Painted throughout her childhood by the great Velazquez, the Infanta Margarita was the inspiration for Oscar Wilde's short story. At the age of fifteen she was given in marriage to her uncle, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold, a notoriously ugly but kind man. (The way the Habsburgs married their close relatives was not quite as bad as the ancient Egyptians, but almost.) She had six children and died at age twenty-two. Leopold was Marie-Antoinette's great-grandfather, by another wife.
It was fortunate that she escaped the notorious Hapsburg chin. Thank God for the Bourbon blood infused into that line.
ReplyDeletede Brantigny
I think also what saved Marie-Antoinette was the fact that her father was from the House of Lorraine- she inherited his good looks and light-hearted disposition.
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