A view of Dresden by Elisabeth of France, sister of Louis XVI

Born at the Palace of Versailles in 1764, Élisabeth of France, known as Madame Élisabeth, was the youngest of Louis XVI’s sisters. Orphaned at the age of three, she received an excellent education and developed a passion for the sciences. Her contemporaries described her as a skilled horsewoman, with a talent for drawing and embroidery. Whilst still a child, her governess, the Countess of Marsan, took her and her elder sister, Madame Clotilde, to the official painting salons. Subsequently, the princess showed a genuine aptitude for drawing, and the Versailles Museum holds a number of her works

From childhood, she displayed great devotion, whilst also possessing a free-spirited and unconventional nature. She showed a strong attachment to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette from a very early age, remaining by their side throughout her life and, in particular, refusing to marry. In 1789, when the crowd took the king to Paris; in 1791, during the flight to Varennes; and in 1792, during the storming of the Tuileries, it was of her own free will that Madame Elisabeth, refusing exile, shared the fate of the royal family. On 10 May 1794, ‘Elisabeth-Philippine-Marie-Hélène Capet’ was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. Her mutilated and stripped body was thrown into one of the mass graves at the Errancis cemetery. After the Revolution, the remains could not be identified, despite the testimony of a gravedigger who had located the mass grave. It is for this reason that only a medallion depicts her within the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

This view is identified as that of Dresden, as shown by the paintings by Bernardo Bellotto preserved (Dresden, Museum of Fine Arts), the birthplace of his mother, Marie Josèphe of Saxony (1731–1767), who became Dauphine of France through her marriage to the Dauphin Louis, son of Louis XV. Madame Elisabeth knew Dresden well and may have drawn this view either from memory or, more likely, with the aid of prints.

One can imagine the depth of melancholy at work in this sketch of the city. Marie Josèphe of Saxony’s fate had not been a happy one either. She died in March 1767 at the Palace of Versailles, aged 35, shortly after her husband, the Dauphin Louis, who would never reign. The Revolution, even though it had been quelled, did not spare her, as the tombs of the Dauphin and his wife, which were kept in Sens, were desecrated in 1794 and their remains thrown into a mass grave in the Hôtel-Dieu cemetery. Their bodies were recovered and returned to their vault in Sens Cathedral in 1814. Only her heart rests in the church of Saint-Denis.