution.

Fernando soon found that in the intervening years a new world had been born of foreign invasion and domestic revolution. Spain was no longer the absolute monarchy he had relinquished six years earlier. Instead he was now asked to rule under the liberal Constitution of 1812. Before being allowed to enter Spanish soil, Ferdinand had to guarantee the liberals that he would govern on the basis of the Constitution, but only gave lukewarm indications he would do so.

On May 4, he ordered the Constitution abolished and on May 10 had the liberal leaders responsible for the Constitution arrested. Fernando justified his actions by claiming that the Constitution had been made by a Cortes illegally assembled in his absence, without his consent and without the traditional form. (It had met as a unicameral body, instead of in three chambers representing the three estates: the clergy, the nobility and the cities.)

Fernando initially promised to convene a traditional Cortes, but never did so, thereby reasserting the Bourbon doctrine that sovereign authority resided in his person only.

A revolt in 1820 led by Rafael del Riego in which the King was quickly taken prisoner. .

In the spring of 1823, the restored Bourbon French King Louis XVIII of France invaded Spain, “invoking the God of St. Louis, for the sake of preserving the throne of Spain to a fellow descendant of Henri IV of France, and of reconciling that fine kingdom with Europe.” In May of 1823, the revolutionary party moved Fernando to Cádiz, where he continued to make promises of constitutional amendment until he was free.

Fernando VII was eventually freed after the Battle of Trocadero. The liberated Fernando turned on the liberals and constitutionalists with fury. The last ten years of reign (sometimes referred to as the Ominous Decade) saw the restoration of absolutism, the re-establishment of traditional university programs and the suppression of any opposition.

Under his rule, Spain lost nearly all of its American possessions, and the country entered into a large-scale civil war upon his death. His political legacy has remained contested since his passing, with some historians regarding him as incompetent, despotic, and short-sighted.

After Ferdinand’s death in 1833, the 1812 Constitution was in force again briefly in 1836 and 1837, while the Constitution of 1837 was being drafted. Since 1812, Spain has had a total of seven constitutions; the current one has been in force since 1978.

May 10, 1794: Execution of HRH Madame Élisabeth de Bourbon, Princess of France and Navarre. Part III.

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Élisabeth of France, French Revolution, Guillotine, King Charles X of France, King Louis XVIII of France, Marie Antoinette, Reign of Terror, Robespierre, Roman Catholic Church, The Cause of Beatification of Élisabeth

Execution

After her trial, Élisabeth joined the prisoners condemned with her in the Hall of the Condemned, awaiting their execution. She asked for Marie-Antoinette, upon which one of the female prisoners said to her, “Madame, your sister has suffered the same fate that we ourselves are about to undergo.”

She reportedly successfully comforted and strengthened the morale of her fellow prisoners before their impending execution with religious arguments, and by her own example of calmness.

Élisabeth was executed along with the 23 men and women who had been tried and condemned at the same time as she, and reportedly conversed with Mme de Senozan and Mme de Crussol on the way. In the cart taking them to their execution, and while waiting her turn, she helped several of them through the ordeal, encouraging them and reciting the De profundis until her time came. Near the Pont Neuf, the white kerchief which covered her head was blown off, and thus being the only person with bare head, she attracted special attention by the spectators, and witnesses attested that she was calm during the whole process.

Élisabeth Capet

At the foot of the guillotine, there was a bench for the condemned who were to depart the cart and wait on the bench before their execution. Élisabeth departed the cart first, refusing the help of the executioner, but was to be the last to be called upon, which resulted in her witnessing the death of all the others.

The Reign of Terror

Reportedly, she considerably strengthened the morale of her fellow prisoners, who all behaved with courage. When the last person before her, a man, gave her his bow, she said, “courage, and faith in the mercy of God!” and then rose to be ready for her own turn. While she was being strapped to the board, her fichu (a sort of shawl) fell off, exposing her shoulders, and she cried to the executioner “Au nom de votre mère, monsieur, couvrez-moi. (In the name of your mother, sir, cover me)”.

Reportedly, her execution caused some emotion by the bystanders, who did not cry “Vive la Republique” at this occasion, which was otherwise common. The respect Élisabeth had enjoyed among the public caused concern with Robespierre, who had never wished to have her executed and who “dreaded the effect” of her death.

