Isabella of France (Long 19th Century)

Queen Isabella (French: Isabella; 10 October 1824 - 9 April 1904), also known as the Queen of Sad Mischance and the Traditional Queen, was Queen of France from 29 September 1824 until 30 September 1868, she was the first queen regnant of France.

Shortly before her birth, the King issued a Pragmatic Sanction to ensure the succession of his firstborn daughter, due to his lack of a son. She came to the throne a month before her third birthday, but her succession was disputed by her uncle Charles Phillippe, Count of Artois (founder of the Charlists movement), whose refusal to recognize a female sovereign led to the Charlists wars.

Under the regency of her mother, France transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, based on the British model; adopting the Principles of the Constitution (1824) and the Royal Statute of 1825. In 1832 young Isabella was pressured to sign a new constitution that made the monarchy little more than a figurehead position.

Her effective reign was a period marked by palace intrigues, back-stairs and antechamber influences, barracks conspiracies, and military pronunciamientos.

She was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1868, after an unsuccessful uprising to restore the isabelline monarchy, the provisional government placed the former queen under house arrest at the Nouveau Palace. On 2 August, 1869, Isabella was forced to abdicate the French throne, in favour of her eldest son Louis XIX, who became king in 1870.

Succession Crisis
Isabella was born in the Royal Palace of Paris in 1822, the eldest daughter of Louis XVIII, and of his second wife and niece, Mariana Christina of the Two Sicilies. She was entrusted to the royal governess Marie Joséphine Louise, duchesse de Gontaut. While Louis XVIII would certainly have preferred a boy when the senior male line of the House of Bourbon was on the verge of extinction, during the early stages of Mariana Cristina’s pregnancy Louis XVIII had induced the Parlement of Paris to help him set aside the Salic law, although his brother Charles Phillippe, Count of Artois and his reactionary supporters - the Ultra-Royalists - opposed a woman succeeding to the throne, but he was exiled to Austria after leading a number of revolutions against his brother and his increasingly centralized royal government.

Leading contemporaries thus regarded her as a divine gift and her birth a miracle of God, one of his middle names was Dieudonné (French for "God-given"). Royalists called her "the miracle child". Louis XVIII was overjoyed, bestowing 35 royal orders to mark the occasion. Isabella's birth was a major setback for the Duke of Orleans' ambitions to ascend the French throne. During his customary visit to congratulate the newborn's mother, the duke made such offensive remarks about the baby's appearance that the lady holding her was brought to tears.

Ultra-Royalist Uprising and Civil War
While Louis XVIII was not a liberal, his wife recognised that in order to cement their daughter’s right to the throne she would have to gain the support of the liberals and embarked on a reformist course. The temporary revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction during the illness of the king in 1822 further demonstrated that the ultra-conservative elements in France would not support Isabella’s claim. Sensing imminent death, Louis XVIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1823, when Isabella was two years and 10 months. Louis endorsed the concept of a constitutional monarchy and supported the nine-year plan to prepare for constitutional government.

In defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Marianna Christina the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council made of sixteen executors would rule on his daughter's behalf until she reached the age of eighteen. These executors were supplemented by twelve men "of counsail" who would assist the executors when called on. His lack of faith in Queen Marianna Christina's political abilities was his primary rationale. He did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council.

When King Louis died in 1824 the confrontation over the succession escalated into a full-blown civil war. The absolutist, ultra-catholic forces of Charles X, as Charles Phillippe proclaimed himself, confronted the liberals who were firmly wedded to the cause of Isabella. The United States, The Netherlands, Great Britain, and Spain recognized her right, but the Vatican and several conservative Catholic nations sided with Charles. War erupted between the government and Charles. Queen Marianna Christina had her husband's will annulled by the Parlement de Paris. This action abolished the regency council and made Marianna Christina sole Regent of France. Marianna Christina exiled some of her husband's ministers (Chavigny, Bouthilier), and she nominated Brienne as her minister of foreign affairs.

The Queen, now invested with executive powers as “Gouverneure”, was persuaded by eminent moderate liberals and reformist absolutists that only a change in government, a purge of parts of the administration, and replacing certain key military commanders could rescue her daughter’s cause. This reconfiguration of government in conjunction with a political amnesty allowing liberals to return from exile was the first step toward the association of Mariana Cristina and Isabella with the liberal cause. The liberals were constitutional monarchists who desired a constitution to ensure equal protection under the law, the protection of property, and the safeguarding of basic civil rights.

Overall, the liberals desired a government ruled by popular representation, and their goal was to protect freedoms, such as the freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, and to create a French parliament and constitution. To preserve Isabella's claim, Mariana Cristina decreed the Royal Statute of 1824. This created a Parliament based on ancient tradition and appealed to Constitutional Democrats, Moderate Liberals, and Progressives by establishing a constitutional monarchy. The regent also considered marrying Isabella to Charles's grandson, hoping thereby to heal the Charlist breach.

The First Charlist War colored the early years of Isabella's reign and made the monarchy dependent upon a series of generals-turned-politicians. By the middle of the 1820s the liberals formed the core support of Isabella, which found its expression in iconographical and literal output. Romanticism allowed for paintings and writings to reinforce the historicism of Isabel’s claim and led to the heavy use of allegories and the idealisation of her personality. The popular projection of the infant queen encouraged a veritable fascination with the fille de la liberté (‘girl of liberty’). Thus the infant queen became the icon of liberty, political reform and socio-economic progress, cast in sharp contrast to the reactionary and regressive nature of Charlism absolutism.

This notion found its expression in hymns dedicated to her liberal spirit and evoking the regeneration of the patria, as well as officially sanctioned poetry contests, such as that held by the Art and Literary School. Praise of the queen’s liberal virtues reached as far as Guadeloupe, where poems in her honour were published in the Diario constitucional la Guadeloupe and the Eco de Guadeloupe.

Meanwhile, Mariana Cristina failed to provide suitable education or discipline for the young queen. Her mother was extremely protective, and Isabella was raised largely isolated from other children under an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by Mariana Christina and her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Fernand Tresserau, who was rumoured to be the Regent's lover. The system prevented the young queen from meeting people whom her mother and Tresserau deemed undesirable (including most of her father's family), and was designed to render her weak and dependent upon them. Isabella liked music and had a beautiful singing voice. But she was, in the view of one historian, "indolent, untidy, unkempt, and was ruled by her whims which were always satisfied." This was largely the fault of the adults around her.