Hereditary Princess
Maria Clementina was marked by smallpox, but was regal in her bearing. "My son loves her passionately and she reciprocates," wrote the Queen of Naples, her mother-in-law, adding that: "It is a pleasure to see them harmonize so well... I am delighted with the Princess, gentle, fresh sensible and accommodating." However, Maria Clementina was homesick and her character was sullen and reserved. Some weeks later Queen Maria Carolina added about the couple: "Her husband is her husband two or three times in twenty four hours, a matter which interests her. In spite of this, there is a sadness, a boredom, an invincible disgust. I think it must be due to her health or it is unnatural, she has no taste for anything at all. It is not that she regrets her life in Vienna.... I will do everything for her happiness, although I am sowing amid brambles and on thorny soil. But she is my son's wife. Thanks to my training the young man is very much in love with her as a woman... but this may not last with so much disgust, boredom and no charm of feature, which he is fortunately too nice to notice... I shall try to win her confidence, but I am not sure of succeeding. All her wants are anticipated; nothing is lacking; she is discontented and everybody notices it."
Maria Clementina was dignified and kind. Better educated and more intelligent than her placid husband, she dominated him. The couple got along well. "Her husband adores her in every sense of the word. He says she loves him, and assuredly shows and demands many proofs of love" wrote the Queen of Naples. The couple's marital passion astonished the Queen who: "asked heaven to calm their over-excited senses by sending them children". Like her husband, Maria Clementina cared little for court life. She preferred family games, moonlit walks on the terrace, and conversation.
They had two children. She died in Naples the year after she gave birth to a son. She is thought to have died from lung disease or tuberculosis. She was buried in Basilica of Santa Chiara, Naples, with her son.
After her death, her husband married Infanta Maria Isabella of Spain, again his first cousin, the youngest surviving daughter of Charles IV of Spain (brother of Maria Clementina's mother) and Maria Luisa of Parma.
Her only daughter, Carolina, married Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry in April 1816. He was the son of Charles X of France and Princess Maria Teresa of Savoy. The couple were the parents of the French pretender Henri d'Artois, comte de Chambord and the Duchess of Parma making Maria Clementina an ancestress of the present Duke of Calabria and his rival the Duke of Castro.
Read more about this topic: Archduchess Maria Clementina Of Austria
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