She was orphaned as a child, but was looked after by her relatives and her family friends, including Prince Alexandru II Ghica and philanthropist Zoe Brâncoveanu.

At odds with Metropolitan Neofit II, Gheorghe appealed to the Ecumenical Patriarch, and obtained approval after replacing Germanus IV with Meletius III.

His political career in Wallachia was resumed after the Crimean War, but his prospects of becoming Prince were ended during the electoral battles of 1859; his rival, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, was in a position to unite the two countries.

Also a literary patron, she was the aunt of two other female writers, Elena Văcărescu and Dora d'Istria, as well as the stepgrandmother of poet Anna de Noailles.

[12] Although her father had a congenital hunchback, which prompted him to live in relative seclusion,[13] Marițica became a Wallachian belle, described in contemporary sources as "jewel-like" and "blonde like a seraph".

[14] As noted by scholar Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu, her beauty standards reflected 19th-century conventions, which valued sedentary lifestyles: diarist Nicolae Golescu commented that she was "quite plump and quite gentle".

"[22] Under his brothers' regimes, Costache had become a Spatharios and Colonel of the Wallachian militia, organized under Russian supervision; he also served terms as Ban (or Caimacam) of Oltenia (1827–1828, 1830, 1838), alternating with his other half-brother, Mihalache Ghica.

[31] French diplomat Félix Colson describes him as "excessively urbane, with the mannerisms of our own dandies; [...] lacking character, petrified in his prejudice, always satisfied with himself".

[33] Nevertheless, in his memoirs he dismisses Ghica as a "non-entity", arguing that actual control over the Wallachian militia was being exercised by a corrupt Russian appointee, Alexandr Banov.

[40] Marițica attended Bibescu's coronation ceremony, where she reportedly attracted more attention than the new Prince himself; the latter was also charmed, and declared his intention to have her "give more dazzle to the Wallachian throne".

[47] The Prince made sustained efforts and "complicated maneuvers"[22] to arrange his marriage to Marițica, seeking absolution from the Wallachian Orthodox Church and permission from the royal courts of Europe.

Their counter-proposal was a direct attack on the Prince and his mistress: under this law, adulterous men lost half of their wives' dowries, and were exiled from the country together with their țiitoare ("kept women").

[50] Bibescu was shamed into withdrawing his own project, but obtained permission from Abdulmejid to dissolve the Assembly in 1844; until the legislative election of 1846, he ruled as an absolute monarch.

[46] Eventually, in August 1844, the Ecumenical Patriarchate granted Bibescu his divorce; in October, he declared his former wife clinically insane, and obtained control of her estate, which he shared with courtier Alecu Filipescu-Vulpea.

The church tribunal noted that "cold relations between husband and wife" were not a canonical reason for separation—however, Neofit privately confessed that he would have rejected any of Marițica's applications, to get back at the Prince for his dissolving the Assembly.

This left the Prince with only an "extreme measure": he bribed the Ottoman Divan and obtained Germanus' replacement with Meletius III, who signed off on the Ghica divorce.

[56][57] Marițica sailed down the Danube from Mehadia, where she had followed a beautifying treatment;[15] she was welcomed with gun salutes in all Wallachian river ports,[58] and received at Brăila by a delegation of boyars, including Filipescu-Vulpea—who was by then also her in-law.

[59] The religious service was provided by Chesarie Căpățână, the Bishop of Buzău, and performed at Nașterea Sfântului Ioan Botezătorul, a monastery church.

[41][60] The ceremony was followed by a gala ball, with music provided by the Austrian conductor Ludwig Wiest and decorations designed by Moldavian architect Gheorghe Asachi; 50,000 locals were reportedly present.

[62] According to historian Pavel Strihan, the French consul Adolphe Billecocq was "the most unusual victim" of the divorce scandal, recalled by his government for having suggested that Prince Gheorghe was acting reasonably.

[63] On the conservative side, Lăcusteanu claims that the overall failures of the Bibescu regime were largely attributable to his young wife's ambitions, which the Prince felt obliged to satisfy.

[71] Later that month, Gheorghe secretly left the country, leaving Bucharest to be fought over between the Wallachian provisional government and a conservative dissident, Ioan Odobescu.

[74] On June 29, another conservative coup in Bucharest briefly established a triumvirate comprising Neofit and two of Marițica's uncles: Teodor Văcărescu and Emanoil Băleanu.

[22] He also built the family townhouse outside Les Invalides, with contributions from architect Charles Le Cœur who commissioned decorative arts for the mansion by Auguste Renoir.

[103] Both sisters were also active philanthropists in their adoptive Romagna: Pulcheria set up an orphanage and assisted cholera patients;[101] Constanța (or Constanza) was a founder of the Italian Red Cross section in Ravenna (April 1888).

[111] One of the male children, Ferdinand (or Fernand) de Montesquiou-Fézensac, also known as "Fez", lived in the Kingdom of Romania as a bohemian socialite, owning Băneasa estate.

[123] Later in the 19th century, national poet Mihai Eminescu revisited Gheorghe and Marițica Bibescu's plight with more sympathy, producing a rhyme based on Romanian folklore:

[125] The earliest such canvass, an official portrait, was done by Carol Szathmari, probably in 1845; it combines elements of peasant clothing from Argeș County, including a necklace made from coins, with echoes of the Byzantine dress.

[125] Szathmari also created a miniature portrait on ivory, showing Marițica in an eclectic peasant costume, and following the blue-yellow-red scheme of Wallachian army flags and the modern Romanian tricolor.

[127] Of these various pieces, the Szathmari canvass was rediscovered by Nicolae Iorga and published in his Histoire des Roumains (1944), but then largely forgotten until 2012, when it was reproduced in color for the first time in its history.