Princess Isabella of Parma

Princess Isabella of Parma
Archduchess of Austria
Portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier, 1758
Born	31 December 1741 Buen Retiro Palace, Madrid, Kingdom of Spain
Died	27 November 1763(1763-11-27) (aged 21) Hofburg, Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire
Burial	Maria Theresa Vault, Imperial Crypt, Capuchin Church, Vienna, Austria
Spouse	Archduke Joseph of Austria ​ ​ (m. 1760)​
Issue	Archduchess Maria Theresa Archduchess Maria Christina
Names Spanish: Isabel María Luisa Antonieta de Borbón-Parma German: Isabella Maria Ludovica Antonia von Bourbon-Parma French: Isabelle-Marie-Louise-Antoinette de Bourbon-Parme
House	Bourbon-Parma
Father	Philip, Duke of Parma
Mother	Louise Élisabeth of France

Isabella of Bourbon-Parma (Spanish: Isabel María Luisa Antonieta, German: Isabella Maria Ludovica Antonia, French: Isabelle-Marie-Louise-Antoine; 31 December 1741 – 27 November 1763) was a princess of Parma and infanta of Spain from the House of Bourbon-Parma as the daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma and Louise-Élisabeth of France. She became an archduchess of Austria and crown princess of Bohemia and Hungary in 1760 by her marriage to Archduke Joseph of Austria, the future Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.

An Enlightenment thinker, she was a prolific writer, and nineteen separate works (some of them unfinished) have been preserved from the three years of her marriage. In them, she discussed philosophy, religion, ethics, politics, diplomacy, military theory, world trade, education and childrearing, human culture and societies, and the position of women. In her writings (which she kept secret), she argued for the intellectual equality of women. None of her writings were published in her life; her Méditations chrétiennes ('Christian Meditations') were published in 1764, a year after her death. Some of her personal correspondence and other works have been published by biographers and historians.

Although her husband loved her, she did not fully return his feelings and found more fulfillment in her (likely romantic, possibly sexual) relationship with her sister-in-law, Archduchess Maria Christina. Despite her popularity at the Viennese court, the shame and guilt inspired by her inability to reciprocate her husband's feelings, compounded by the same-sex attraction that she considered sinful, made her unhappy. A lonely childhood with demanding and unaffectionate caretakers, the sudden loss of her mother, a difficult birth and two miscarriages in the span of ten months, and later a fourth pregnancy all adversely affected her physical and mental health. She was described as melancholic and experienced suicidal ideation, and biographers have suggested that she suffered from depression or bipolar disorder, to which she was likely genetically predisposed. She died at the age of twenty-one from smallpox.

Infanta Isabel María Luisa Antonieta^{[note 1]} of Spain was born on 31 December 1741 at Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid as the first child of Infante Philip of Spain and his wife, Louise-Élisabeth of France (known as 'Madame Infante').^[1]

Isabella's parents were first cousins once removed with an age difference of six years: her mother had been twelve and her father eighteen years old when they married. As the firstborn daughter of Louis XV of France, Madame Infante (and the French court) considered it ill-fitting to marry anyone who was not a monarch or an heir apparent, and Philip was only the third son of Philip V of Spain. Madame Infante was ambitious and strong-willed, unlike her husband, and soon took on a leading role in the marriage, working through to secure a higher position for themselves^[2] and more power for the Bourbons.^[3] She had a contentious relationship with her mother-in-law Elisabeth Farnese, the de facto ruler of Spain, whom she threatened in her influence over her son, but they worked together to advance Philip’s career.^[4]

Madame Infante was fourteen years old when she gave birth to Isabella after a difficult labour lasting for two days. Two months later, Philip left to fight in the War of the Austrian Succession, and he did not see his family again until his child was eight years old. Her mother showed little affection towards Isabella and probably found the baby to be a burden.^[5]

For the first seven years of her life, Isabella was raised at the Madrid court of her paternal grandparents. Her grandmother, Queen Elisabeth, loved her, reporting regularly on her well-being, development, and behaviour to her absent son.^[6] Based on these letters, her mother never displayed warmth towards Isabella, and was impatient with her; when the child threw tantrums, she chastised her so severely that Queen Elisabeth called it a 'military drill'. Madame Infante reportedly found Isabella to be 'stubborn' and 'unbearable'.^[7] Isabella was entrusted to an aya (governess), the French-born widow Marquise of Gonzalez (Marie-Catherine de Bassecourt-Grigny, later suo jure marquise of Borghetto; 1693–1770). The Marquise retained a strong sense of etiquette and hierarchy from her previous position as dame d'honneur to Barbara of Portugal.^[8] Isabella developed a close bond with her aya, which inspired the jealousy of her mother.^[9]

