Marie Elisabeth of France

Marie Elisabeth of France (27 October 1572 – 2 April 1578) was a French princess and member of the

Marie Elisabeth's maternal grandparents were

When Marie Elisabeth was less than two years old her father, King Charles IX, died and her uncle became Henry III of France. Hardly a year later, her mother returned to Vienna after Maximilian II repaid her dowry, while Marie Elisabeth, as a Daughter of France, remained behind. She was less than three years old at the time. Elisabeth and Marie said their farewells at the Château d'Amboise on 28 August 1575, never to see each other again.

Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, whose aunt, Madame Crissé, was Marie Elisabeth's governess, describes the princess in his writings. He reports that she was pretty but also unusually intelligent and eager to learn, at times seeming more like an adult than a child. She memorised the names of her ancestors, both Valois and Habsburg, and would proudly tell everyone that she belonged to both of those great royal houses.

Dynastically, Marie Elisabeth was important because she was the only Valois grandchild of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici, despite them having raised four sons to adulthood. Had Marie Elisabeth been male, she would have been heir to the throne of France and, had she lived long enough, might have continued the House of Valois into a new generation and prevented some of the subsequent wars over the succession and religion. Even as a female (i.e., barred by Salic law from inheriting the throne in her own right), as both the representative of the House of Valois and as a member of the House of Habsburg, she might have played a role in alleviating the succession crisis through her own marriage, possibly even becoming Queen consort of France. Thus her early death was an indirect contributory cause of at least some of the strife that followed during her uncle Henry's reign and after his death.

Marie Elisabeth resided firstly in Amboise and Blois, but later she was moved to Paris. Apparently of frail health, she died on 2 April 1578 at the Hôtel d’Anjou, aged only five and a half years.^[4][5][6][7] She was deeply mourned by the court, despite her youth, for her kindness, grace and softness. Eight days later on 10 April, she was buried in a vault of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, next to her father.

On 17 October 1793 Marie Elisabeth's tomb was desecrated by the revolutionaries during the French Revolution, and her remains were thrown into a common grave. In 1817 she was reinterred in the Basilica's Ossuary.

Ancestry

Footnotes