From the womb: Communication with the outside world

III Intrauterine life

Whilst pregnant, Margaret of Austria sent her husband this short note in which she adopted the voice of their unborn child. On July 12, 1667, the date of the letter, the Empress had been married to Leopold I for less than a year and was already five months pregnant. Ferdinand Wenceslaus was to be their first son and would have worn the crown of the Holy Empire had he not died shortly after his birth in January 1668.

This tender message that Margaret addressed to her husband on the day she turned sixteen remains in their private correspondence and survives the sad fate of the child. The letter is written in the tone of a flirtatious game in which the son, who knows the greatest intimacy «of his shelter» (i.e., his mother’s womb), plays mediator in a possible misunderstanding (the colour of the headband that she would have worn is mentioned as being blue; a colour often associated with jealousy at the time) between the Emperor and his young wife. From the womb the child tries to dispel possible suspicions about his mother. He modestly affirms that he lacks «courtier talk» and presents himself as a good son, attentive to his father’s well-being, whom he always calls majesty.

Life inside the mother’s womb is outlined in this singular document as a place where communication with, and knowledge of, the outside world is possible. The intimacy between the mother and her son is manifested in a message that engages the father in this family life whose warmth Margaret wants to convey, but from which he could have felt excluded. [Clara Bonet Ponce]