Isabella's education was structured around contemporary ideals for princesses.^[9] The use of corporal punishment was ordered by her father and endorsed by her mother.^[10] According to her autobiography, she was an energetic and mischievous child, always loud, 'jumping, climbing, falling', breaking furniture and ornaments. Her favourite pastimes were chasing after butterflies, horse-riding, and performing stunts with a rope, and she liked to write, sing, and draw. Attempting to better her behaviour, her aya took away ropes, horses, and swings from her. 'What to do in this sad situation? […] But I eventually learned to be reasonable', Isabella commented as an adult. She started to entertain herself silently, later recalling that her 'head was always in the clouds, occupying itself with a hundred thousand ideas at once'.^[8] In 1746, a French envoy complimented her 'dignity', saying that, aged four, she already knew 'who she is, to whom she belongs, and what she must be one day'. He also remarked on the coldness of her mother towards Isabella. Growing up as an only child until the age of ten with no playmates and under strict control, her childhood has been characterised as 'lonely and austere' by Élisabeth Badinter.^[9]

Between 6 January and 7 October 1749, Isabella lived in Versailles, visiting her maternal family on their way to Parma.^[11] As the then-only grandchild of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska, she received more attention and affection than ever. The luxury and cheerfulness of the French court was a shock to her after the more rigid Spanish courtly customs.^[12] Aged eight, she was allowed to participate in court functions^[12] and attend the theatre, the opera, balls, and concerts. Paul d'Albert de Luynes recorded that she did not seem to enjoy these performances and was considered 'timid'.^[13] At this time, Isabella was more comfortable speaking Spanish (which she had learned from her aya) than French (which she used with her mother and paternal grandmother).^[14]

With time, Isabella started to enjoy her stay. She liked to accompany Queen Marie to operas, plays, and concerts,^[15] and she was delighted by being treated as a French royal princess: the royal guard saluted her, and she was seated in an identical armchair to that of her mother and aunts. Once, she performed in the apartment of Maria Josepha of Saxony to general acclaim.^[16] After her stay in Versailles, she corresponded with her maternal family and her primary language had become French.^[17]

With the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Isabella's father became duke of Parma, a title formerly belonging to his mother's family.^[18] Isabella and her mother arrived in Parma on 20 November 1749. The duchy was impoverished, its palaces in ruins. Whereas Isabella thought highly of Spaniards and the French, she considered Italians to be 'ignorant of the art of thinking' and wanted to leave the country immediately.^[19] Her mother, resenting her low status and relative poverty, focused on arranging prestigious marriages for her children.^[20] She visited Versailles twice to negotiate a match for Isabella, between August 1752 and October 1753,^[21] then in the summer of 1757, when she died. Both times, her husband and children stayed in Parma.^[20][22]

Isabella's parents had two children in 1751: Ferdinand on 20 January and Luisa on 9 December,^[19] to whom their mother showed more affection. Isabella seems not to have been jealous and to have enjoyed having company.^[23] During Madame Infante's absences, Isabella reported on her siblings' well-being to their father and maternal grandmother. The Duke lived apart from his children for seven months every year in the Ducal Palace of Colorno to be closer to the best hunting grounds. Isabella sent short notes to him on the sleeping habits and teething of the two infants. Between November and April, Philip lived with his younger children in the Palazzo della Pilotta, while Isabella stayed with her aya in the Palazzo del Giardino.^[23]

While Isabella certainly exchanged letters with her mother, these have been lost.^[24] Around this time, her friends questioned Madame Infante about her coldness towards her eldest child. She replied that her 'character was too serious' to 'make a friend of [her] daughter'. She believed that Isabella should be 'satisfied' with the affection shown to her because of Madame Infante's 'cold nature'.^[24] She was officially urged by the Marshal of France, Adrien-Maurice de Noailles, to show more love to Isabella, as it was feared that rumours about her cold treatment could diminish the chances of a politically advantageous marriage. The French ambassador to Parma assured Noailles that more attention was being paid to Isabella, while Madame Infante protested her maternal love: 'all the world must see […] how much I love her. For those who know me, it is certain'.^[25]

