23 June 1755

From the Letters of King Stanislas to Queen Marie (1754-1766)

On this day, King Stanislas writes to Queen Marie:

“Dear heart, this letter, dated 23 June, puts me vividly in mind of that great day on which you born and I was reborn, since I live only for you. May God, who produced that happy day, shower you with His blessings and prolong them infinitely. For myself, I know of no better way to commemorate the moment of your birth than to contemplate this blessing bestowed by God and to pray ardently that He render me worthy of it, no other mortal being able to boast the good fortune in which I rejoice, namely in having you. I embrace you.”

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Commentary:

Queen Marie was born Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczyńska in Trebnitz on 23 June, 1703. The city was then in the Habsburg-owned duchy of Silesia. It is now in southwestern Poland and called Trzebnica. Her father had not yet been elected King of Poland at that date and was simply a member of the upper Polish nobility, rich and well-connected, but not royal.

Pictured: Queen Marie in 1748, my own photo of a portrait in the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris, taken in March, 2016.

Stanislas and Marie are the last of the Leszczyńskis since her children are members of the house of Bourbon. Marie’s only sibling to survive infancy was her older sister, Anna, who died unmarried at 17. Stanislas’s wife and Marie’s mother, Catherine Opalinska, died in 1747.

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The translation from the French is my own. Images that are not my own are in the public domain; I only explicitly credit them when the uploader has made it a condition of sharing his/her work via Wikimedia Commons. Words in italics in the body of the post or bold italics in verbatim translations and image captions are in the Glossary; the royal family and other Bourbons are in the Who’s Who; information about the sources is in the Bibliography; all of these are in the Resources section, available to paid subscribers and Grandes Entrées. If you have questions, please ask in the comments.

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