Jeanne IV (Reign of Three Monarchies)

Jeanne IV (4 April– 15 November 1853) "the Educator" (French: l'éducateur) or "the Good Mother" (French:"la bonne mère) reigned as Queen of France from 1826 to 1853. By the end of the reign of her father, King Louis XVII she was his only surviving child, she was six days old when her father died and she acceded to the throne, and was the first undisputed queen regnant of France as the Constitutional Charter of 1814 abolished Salic Law and established a Male-preference primogeniture order of succession, but her succession was disputed by her great uncle Charles Philippe, Count of Artois, whose refusal to recognize a female sovereign led to the Liberal Wars.

The following years of his reign were dominated by political disputes as France had only become a constitutional monarchy in 1814 and the balance of power between the sovereign and parliament was still in dispute. In spite of her initial unpopularity and the many years of political strife, where the queen was in conflict with large parts of the population, her popularity recovered towards the end of her reign.

Birth and regencies
Jeanne IV was born at the Royal Palace of Paris in 27 September 1829 to King Louis XVII and his wife and cousin Marie-Ludovica, herself a daughter of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor. On December third, six days after her birth, she became the first undisputed queen regnant of France when her father died.

Jeanne succeeded to the throne because the Constitutional Charter of 1814 set aside France's ancient frankish held Salic law, and established a Male-preference primogeniture system which accords succession to the throne to a female member of a dynasty if and only if she has no living brothers and no deceased brothers who left surviving legitimate descendants.

Civil War
The first pretender to the throne, Louis's brother Charles Philippe, Count of Artois, fought seven years during the minority of Jeanne to dispute her title, and proclaimed himself king, abrogating the liberal constitution in the process. Charles and his descendants' supporters were known as Legitimists, and the fight over the succession was the subject of the Liberal Wars.

As Jeanne was a six-day-old infant when she inherited the throne, France was ruled by regents until she became an adult. Queen Marie-Ludovica became regent on 29 September 1821, when her nine-day old daughter Jeanne was proclaimed sovereign on the death of the king. After the Legitimists Wars, the regent, Maria-Ludovica, resigned to make way for Marshal General Jean-de-Dieu Soult, the most successful and most popular Liberal general. Soult, a Resistance Moderate, remained regent for only two years.

Her minority saw tensions the abolition of slavery in the French West Indies.

Soult was turned out in 1829 by a military and political pronunciamiento led by Marshals Étienne Maurice Gérard and Édouard Mortier. They formed a cabinet, presided over by Hugues-Bernard Maret. This government induced the Parliament to declare Jeanne of age at the traditional 13.

Moderate Biennium
Jeanne declared of age at thirteen. On 25 October, Jeanne VI was crowned Queen at the Cathedral of Reims. Jeanne's coming-of-age and subsequent coronation deprived them of the Legitimists pretext for revolt. The Legitimists Wars gradually ,lost steam and ended in 1834, when Charles died and his son and her aunt Marie-Thérèse fled to Germany. The uneasy alliance between Constitutional Feuillants and Resistance Moderates that had toppled Soult in July 1843 was already cracking up by the time of the coming of age of the queen.

Following a brief government led by Liberal Jacques de Bourgeois, he was voted out of office. The Queen commissioned a Moderate, Casimir Pierre Périer to form a new ministry. The Prime Minister at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced Queen, who relied on him for advice.

Feuillant Decade
Dominated by the figure of Marshal Édouard Mortier the so-called "Feuillant decade" began in 1829. Perier resigned after the Constitutional Feuillants and Jacobites voted against a bill to the introduction of free trade. The Queen commissioned a Constitutional Feuillant, Mortier to form a new ministry. On 10 October 1832, the Constitutional Feuillants made their sixteen-year-old queen marry her double-first cousin Francisco de Asís, Duke of Cádiz (1822–1858), Disgusted by her marriage, Jeanne reportedly commented later to one of her intimates: "what shall I tell you about a man whom I saw wearing more lace than I was wearing on our wedding night?".

The marriages suited Spain and Queen Maria Isabella, who as a result bitterly quarrelled with Britain. However, the marriages were not happy; persistent rumour had it that few if any of Jeanne's children were fathered by her king-consort, rumoured to be a homosexual.In 27 September 1835 she gave birth to a male heir, who was baptised on 7 December 1838 as Louis Francis at the Louvre Palace. The boy, named Louis and automatically upon birth heir to the throne and Dauphin of France. But was assumed by historians to be the biological son of Edmond Dantès.

In 1842, Pope Gregory XVI presented Jeanne with a Golden Rose.

Maria's reign saw a revolutionary insurrection on 16 May 1846, but this was crushed by royalist troops on 22 February 1847, and France otherwise avoided the European Revolution of 1848. Jeanne's reign was also notable for a public health act aimed at curbing the spread of cholera throughout the country. She also pursued policies aimed at raising the levels of education throughout the country.

Death and Legacy
At 25 years of age and in her fifth gestation, the sovereign became obese and her births became even more complicated. In 1847, the fetal distress that preceded the birth of her third child Philippe, Duke of Guise – brought to the world a child "quite purple and with little breathing".

Her dangerous routine of successive pregnancies, coupled with obesity (which eventually caused her heart problems) and the frequency of dystocic births (worrisome, especially as a multiparous woman) led doctors to warn the queen about the serious risks she would face in future pregnancies. Indifferent to the warnings, Jeanne VI merely replied: "If I die, I die at my post."

On 15 November 1853, thirteen hours after the onset of labor of the stillborn infant Louis, her fourth child, Jeanne VI died at the age of 34. Queen Jeanne VI is remembered as a good mother and a kind person who always acted according to her convictions in her attempt to help her country. She was later given the nickname "The Good Mother".

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