King Louis XVIII of France and Navarre

Her body was buried in a common grave at the Errancis Cemetery in Paris. At the time of the Restoration, her brother, Louis-Stanislas, Comte de Provence, now King Louis XVIII of France and Navarre, searched for her remains, only to discover that the bodies interred there had decomposed to a state where they could no longer be identified. Élisabeth’s remains, with that of other victims of the guillotine (including Robespierre, also buried at the Errancis Cemetery) were later placed in the Catacombs of Paris. A medallion represents her at the Basilica of Saint Denis.

Beatification

The Cause of Beatification of Élisabeth was introduced in 1924, but has not yet been completed. In 1953, she was declared a Servant of God, and in 2016, her Cause was re-opened.

Assessment

Élisabeth, who had turned thirty a week before her death, was executed essentially because she was a sister of the king; however, the general consensus of the French revolutionaries was that she was a supporter of the ultra-right royalist faction. There is much evidence to suggest that she actively supported the intrigues of her brother, Charles-Philippe Comte d’Artois (future King Charles X) to bring foreign armies into France to crush the Revolution.

In monarchist circles, her exemplary private life elicited much admiration. Élisabeth was much praised for her charitable nature, familial devotion and devout Catholic faith. There can be no question that she saw the Revolution as the incarnation of evil and viewed civil war as the only means to drive it from the land.

Royalist literature represents her as a Catholic martyr, while more liberal historians severely criticise her for extreme conservatism, which seemed excessive even to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. Several biographies have been published of her in French, while extensive treatment of her life is given in Antonia Fraser’s biography of Marie-Antoinette and Deborah Cadbury’s investigative biography of Louis XVII.

March 23, 1732: Birth of Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France. Part I.

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Augustus III of Poland, fille de France, King Charles X of France, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, King Louis XV of France, King Louis XVI of France, King Louis XVIII of France, Louis the Dauphin, Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France, Palace of Versailles

Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France, (March 23, 1732 – February 27, 1800) was a French princess, the fourth daughter and sixth child of King Louis XV of France and his consort, Marie Leszczyńska.

As the legitimate daughter of the king, she was a fille de France (Daughter of France) and was referred to as Madame Quatrième (“Madame the Fourth”), until the death of her older sister Marie Louise in 1733, as Madame Troisième, (“Madame the Third”); as Madame Adélaïde from 1737 to 1755; as Madame from 1755 to 1759; and then as Madame Adélaïde again from 1759 until her death.

She was named after her paternal grandmother, Marie Adelaide, Dauphine of France, (born Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (1685 – 1712) the eldest daughter of Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy (later King of Sardinia) and Anne Marie d’Orléans, herself the daughter of the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV, and Henrietta of England, the youngest daughter of Charles I of England). Marie Adélaïde of Savoy was the wife of Louis, Dauphin of France and Duke of Burgundy.

Marie Adélaïde de France was raised at the Palace of Versailles, where she was born, with her older sisters, Madame Louise Elisabeth, Madame Henriette and Madame Marie Louise, along with her brother Louis. Her brother Louis, as heir apparent, he became Dauphin of France but died before ascending to the throne. Three of his sons became kings of France: Louis XVI (reign: 1774–1792), Louis XVIII (reign: 1814–1815; 1815–1824) and Charles X (reign: 1824–1830).

Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France’s younger sisters were raised at the Abbaye de Fontevraud from 1738 onward, because the cost of raising them in Versailles with all the status to which they were entitled was deemed too expensive by Cardinal Fleury, Louis XV’s chief minister. Adélaïde was originally expected to join her younger sisters to Fontevraud, but she was allowed to stay with her brother and her three elder siblings in Versailles after a personal plea to her father.

One of the reasons as to why the expense of her younger sisters at Versailles were regarded as too high, was that the royal children were allowed to participate in court life at a very young age, and attend as well as arrange their own festivities already as children. Adelaide and her sister Henriette, who never went to Fontevrault, accompanied their father to the Opera in Paris at least since 1744, and hunted with him five days a week from the beginning of 1746.

