Elisabeth of France – Martyr and Servant of God

From History of Royal Women:

Elisabeth and Clotilde were raised by Madame the Marsan, Governess to the Children of France. The two sisters couldn’t be more different. Clotilde had “the happiest disposition, which needed only to be encouraged and aided” while Elisabeth was “proud, inflexible, passionate and had intolerable defects.” Nevertheless, they were quite close, and Clotilde taught her sister the alphabet. The Abbé de Montégut, canon of Chartres, was appointed to tutor the children in 1774 and he instilled in Elisabeth the religious sentiments that would never leave her. When Elisabeth was 10, her grandfather King Louis XV died, and he was succeeded by her elder brother, now King Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette, barely out of their teens. For now, Elisabeth would remain at her studies, but Clotilde was destined to marry. The sisters were parted for the first time when Clotilde married the future King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia. Marie-Antoinette wrote to her mother, “My sister Elisabeth is a charming child, who has intelligence, character, and much grace; she showed the greatest feeling, and much above her age, at the departure of her sister. The poor little girl was in despair, and as her health is very delicate, she was taken ill and had a severe nervous attack. I own to my dear mamma that I fear I am getting too attached to her, feeling, from the example of my aunts, how essential it is for her happiness not to remain an old maid in this country.” (Read more.)

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