In the summer of 1749, Isabella's parents engaged Pierre Cerou, an educated French comedy writer with experience as a tutor to manage their property and instruct Isabella in history, literature, and French.^[26] In 1754, at the request of the Madrid court (concerned about Cerou's religiosity), he was replaced by a French Jesuit, Thomas Fumeron. Fumeron, however, was assigned to Ferdinand, not Isabella, who from then on did not have a teacher.^[27] In 1757 and 1758 respectively, a governor and a tutor were hired for Ferdinand: Auguste de Keralio, a soldier and scientist, and Abbot Bonnot de Condillac, a philosopher and close friend of Rousseau, Diderot, and d'Alembert.^[28] Isabella was instructed by her confessors, Fathers Fumeron and Belgrado, in the lives of the saints, and she continued to practice drawing, painting, and music with her aya; she excelled at singing and playing the violin and the harpsichord.^[29] While there is no proof that she attended lectures by Keralion and Condillac, Badinter argues that her later knowledge of military theory, history, and Enlightenment ideals shows that she did.^[30]

Isabella probably witnessed the cruelty of Keralio and Condillac, especially the latter, towards her brother. Despite his progressive idea of teaching through games and his reputation as a revolutionary pedagogue, he regularly beat Ferdinand with a rod or kicked him. In her Réflexions sur l'éducation, Isabella would condemn the way her brother had been brought up, anonymously depicting both him and Condillac. She maintained a correspondence with Keralio in her adulthood, but rarely mentioned the Abbot.^[31]

The family policy of Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress was intended to strengthen the relationship between the Bourbons and the Habsburgs. Influenced by Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV decided to shift alliances and join Austria against Britain and Prussia in the Diplomatic Revolution. The Empress' eldest son, Joseph, was unenthusiastic about marriage because of his low opinion of women, and relied on the advice of his mother in choosing a bride. His betrothal to Isabella's cousin, Maria Luisa of Spain, was broken off with the excuse that he had fallen in love with Isabella, although the decision was a political one made by his mother. On the bride's side, negotiations were led by Madame Infante. The contract was finalised in the summer of 1759 in Versailles. Shortly after, aged thirty-two, Madame Infante died of smallpox, devastating her daughter.^[32] Isabella might have become convinced at this time that she, too, would die young and not live for more than four years. She was later reported multiple times to expect to die before turning twenty-two.^[33]

After the betrothal, the parties decided to wait so that the young couple could mature. The death of Élisabeth further delayed the plans.^[34] Isabella started to learn German, devoting seven hours a day to the language. She was anxious to please her future mother-in-law the Empress.^[35] Isabella prepared methodically for her future, studying the political situation of the Habsburg monarchy and following its ongoing war with Prussia. To please her new family, she was ready to pretend and manipulate.^[36] Her bridegroom Joseph wrote to a friend that he would try to win his bride's 'respect and trust', but he considered it impossible for himself to be 'agreeable, to pose as a lover', as that went against his 'nature' which had never understood romantic love. Thoughts of his approaching wedding made him 'tremble' and feel melancholic.^[37]

Wedding festivities as depicted by van Meytens

The public wedding supper and banquet in the Redoute Wing of the Hofburg. Only the imperial family is seated, with the emperor and the empress in the middle, Joseph on their right and Isabella on the left.

A serenade in the same place. The imperial family is seated in the first row with a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In reality, the composer was not present at the time, only arriving in Vienna two years later, in 1762.

Following a marriage by proxy, Isabella was sent to Vienna with Joseph Wenzel I, Prince of Liechtenstein in late 1760.^[38] While she was sad to say goodbye to her family, she was happy to leave Parma.^[35] Maria Theresa refused to let anyone of her former staff accompany her.^[36] Publicly, Isabella disguised her sadness, but cried in private with her father, siblings, confessor, and aya.^[36] She travelled from Parma through the Alps and was greeted at the border by her Oberhofmeisterin, the widowed Countess Erdődy, Antónia Battyhány. They reached a castle near Vienna on 1 October, where they were received by Isabella's father-in-law Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.

