Princess Maria Teresa of Savoy - Later Life

Later Life

Eventually she retired completely from the court of Lucca, settling permanently first in Villa di Marilia and later to her villa at Pianore, where surrounded by priest and nuns, she dedicated her life to religion. After 1840 she lived in complete religious seclusion in Pianore. She was very attached to her own Sardinian family and lived a life dedicated to religion. She surrounded herself by her confessor and her homeopathic doctors. Her husband visited her but he commented that her weak intellect and lack of sensitivity "would enable her to live a century ". She had little influence over their son who, in 1845, married princess Louise Marie Thérèse d'Artois, a daughter of the Duke of Berry and the only sister of the French legitimate pretender the Count of Chambord.

On December 17, 1847, the Empress Marie Louise died, and, in accordance with the Congress of Vienna, Charles exchanged the duchy of Lucca for that of Parma, becoming Duke Charles II of Parma; Maria Teresa became Duchess of Parma but only for few months. The revolution broke out in March 1848. In March 1849 Charles abdicated as duke of Parma and was succeeded by their son, Charles III.

Maria Teresa lived mostly at her villa at Viareggio, particularly after the assassination of her son in 1854. There she built a chapel as a memorial for her son. Later she lived in a villa in San Martino in Vignale on the hills just north of Lucca served only by her confessor and the administrator of the property. The villa is still called "Tenuta Maria Teresa" in her honor. There she died in 1879 as a result of cerebral arteriosclerosis. She was buried in the Verano cemetery in Rome, dressed in the habit of the Third Order of St. Dominic.