Madame Tallien

Thérésa Tallien (1773 – 1835) was a figure of the French Revolution.

Born Thérésa Cabarrus, the daughter of François Cabarrus, a French-born governor of the Royal Bank of Spain, and his Spanish wife, she was said to be of great beauty. In 1788, at age 15, she married the last Marquis de Fontenay and was presented at the court of Louis XV. In the 1780s she began to take an interest in liberal politics, and when her husband fled at the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 she resumed her maiden name, and obtained a divorce in 1791.

She took refuge in Bordeaux, where she was arrested and jailed as the former wife of an émigré aristocrat. She met Jean Lambert Tallien, the Commissary of the Convention, who saved her from the guillotine. She became his mistress and through her influence obtained the release of many prisoners. She accompanied him when he was recalled to Paris, only to be imprisoned on Robespierre's orders first in La Force prison, then in Carmes prison where she met Joséphine de Beauharnais. She married Tallien on December 26, 1794. Tallien joined the conspiracy to oust Robespierre and in 1795 Thérésa was released. She was a moderating influence on her husband, and from the lives she saved by her entreaties she received the nickname of "Our Lady of Thermidor" (Notre-Dame de Thermidor), after the 9th of Thermidor (July 27, 1794).

Thérésa then became one of the leaders of the Parisian social life. Her salon was famous, and she was one of the originators of the neo-Greek feminine styles of the French Directory period. She was a very colorful figure and was for instance reputed to bathe in the juice of strawberries for its healing properties. One day, she showed up at the Tuileries Palace, the then chief residence of Napoleon, supported by a colored page, with six sapphire rings in the feet, eight in the hands, two gold bracelets in the ankles, eighteen in the arms, a band in the forehead full of rubies. One day she appeared at the Paris Opera, wearing a white silk dress without sleeves and not wearing any underwear. This made Talleyrand say: "il n'est pas possible de s'exposer plus somptueusement" ("It is not possible to exhibit oneself more sumptuously").

Tallien's power waned and Thérésa and Jean Lambert Tallien divorced in 1802. After a brief flirtation with Napoleon she moved first to the powerful Barras, then to the millionaire-speculator Ouvrard and finally, attempting to gain respectability she married François-Joseph-Philippe de Riquet, Comte de Caraman in 1805, who had become the 16th Prince of Chimay after the death of his childless uncle in 1804. She spent the rest of her life first in Paris, then on their estates of Chimay (in today's Belgium), which became part of Holland after the Battle of Waterloo (1815).

The couple invited musicians in Paris, and later in Chimay, where she held a little court in Chimay, including Auber, Kreutzer, Cherubini, Bériot and Malibran. Cherubini composed his "Mass in fa" at their castle in Chimay.

François-Joseph de Riquet and Thérésa were interred under the sacristy of the church of Chimay. There is also a memorial to her in the church.

Thérésa bore ten children during her various liaisons, including:

• Joseph de Riquet (1808-1865), first son of François-Joseph-Philippe, who was Prince of Chimay from 1843 to 1865.