Madame Adélaïde was described as an intelligent beauty; her appearance an ephemeral, “striking and disturbing beauty of the Bourbon type characterized by elegance”, with “large dark eyes at once passionate and soft”, and her personality as extremely haughty, with a dominant and ambitious character with a strong will. However, she was described as altogether deficient in that kindness which alone creates affection for the great, abrupt manners, a harsh voice, and a short way of speaking, rendering her more than imposing. She carried the idea of the prerogative of rank to a high pitch.”

Adélaïde never married. In the late 1740s, when she had reached the age when princesses were normally married, there were no potential Catholic consorts of desired status available, and she preferred to remain unmarried rather to marry someone below the status of a monarch or an heir to a throne.

Marriage prospects suggested to her were liaisons with Louis François II, Prince of Conti and Prince Franz Xavier of Saxony (the fourth but second surviving son of Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and Maria Josepha of Austria). Franz Xavier’s older brother, Friedrich Christian, was successor to his father as Elector of Saxony, while Stanisław Poniatowski (1676–1762) was elected King of Poland. This meant that neither candidate for the hand of Madame Adélaïde had the status of being a monarch or an heir to a throne, and were therefore of not an equal status to marry a Daughter of France.

In her teens, Adelaide fell in love with a member of the Lifeguard after having observed him perform his duties; she sent him her snuffbox with the message, “You will treasure this, soon you shall be informed from whose hand it comes.” The guardsman informed his captain Duc d’Ayen, who in turn informed the king, who recognized the handwriting as his daughter’s, and granted the guard an annual pension of four thousand under the express condition that he should “at once remove to some place far from the Court and remain there for a very long time”.

In 1761, long after she passed the age when 18th-century princesses normally wed, she was reportedly suggested to marry the newly widowed Carlos III of Spain; but after she had seen his portrait, she refused, a rejection which was said to be the main reason to why Carlos III never remarried.

Between the death of Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, in 1764 and before the rise of Madame Dubarry in 1768, Louis XV did have a certain confidence in Madame Adélaïde, and was supported by her “firm and rapid resolutions.” However, after the death of her mother, the Queen in 1768, circles at court imagined that as soon as the King recovered from his grief, the choice would be between either providing him with a new Queen, or a new official royal mistress.

Madame Adélaïde, who detested the idea of a new royal mistress, encouraged the solution of her father marrying again to prevent it. She reportedly preferred a Queen who was young, beautiful and lacked ambition, as she could distract her father from state affairs, leaving them to Madame Adélaïde who had political ambitions. Madame Adélaïde supported the Dowager Princess de Lamballe as a suitable candidate for that purpose, and was supported in this plan by the powerful Noailles family. However, the Princesse de Lamballe was not willing to encourage the match herself, her former father-in-law, the Duke of Penthievré, was not willing to consent, and the marriage plan never materialized.

The King was then suggested to marry Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria. The archduchess was a famed beauty, but when she suffered from smallpox which badly scarred her face, marriage negotiations were discontinued. Maria Elisabeth of Austria (1743 – 1808) was the sixth child and the third surviving daughter of Maria Theresa I, Holy Roman Empress and Holy Roman Emperor Franz of Lorraine. Maria Elisabeth of Austria was the elder sister of Archduchess Marie Antoinette the future wife of Madame Adélaïde’s nephew Louis XVI of France. Instead, Louis XV introduced his last official maîtresse-en-titre, Madame du Barry, to court in 1769, whom Madame Adélaïde came to despise.

In the last years of their father’s reign, Madame Adélaïde and her sisters were described as bitter old hags, who spent their days gossiping and knitting in their rooms. Madame Adélaïde and her sisters attended to their father Louis XV on his deathbed until his death from smallpox on May 10. After the death of her father he was succeeded by his grandson Louis Auguste as Louis XVI, who referred to his aunts as Mesdames Tantes.

Madame Adélaïde came to play a political role after the succession of her nephew. Her sisters had in fact been infected by their father and fell ill with smallpox (from which they recovered), and were kept in quarantine on a little house near the Palace of Choisy. Despite this, however, Madame Adelaide had the time to intervene in the establishment of the new government: Louis XVI had been advised by his father to ask the advice of Adelaide should he become King, and after his succession, he sent her a letter and asked her advice on whom he should entrust his kingdom.

