Maria Theresa was a strict mother, and her offspring in the imperial nursery were certainly not spoiled. Isabella of Parma credited her mother-in-law with loving her children, but (…) ‘her love is never free of mistrust and a noticeable coolness (…) As far as her children are concerned, the Empress does indeed love them, but she proceeds from a false precept, which consists in a strictness of all too great severity’.