Princess Isabella of Parma

Isabella of Bourbon-Parma (Spanish: Isabel María Luisa Antonieta, German: Isabella Maria Ludovica Antonia, French: Isabelle-Marie-Louise-Antoinette; 31 December 1741 – 27 November 1763) was a princess of Parma and infanta of Spain from the House of Bourbon-Parma as the daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma, and Louise-Élisabeth of France. She became an archduchess of Austria and crown princess of Bohemia and Hungary in 1760 by her marriage to Archduke Joseph of Austria, the future Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (she never became empress due to her early death). As a granddaughter of both King Louis XV of France and King Philip V of Spain, she was the first cousin of future French kings Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X, and the first cousin of the future Spanish king Charles IV of Spain.

Secretly an Enlightenment thinker, she was a prolific writer on philosophy, religion, ethics, politics, diplomacy, military theory, world trade, education and childrearing, human culture and societies, and the position of women. In secret essays, she argued for the intellectual equality of women. None of her writings were published in her life. Her Méditations chrétiennes (“Christian Meditations”) were published in 1764, the year after her death. Some of her personal correspondence and other works have been published by biographers and historians.

Although her husband loved her, she did not fully return his feelings and found more fulfillment in her (likely romantic, possibly sexual) relationship with her sister-in-law, Archduchess Maria Christina. Despite her popularity at the Viennese court, she was unhappy because of the guilt of being unable to reciprocate her husband's feelings, compounded by the same-sex attraction that she considered sinful. A lonely childhood with demanding and unaffectionate caretakers, the sudden loss of her mother, a difficult birth and two miscarriages in the span of ten months, and later a fourth pregnancy all adversely affected her physical and mental health. She was described as melancholic and experienced suicidal ideation. Biographers have suggested that she suffered from depression or bipolar disorder, to which she was likely genetically predisposed. She died at the age of 21 from smallpox.