This date in History: October 16, 1793: Execution of Queen Marie Antoinette of France and Navarre.

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French Revolution, Gullotine, King Louis XVI of France, King Louis XVIII of France, Kings and Queens of France, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre

The last Queen of France and Navarre before the French Revolution was born (Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; November 2, 1755 – October 16, 1793) an Archduchess of Austria and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor. She became Dauphine of France in May 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne. On May 10, 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she assumed the title Queen of France and Navarre, which she held until September 1791, when she became Queen of the French as the French Revolution proceeded, a title that she held until September 21, 1792.

On September 21, 1792, the fall of the monarchy was officially declared and the National Convention became the governing body of the French Republic. The royal family name was downgraded to the non-royal “Capets”. Preparations began for the trial of the king in a court of law.

Charged with undermining the First French Republic, Louis XVI was separated from his family and tried in December. He was found guilty by the Convention, led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. On 15 January 1793, by a majority of one vote, that of his cousin, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, known then as Philippe Égalité, he was condemned to death by guillotine and executed on 21 January 21, 1793.

After Louis’ execution, Marie Antoinette’s fate became a central question of the National Convention. While some advocated her death, others proposed exchanging her for French prisoners of war or for a ransom from Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor. Thomas Paine advocated exile to America.

After months of captivity Marie Antoinette was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on October 14, 1793. Some historians believe the outcome of the trial had been decided in advance by the Committee of Public Safety around the time the Carnation Plot was uncovered. She and her lawyers were given less than one day to prepare her defense. Among the accusations, many previously published in the libelles, were: orchestrating orgies in Versailles, sending millions of livres of treasury money to Austria, planning the massacre of the gardes françaises (National Guards) in 1792, declaring her son to be the new king of France, and incest, a charge made by her son Louis-Charles, (the nominal King Louis XVII) pressured into doing so by the radical Jacques Hébert who controlled him. This last accusation drew an emotional response from Marie Antoinette, who refused to respond to this charge, instead appealing to all mothers present in the room; their reaction comforted her, since these women were not otherwise sympathetic to her.

Early on October 16, Marie Antoinette was declared guilty of the three main charges against her: depletion of the national treasury, conspiracy against the internal and external security of the State, and high treason because of her intelligence activities in the interest of the enemy; the latter charge alone was enough to condemn her to death. At worst, she and her lawyers had expected life imprisonment. In the hours left to her, she composed a letter to her sister-in-law, Madame Élisabeth, affirming her clear conscience, her Catholic faith, and her love and concern for her children. The letter did not reach Élisabeth. Her will was part of the collection of papers of Robespierre found under his bed and were published by Edme-Bonaventure Courtois.

Preparing for her execution, she had to change clothes in front of her guards. She put on a plain white dress, white being the color worn by widowed queens of France. Her hair was shorn, her hands bound painfully behind her back and she was put on a rope leash. Unlike her husband, who had been taken to his execution in a carriage (carrosse), she had to sit in an open cart (charrette) for the hour it took to convey her from the Conciergerie via the rue Saint-Honoré thoroughfare to reach the guillotine erected in the Place de la Révolution (the present-day Place de la Concorde). She maintained her composure, despite the insults of the jeering crowd. A constitutional priest was assigned to her to hear her final confession. He sat by her in the cart, but she ignored him all the way to the scaffold.

Marie Antoinette was guillotined at 12:15 p.m. on October 16, 1793. Her last words are recorded as, “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l’ai pas fait exprès” or “Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose”, after accidentally stepping on her executioner’s shoe. Her head was one of which Marie Tussaud was employed to make death masks. Her body was thrown into an unmarked grave in the Madeleine cemetery located close by in rue d’Anjou. Because its capacity was exhausted the cemetery was closed the following year, on March 25, 1794.

Both Marie Antoinette’s and Louis XVI’s bodies were exhumed on January 18, 1815, during the Bourbon Restoration, when Prince Louis Stanislas, Comte de Provence ascended the newly reestablished throne as King Louis XVIII of France and of Navarre. Christian burial of the royal remains took place three days later, on January 21, in the necropolis of French kings at the Basilica of St Denis.