The Emperor accompanied Isabella to Laxenburg castles to meet the rest of the imperial family. Her fiancé, who had declared multiple times that he was more afraid of marriage than of battles, reportedly turned red upon seeing her and could not wait for the wedding. While this might be an exaggeration, she quickly seduced Joseph by her obedience and letting him feel intellectually superior to her.^[39] Maria Theresa declared that Isabella was 'perfect', and it was generally agreed that she surpassed expectations. The only person who disliked her was the eldest archduchess, Maria Anna, who had been the second lady of the court but was now displaced by Isabella. She was jealous of her popularity, while she had always been slighted by her family.^[40]

The wedding was celebrated in the Augustinekirche by Nuncio Vitaliano Borromeo on 6 October.^[41] At night, there was a display of decorative lighting with almost three thousand lanterns burning between the Hofburg and the Stephansdom and the same amount of white wax candles in two lines, complete with torches in the courtyard of the palace. In the Hofburg, there was a public banquet where the pure golden tableware from Isabella's dowry was used. Festivities lasted for days and were commemorated in a series of paintings by Martin van Meytens, which can be viewed in the Hall of Ceremonies in Schönbrunn Palace as of 2024.^[42] This was organised despite the ongoing Seven Years' War draining the treasury, as Maria Theresa wished to distract attention and display the wealth of her empire.^[43]

Joseph fell in love with Isabella and behaved attentively, but she did not reciprocate the extent of his feelings. It was considered her duty to produce an heir as quickly as possible, and she became pregnant in late 1761. This caused her anxiety, but she was relieved that she did not cause disappointment. She worried that she would be unable to endure the pain of childbirth, but behaved in the expected way, with 'no sensitivity nor grimacing' according to Maria Theresa .^[44]

Her pregnancy was difficult with many physical symptoms, depression, and a fear of death. This was worsened by her husband not understanding her problems.^[45] On 20 March 1762, she gave birth to Archduchess Maria Theresa (named after her paternal grandmother). How Isabella felt about her child is unknown, but she only mentioned her once in her intimate correspondence and never in her private writings; a friend commented that her love for her child 'did not show much on the exterior'.^[46]

She miscarried in August 1762 and in January 1763. Maria Theresa advised Joseph to wait for six months before trying for a son again so that Isabella could recover. The second miscarriage was kept secret, but Maria Theresa and Joseph were 'in great distress' according to the French ambassador. He wrote that Isabella was 'in good health' but had been bedridden for days.^[47] Her miscarriages worsened her depression and eroded her will to live. Her death anxiety was aggravated by the risks of childbirth.^[48] In early March 1763, was reported in France that she was psychologically unwell, still grieving her last miscarriage, and displaying physical symptoms: she was 'extremely thin', had an 'almost constant' 'dry cough', and pain in her sides. It was concluded that her health was 'seriously threatened' and that her 'soul' needed to be 'calmed'.^[46]

Meanwhile, the love of her husband and mother-in-law for her grew, and it seems that Isabella found a maternal figure in the Empress.^[49] She appears to have hidden her independence and revolutionary opinions well, being submissive towards both her husband and her mother-in-law.^[47] Biographers describe her as living a 'double life' as both a 'liberated intellectual' and a 'submissive young wife'. Despite her personal doubts, contemporaries considered her to behave as expected, and she had an 'acute sense of duty' in her role as a princess.^[50]

Thanks to God, our dear and charming daughter has recovered well and is in good health. In ten months of time, she gave birth and had two miscarriages. That is being too diligent. I wish therefore that she rest for six months to regain her strength. I ask you not to show her any desire of having a grandson. She is too used to obeying.

— Maria Theresa, letter to the Duke of Parma, 18 January 1763, ^[47]

Her sister-in-law, Archduchess Maria Christina (known as Marie) was Isabella's best friend and only confidante in Vienna. Marie was the third surviving child of the imperial couple, less than five months younger than Isabella, and the favourite child of the Empress. She was intelligent and artistically inclined. The two quickly developed a close relationship,^[51] spending so much time together that they earned a comparison with Orpheus and Eurydice.^[52] Despite living in the same palace, they exchanged letters and small notes daily, which Freyermuth connects to the popularity of intimate correspondence and epistolary novels at the time.^[50] Two hundred pieces of correspondence by Isabella survived (those by Marie were burned after her death).^[53]

