While posting about French Queens and the fleur de lys I came across this lovely story about the relationship between Maria LeszczyÅ„ska, and her daughter in law, the Dauphine Maria Josepha of Saxony. Maria L was very close to the first wife of the Dauphin, Marie Therèse Raphaëlle, and was distraught when she died.  This did not bode well for potential MIL-DIL relationships during the Dauphin’s second marriage To Maria Josepha (after all, who wants to be compared to the beautiful, sweet, pious, beloved first wife all the time!), and circumstances conspired to make Maria Josepha’s position even less promising. First, the marriage had been strongly supported by Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour, and the catty Versaille courtiers took every opportunity to remind Maria L how humiliating it was that her eldest son’s marriage was arranged by her husband’s powerful mistress. To make matters worse, Maria Josepha was the granddaughter of Augustus II of Saxony, who had dethroned Maria L’s father, StanisÅ‚aw LeszczyÅ„ski, from the throne of Poland, causing Maria L a very stressful, …