Leon Maxime Faivre: Death of the Princess de Lamballe (1908)

(Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille, France)

A painting by the French artist Leon Maxime Faivre (1856-1941). Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe (1749-1792) was the daughter of Louis Victor of Savoy, 4th Prince of Carignano, and Christine of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg. She married with Louis Alexandre de Bourbon in 1767. Marie Thérèse was appointed "Superintendent of the Queen's Household", the highest rank possible for a lady-in-waiting at the royal palace of Versailles. She became a close friend of queen Marie Antoinette and was for a time the favorite of the queen. During the French revolution she remained with Marie Antoinette but Marie Thérèse was imprisoned on 19 August 1792. During a show-trial she was ordered to "Swear to Liberty and Equality, and hatred of the King and Queen". She answered "Readily to the former; but I cannot to the latter: it is not in my heart". After this she was immediately taken to the street to a group of men who killed her within minutes. Painting from 1908.