It seems that Isabella soon became romantically and perhaps also sexually attracted to Marie. The latter's feelings developed more gradually and remained more reserved.^[54] She was recovering from her love for Louis Eugene of Württemberg, whom Maria Theresa considered inferior to an archduchess.^[55] Soon after Isabella's arrival, in October or November 1760, she started to playfully court Marie, writing that 'love, that cruel god, torment[ed]' her and that death would be 'surely sweet', except for not being able to love Marie anymore.^[56] In the beginning of their relationship, she addressed Marie formally, calling her 'my lady my dear Sister', but soon started calling her 'my dear angel', 'my most precious treasure', or 'my consolation'.^[56] Marie’s regular nicknames were mon Alte ('my old [one]') and mon âne, mein Engerl, or Eserl (all words meaning donkey). She once asked Isabella to call her baadwaschl, Viennese slang for washcloth, an object with erotic connotations.^[50] Isabelle regularly portrayed the two of them as a heterosexual couple, for example, Marie as Eurydice and herself as Orpheus, or using the names of couples from contemporary comedies. She called herself the 'lover' (amant) of Mimi.^[56] Isabella combined the superlatives fashionable in letters between close friends with genuine signs of her obsession and adoration for Marie.^[50]

The two women agreed to meet in hidden places and Isabella wrote short notes to Marie during mass. They gifted each other close stools, and Isabella commented that she hoped Marie would think of her each time she used it. If the weather prevented Joseph from going on a hunt, the sisters-in-law cancelled their meeting in hurried, disappointed notes.^[57] They were worried to keep their relationship a secret; in March 1761, Isabella reminded Marie of her 'given word' to never talk about something (she does not specify what), because 'there is nothing in the world as shameful as going against nature'.^[58]

Marie seems to have been more reserved than Isabella, but she did return her feelings. Their shared perception of homosexuality as sinful led to feelings of guilt. Isabella felt ashamed for not reciprocating the love of her husband, failing to fulfill her 'wifely duty'. This worsened her depression and convinced her that the only solution was her death.^[38] She wrote to Marie that 'only the Almighty knows how gladly I would part with this life, in which grievance is inflicted upon Him daily'.^[59] After Marie's death, a miniature of Isabella and her daughter was found in her prayer book. On its back, she had written the date and cause of Isabella's death, calling her the 'best and truest friend' who had 'lived as an angel and died as [an angel]'.^[60]

Before her death, Isabella told her mother-in-law that 'not everything was viewable' for Joseph among her papers. The Empress asked Countess Erdődy, Isabella's Oberhofmeisterin, to burn Isabella's writings; it is unknown why this did not happen.^[61] The letters Isabella had written to her remained among Marie's papers. Her husband, Albert Casimir, Duke of Teschen, understood them as proof of an 'exceptional friendship' between his wife and an 'unpararelled princess'.^[62] As of 2024, the letters are in the National Archives of Hungary. They were partially published by Alfred Ritter von Arneth, archivist of the Habsburg papers, in the late 19th century. Another censored edition was included in Joseph Hrasky's 1959 Die Persönlichkeit der Infantin von Parma, 'The Personality of the Infanta of Parma'. In 2008, Élisabeth Badinter published the full preserved correspondence with annotations.^[63]

While earlier historians dismissed the language of the letters as a fashionable expression of friendship, later it became consensus that the two had a romantic, possibly sexual affair.^[51] Badinter argues that possessive desires, feeling pain over being separated, an 'obsession with the beloved', jealousy, and dependency—seen as characteristics of romantic-sexual relationships both in the 18^th century and since then—were apparent in their correspondence.^[54] Supporting the idea that Isabella did not experience heterosexual attraction is her statement in the Traité sur les hommes that while no man can live without women, any woman could live without men.^[50]

Freyermuth argues that most of the expressions employed by Isabella were regular in sophisticated correspondence at the time, and highlights that the expression aimer à la rage, to love to the point of madness, is used both for Marie and for her Oberhofmeisterin. She nevertheless agrees with other biographers that the letters convey a 'visceral need' for intimate proximity and an 'exclusive passion', especially by their frequency (often multiple letters a day) and through 'ambiguous' phrases. Isabella used a mix of words denoting platonic and romantic love to disguise her attraction, neutralising verbs referring to sexual or romantic feelings by following them with ones appropriate in friendship, such as in 'I yearn [je languis d'] for love [amour], for friendship [amitié], as you wish, and forever'. She relied on the French pronoun on ('one'), to make her declarations impersonal: 'when one sees you [on vous voit], one can no longer be [on ne plus peut être] occupied by anything but your charms'. Freyermuth argues that even though Europeans in the 18^th century discussed symptoms considered 'disgusting' more freely than in the 21^st century, the comfortable way in which Isabella described her diarrhea after giving birth ('I shat [chié] all over [my chemise]') suggest that they had been physically, probably sexually intimate with each other.^[50]

