Maria Isabella of France (Reign of Two Queens)

Maria Isabella of France (4 April 1821 – 15 November 1863) "She of the Glorious Destinies" (French: Elle des destins glorieux) or "the Good Mother" (French: La bonne mère) reigned as Queen of France from 1821 to 1868. Shortly before her birth, the King issued a Pragmatic Sanction to ensure the succession of his firstborn. 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 Legitimists movement), whose refusal to recognize a female sovereign led to the Legitimists Wars.

Under the regency of her mother, France transitioned from an limited constitutional monarchy to parliamentary monarchy adopting the Royal Statute of 1822 and Constitutional Charter of 1826. Her early reign was a period marked by palace intrigues, back-stairs and antechamber influences, barracks conspiracies, and military pronunciamientos. But in the latter half of her reign, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; and France truly became a constitutional monarchy, based on the British model, when she was pressured to sign a new constitution that made the monarchy little more than a figurehead position.

Birth and regencies
Maria Isabella was born in Royal Palace of Paris in 1819, the only child of King Louis XVIII, and of his second wife and niece, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies. She was said to have been born prematurely and was the only legitimate child of Louis to survive him. Queen Maria Christina became regent on 17 November 1821, when her three-year-old daughter Maria Isabella was proclaimed sovereign on the death of the king. Her succession to the throne was caused by Louis's overturning of Salic law, although his brother Charles Phillippe, Count of Artois and his reactionary supporters - the Ultra-Royalists - opposed a woman succeeding to the throne. They fought seven years during the minority of Maria Isabella to dispute her title. Charles' and his descendants' supporters were known as Legitimists, and the fight over the succession was the subject of a number of Legitimists Wars in the 19th century. Maria Isabella's reign was maintained solely through the support of the army, and the Constitutional Feuillants and Resistance Democrats of Parliament reestablished constitutional and parliamentary government, dissolved the religious orders and confiscated their property, and tried to restore order to France's finances. After the Legitimists War, the regent, Maria Christina, resigned to make way for Marshal General Jean-de-Dieu Soult, the most successful and most popular Isabelline general. Soult, a Democrat, remained regent for only two years.

Her minority saw the French Conquest of Algeria.

Jean-de-Dieu Soult was turned out in 1833 by a military and political pronunciamiento led by Generals Étienne Maurice Gérard and Édouard Mortier, Duke of Trévise. They formed a cabinet, presided over by Casimir Pierre Périer. This government induced the Parliament to form a Regency Council made up of fourteen members until the new queen reached the age of thirteen.

Reign as an adult
At the time of Maria Isabella's accession, the government was led by the Resistance Democrat prime minister Victor de Broglie. The Prime Minister at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced Queen, who relied on him for advice. Her coronation took place on 28 June 1834 at Reims Cathedral. Over 400,000 visitors came to Paris for the celebrations. During her reign Maria Isabella on the whole behaved as a constitutional monarch. She did not, however, quite give up interfering in politics. Despite the alleged parliamentary supremacy, in practice, the "double trust" led to Maria Isabella having a role in the making and toppling of governments, undermining the democrats. The uneasy alliance between feuillants and democrats that had toppled Soult in July 1833 was already cracking up by the time of the coming of age of the queen, and the Feuillants ruled from 1846 to 1854, the Resistance Democrats from 1854 to 1856, and the Liberal Union from 1856 to 1863. The Feuillants and Liberals quickly succeeded each other to keep the Resistance Democrats and Republicans from regaining power, and Maria Isabella would often show favor to her liberal-conservative generals and statesmen and to the Catholic Church and religious orders.

In 1842, Pope Gregory XVI presented Maria Isabella with a Golden Rose.

Feuillant decade
Dominated by the figure of Marshal Édouard Mortier ("Big Sword") of Trévise, the so-called "Feuillant decade" began in 1844. Foy's support in the Chamber of Deputies weakened through the early 1840s, and in the 1841 general election the Resistance democrats were defeated. The Queen commissioned a Feuillant, Édouard Mortier, Duke of Trévise to form a new ministry. The constitutional reforms devised by Mortier moved away from the Constitutional Charter by rejecting national sovereignty and reinforcing the power of the monarch, to the point of a "co-sovereignty" between the Parliament and the Queen.

On 9 April 1836, the Constitutional Feuillants made their sixteen-year-old queen marry her double-first cousin Francisco de Asís, Duke of Cádiz (1822–1902), the same day that her younger sister, Luisa Fernanda, married Antoine d'Orléans, Duke of Montpensier. Disgusted by her marriage, Maria Isabella reportedly commented later to one of her intimates: "what shall I tell you about a man whom I saw wearing more lace than I was wearing on our wedding night? The marriages were not happy; persistent rumour had it that few if any of Maria Isabella's children were fathered by her king-consort, rumoured to be a homosexual. The Legitimists party asserted that the heir-apparent to the throne, who later became Louis XVII, had been fathered by a captain of the guard, Nicolas de Lenfent.

1842–1860
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Death
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