While most of her family loved her, her relationship with her eldest sister-in-law, the Archduchess Maria Anna (known as Marianne), only deteriorated. Isabella was seen as beautiful, while Marianne was considered the least attractive archduchess; Isabella was popular, while Marianne was ignored by her mother and siblings.^[64] The Infanta was intelligent and educated, and studying sciences had been Marianne's refuge from her lonely and contentious family life, an interest that connected her with her father, who now also adored Isabella. Isabella was also considered a better singer and violinist than the Archduchess. Motivated by jealousy and feelings of inferiority, Marianne viewed Isabella as a rival even before she arrived in Austria and received her coldly.^[40]

Isabella responded with distrust. She described Marianne as 'duplicitous' and 'hypocritical',^[40] and wrote a short dissertation titled Les Charmes de la fausse amitié, 'The Charms of False Friendship' about her. The two nevertheless exchanged embraces, kisses, and compliments in public. Marianne seems to have been the only person to suspect the affair between Isabella and Marie, and she spied on them. Isabella often warned Marie to keep their letters safe from Marianne.^[65] Their coldness, turning into hostility,^[66] worsened the already distant relationship between Marianne and Joseph, and he never forgave his sister for antagonising his wife.^[67] Later, as head of the family, he used his power to isolate her and deprive her financially^[65]

The imperial court spent summers in Schönbrunn. In 1763, it was recorded that Isabella did not want to move back to the Hofburg.^[68] She was around six months pregnant and believed that she might be carrying twins;^[46] smallpox cases were reported around Vienna. On 18 November, four days after her arrival in Vienna, Isabella developed a fever and was soon diagnosed with smallpox. The Empress, who had been nursing her, was persuaded to leave her room, as she had not had the disease yet and thus could have caught it. Afterwards, Joseph, Marianne, and Marie (her husband and his two sisters) took care of her. The fever induced labour, and on 22 November, she prematurely gave birth. On her request, the baby was baptised Maria Christina, but died the same day.^[69]

Following the birth, Isabella was rarely conscious and displayed a 'courage' bordering on indifference to death.^[69] On 26 November, the doctors informed Joseph that Isabella was agonising, and she died on the next day at dawn, a month before her twenty-second birthday. As her body was still infectious, it was buried without an autopsy or embalming in the Maria Theresa Vault of the Imperial Crypt. The coffin of her daughter Christina was placed beneath hers.^[70][71] Isabella's death, along with the death from smallpox of three or four of the imperial children, and the suffering most family members underwent because of the disease, contributed to Maria Theresa's 1768 decision to have younger members of the family variolated, and the subsequent acceptance of the practice in Austria.^[72]

Joseph was devastated by her death and never fully recovered.^[73] On his mother's insistence, he remarried to Maria Josepha of Bavaria in 1765, who physically repulsed him and whom he mistreated despite her attempts to accommodate him. She died of smallpox after two years of marriage.^[53] He adored his only child, Maria Theresa, who died of pleurisy in 1770, aged seven. While the love he had felt for his wife helped develop his more positive attributes, after her death, he became even more sarcastic, easily irritable, and aggressive than he had been before his marriage. There is no record of Marie's reaction to Isabella's death.^[60] She took care of her daughter until she died in childhood, and married Prince Albert Casimir of Saxony in 1766^[74] Later, she wrote that Isabella's death was 'to the great regret of all, but above all of me'.^[50]

Isabella was interested in philosophy, morality, music, history, physics, and metaphysics.^[59] She was also artistically inclined: she painted, drew, sang, played the violin and the harpsichord with both enjoyment and talent, and wrote poems and studies.^[75] In 1758, French historian Pierre-Jean Grosley visited Parma and described Isabella as 'one of the main wonders' of the city because of her 'marked talent' in all 'useful and pleasurable arts' and her 'good knowledge of the world'.^[76] Freyermuth argues that the travels she undertook as a child and her diverse experiences in Spain, France, Parma, and later Austria stimulated her intellectual development and her critical thinking skills.^[50]

During negotiations for her marriage, Austrian observers reported that Isabella spoke French, Spanish, Italian, and some Latin, studied sciences and maps, and followed military movements in Austria's ongoing Third Silesian War.^[77] She had also started to learn German. In a report commissioned by Maria Theresa, she was praised as 'beautiful' and 'kind', 'dignified' but never 'affected', calling her an 'angel of beauty and of goodness'.^[50] She liked to read but did not 'wish to appear a savant'—she was able to express her intelligence and knowledge while remaining in line with contemporary expectations of proper feminine behaviour.^[35] Contemporaries appreciated that she was both 'erudite' and good-hearted.^[50] She enjoyed dancing at balls but not card games, horse-riding, or hunting (all popular forms of entertainment in European royal courts of the time), preferring brisk-paced walks as physical exercise. Inspired by her grandmother Marie Leszczyńska, she distributed much of her income to the poor.^[35]

Despite her shy and reserved nature, Isabella was well-liked by most people. She observed others consciously and analysed their personalities, strengths, and weaknesses to build a good relationship with them.^[38] When her best friend and possible lover, Archduchess Maria Christina, wrote a description of Isabella, she mentioned being biased in favour of those she loved and being reluctant to change her opinions among her negative traits. She also stated that Isabella liked to mock people, but that once she had reached her goal and upset them, she was devastated.^[78] Her physical appearance was the opposite of what was fashionable among noble ladies at the time: she had olive skin, but she was nevertheless considered pretty.

Isabella was considered melancholic, the contemporary name for depressive tendencies. Despite her usual liveliness and love of sports, she had sudden periods of being unable to move and sitting in one place, staring in front of herself. It has been suggested by Tamussino that her problems, probably a form of bipolar disorder, were hereditary as both of her grandfathers and her father showed similar symptoms.^[79] Her mother's death had a strong effect on her, and she became convinced that she would not live for more than four years from that time.^[33] Burdened by her marriage, difficult pregnancies and homosexual desires, she became suicidal. She admitted in a letter that she would feel 'great temptation' to commit suicide if it was not forbidden by the church. As reasons for this she listed that she felt she was 'good for nothing', 'only did bad things', and saw no way to reach salvation.^[80] In 1763, she declared that she had heard a voice telling her that her death was near, which put her in a 'gentle, peaceful, festive' mood, encouraged her to 'do anything' and gave her a 'mysterious power over [herself]'.^[79]

Isabella left numerous writings from the time of her marriage. In them, she analysed her life and the world around her. Her first surviving work, Remarques politiques et militaires ('Political and Military Observations') is dated to 1758, when she was aged seventeen.^[50] She wrote an autobiography titled Les Aventures de l'étourderie, 'The Adventures of Amazement'. In her Christian Reflections, which was published on Maria Theresa's orders in 1764,^[81] she contemplated religious questions and death from a Catholic perspective. She was planning a longer study titled On the Customs of Peoples, but could only write its first part (about ancient Egyptians) before her death. In a shorter dissertation, she summarised the Viennese court's efforts to join the Habsburg monarchy into world trade.^[82]

Reflections on Education was Isabella's rejection of the contemporary upbringing of upper-class children and a covert condemnation of her own parents and the teachers they hired, especially the abusive tutors of her brother Ferdinand. She charged parents with full responsibility over their children, calling those who allow strangers to raise their offspring as 'lazy, indifferent, and weak'.^[83]

She rejected authoritarianism and corporal punishment,^[84] as she believed that they made children 'violent, stubborn, and harsh' immediately and in adulthood. She argued that unexplained restrictions and harsh punishments deprived children of the experience of 'fulfilling their duties willingly'. Their only behavioural example would then be 'violence' (as was the case with her brother). She believed that children had inherent 'goodwill and confidence', but those raised authoritatively would learn to act out of a 'servile fear of humiliation'. In Isabella's opinion, abusing parental authority leads children to think of themselves as 'slaves' and become 'unfeeling and self-mocking' to cope with their low self-esteem.^[84]

She considered corporal punishment (which her parents had embraced) to be futile and dangerous, a form of discipline originating in 'hardened hearts' and 'lowly sentiments', based on the 'false belief' that humans are 'no better than animals' and cannot be persuaded through reason. For her, violence against children showed the adult's lack of 'understanding' and pedagogical talent. Painting an anonymous portrait of her brother, she concluded that beatings inspired 'hate', dishonesty, and a desire to 'avenge themselves' in children.^[85] Instead of these methods, which she say had been gaining popularity at the time, she advocated for kindness, 'almost unknown' as it was regarded as a 'weakness, a failure of firmness and reason'.^[85]

In the study The Fate of Princesses, Isabella wrote that a princess was the 'victim of a minister's unfortunate policies', sacrificed for the supposed public good. She criticised the idea of allying countries through marriages, arguing that this cannot lead to a lasting alliance.^[82] She concluded with saying that a princess might be able to make her 'sad situation' 'enviable' by invoking the will of God and serving Him.^[86]

What can the daughter of a great prince expect? [...] Already at birth she is a slave to the prejudices of the people; she is born only to be subjected to this welter of honours, to this etiquette attached to greatness. [...] Her position deprives her of knowing [those] by whom she is surrounded. [...] The rank which she bears, far from bringing her the slighest advantage, deprives her of the greatest pleasure of life. [...] [O]bligated 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. She is therefore condemned to leave everything behind, her family, her homeland, and for whom? For a stranger, for a person whose character and way of thinking she does not know, for a family who will perhaps only look at her with jealousy, but in the best case with suspicion.

— Archduchess Isabella of Austria, The Fate of Princesses, ^[87]

Isabella wrote a critical piece examining the status and behaviour of men in patriarchal contemporary European society, titled Traité sur les hommes ('Treatise on Men'). She argued that women were as good and capable intellectually as men, perhaps even better, and mocked the male sex. Humorously, she described men as 'useless animals' who only exist to 'do bad things, be impatient, and create confusion'. Based on her experiences and maybe on her opinion of her husband, she concluded that men were 'deprived of feelings, [and] only loved themselves'. In her opinion, a man is born to think but instead spends his life 'with entertainment, yelling, playing heroes, running up and down, in other words, doing nothing but what flatters his vanity or requires no thought of him'.^[88] She summarised why, in her opinion, men were nevertheless above women in society: so that their 'faults can make [women's] virtues shine brighter', to become better every day, and 'to be endured in the world, from which, if they did not hold all power in their hands, they would be exiled entirely'. Isabella concluded that the 'slavery' of women is caused by men sensing that women are superior to them.^[89]

Isabella wrote a long letter to her sister-in-law and possible lover, Archduchess Maria Christina, as part of her preparations for death. The Conseils à Marie ('Advice to Marie') consists of descriptions of their family members and ways of nurturing a good relationship with them. In her view, her husband was 'not primarily emotional' and viewed usual expressions of love such as terms of endearment or embraces as flattery or hypocrisy. She described her father-in-law Emperor Francis as an 'honourable, good-hearted' man and a 'reliable, true friend', but someone who is prone to listening to bad advisors. Of Empress Maria Theresa, she wrote that 'a kind of mistrust and seeming coldness' is mixed in her love for her children. She stated that her death will not be a great loss for her mother-in-law, but will nevertheless cause her pain and that she will 'transfer all of the friendship she feels for [Isabella] to [Marie]'.^[90]

Isabella was a prolific writer of essays and studies during her marriage. A number of her works were found among the papers of her sister-in-law Maria Christina by her widower Albert Casimir, Duke of Teschen.^[62] They were then placed in the Habsburg family archives with his comments. He noted that other works by Isabella had been lost in a shipwreck, referring to an accident in 1792 when the belongings of the couple were transported from Rotterdam to Hamburg. Hrasky and Tamussino consider it improbable that there were further writings, 'given the abundance of what has been preserved'.^[91] Together with the rest of the family papers, Isabella's work was stored in Vienna until World War I, then in a Habsburg residence in Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary. There, a fire damaged them in 1956.^[91] As of 2024, they can be found in the National Archives of Hungary and the National Archives of Austria. Few of her writings have been published. She also composed music, and a few airs and odes by her are preserved in Budapest.^[92]

Isabella had four known pregnancies during the three years of her marriage. Two of these ended in a miscarriage and two produced daughters, only one of whom survived infancy and neither of whom lived to adulthood.^[59]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Princess Isabella of Parma.

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