December 8, 1756: Birth of Archduke Maximilian Franz of Austria, Elector of Cologne

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Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Archduchess of Austria, Archduke Maximilian Franz of Austria, Elector of Cologne, Emperor Franz I, Empress Maria Theresa, French Revolution, King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Ludwig van Beethoven, Queen of Bohemia Hungary and Croatia, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Archduke Maximilian Franz of Austria (December 8, 1756 – July 26, 1801) was Elector of Cologne and Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. He was the youngest child of Holy Roman Emperor Franz I and his wife Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, who was the Queen of Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Archduchess of Austria in her own right.

Archduke Maximilian Franz was a brother to Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Queen of France and Navarre as the wife of King Louis XVI or France and Navarre.

Archduke Maximilian Franz was the last fully functioning Elector of Cologne and the second employer and patron of the young Ludwig van Beethoven.

Maximilian Franz was born December 8, 1756, on his father’s 48th birthday, in the Hofburg Palace, Vienna. In 1780, he succeeded his uncle Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine as Hochmeister (Grand Master) of the Deutscher Orden (Teutonic Knights).

In 1784, he became Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, living in the Electoral residence at Bonn. He remained in that office until his death in exile. In his capacity as chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire for Italy and as the Pope’s deputy he crowned as Emperor in Frankfurt first his brother Leopold II in 1790, and in 1792 his nephew Franz II.

At the same time as he became Elector of Cologne, Maximilian Franz was elected to the related Bishopric of Münster and held court in Bonn, as the Archbishop-Electors of Cologne had been forced to do since the late Middle Ages.

A keen patron of music, Maximilian Franz maintained a court musical establishment in which Beethoven’s father was a tenor, thus playing an important role in the son’s early career as a member of the same musical body of which his grandfather, also named Ludwig van Beethoven, had been Kapellmeister.

The court organist, Christian Gottlob Neefe, was Beethoven’s early mentor and teacher. Recognising his young pupil’s gift both as a performer and as a composer, Neefe brought Beethoven to the court, advising Maximilian Franz to appoint him as assistant organist.

Maximilian Franz, too, recognised the extraordinary abilities of the young Beethoven. In 1787, he gave Beethoven leave to visit Vienna to become a pupil of Mozart, but the visit was cut short by news of the last illness of Beethoven’s mother, and evidence is lacking for any contact with Mozart.

In 1792, the Redoute was opened, making Godesberg a spa town. Beethoven played in the orchestra. After a concert given there in the presence of Joseph Haydn, another visit for studies in Vienna was planned. Beethoven went on full salary to Vienna to study with Haydn, Antonio Salieri and others. The Elector Maximilian Franz maintained an interest in the young Beethoven’s progress, and several reports from Haydn to Maximilian Franz detailing it are extant.

The prince anticipated that Beethoven would return to Bonn and continue working for him, but due to the subsequent political and military situation his subject never returned, choosing to pursue a career in Vienna.

Maximilian Franz’s rule over most of the Electorate ended in 1794, when his domains were overrun by the troops of Revolutionary France. During the French Revolutionary Wars, Cologne and Bonn were both occupied by the French army in the second half of 1794.

As the French approached, Maximilian Franz left Bonn, as it turned out never to return, and his territories on the left bank of the Rhine eventually passed to France under the terms of the Treaty of Lunéville (1801). The Archbishop’s court ceased to exist.

Archduke Maximilian Franz of Austria (left) with his sister, Queen Marie Antoinette of France and Navarre and her husband King Louis XVI of France and Navarre

Although Maximilian Franz still retained his territories on the right bank of the Rhine, including Münster and the Duchy of Westphalia, the Elector, grossly corpulent and plagued by ill health, took up residence in Vienna after the loss of his capital and remained there until his death at the age of 44, at Hetzendorf Palace in 1801. The dismantling of the court made Beethoven’s relocation to Vienna permanent, and his stipend was terminated.

Beethoven planned to dedicate his First Symphony to his former patron, but the latter died before it was completed.

The Electorate of Cologne was secularised in the course of the German mediatisation of 1802–1803.

August 23, 1754: Birth of Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre

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Abolition of the Monarchy, Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Duke of Berry, French Revolution, Guillotine, King of the French, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, National Assembly

Louis-Augusté de Bourbon of France, (August 23, 1754 – January 21, 1793) who was given the title Duc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles. One of seven children, he was the second surviving son of Louis, the Dauphin of France, and the grandson of King Louis XV of France and Navarre and of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska.

His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of August III, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria the eldest child of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Princess Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

Louis-Augusté was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis-Joseph, duc de Bourgogne, who was regarded as bright and handsome but who died at the age of nine in 1761.

Louis-Augusté, a strong and healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English. He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence, and Charles-Philippe, comte d’Artois. From an early age, Louis-Augusté was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child.

Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre

When his father died of tuberculosis on December 20, 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Augusté became the new Dauphin.

On May 16, 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis-Augusté married the fourteen-year-old Habsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia (better known by the French form of her name, Marie Antoinette), his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Franz I and his wife, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia.

This marriage was met with hostility from the French public. France’s alliance with Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years’ War, in which it was defeated by the British and the Prussians, both in Europe and in North America.

By the time that Louis-Augusté and Marie-Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked the Austrian alliance, and Marie-Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner. For the young couple, the marriage was initially amiable but distant.

Louis-Augusté’s shyness and, among other factors, the young age and inexperience of the newlyweds (who were near total strangers to each other: they had met only two days before their wedding) meant that the 15-year-old bridegroom failed to consummate the union with his 14-year-old bride.

His fear of being manipulated by her for imperial purposes caused him to behave coldly towards her in public. Over time, the couple became closer, though while their marriage was reportedly consummated in July 1773, it did not actually happen until 1777.

Upon his grandfather’s death on May 10, 1774, Louis-Augusté became King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, he was nineteen years old. He had an enormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment of despotic monarchy was on the rise. He himself felt woefully unqualified to resolve the situation.

The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille (land tax) and the corvée (labour tax), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters.

The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices.

In periods of bad harvests, it led to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime.

Queen Marie Antoinette of France and Navarre

This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. Discontent among the members of France’s middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis XVI and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette were viewed as representatives. Increasing tensions and violence were marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille, during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly.

Louis’s indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularity deteriorated progressively. On September 4, 1791, Louis XVI received the title of King of the French.

His unsuccessful flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign intervention.

The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax) and several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France.

In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of the Insurrection of August 10, 1792. One month later, the monarchy was abolished and the First French Republic was proclaimed on September 21, 1792.

Louis was then tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason and executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793, as a desacralized French citizen under the name of Citizen Louis Capét, in reference to Hugh Capét, the founder of the Capetian dynasty – which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis’s surname.

Louis XVI was the only king of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Thérèse, was given over to the Austrians in exchange for French prisoners of war. In 1799 she married her cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, the eldest son of Charles, Comte d’Artois, future King Charles X of France and Navarre. She eventually died childless in 1851.

Queen Marie Antoinette of France & the French Revolution

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Affair of the Diamond Necklace, Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Empress Maria Theresa, French Revolution, King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, The Bastille

Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne of Austria (née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; November 2, 1755 – October 16, 1793) was the last Queen of France and Navarre before the French Revolution.

Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria was a member of the House of Habsburg and the youngest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Franz I and his wife, the Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

Maria Antonia spent her formative years between the Hofburg Palace and Schönbrunn, the imperial summer residence in Vienna, where on October 13, 1762, when she was seven, she met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, two months her junior and a child prodigy.

Despite the private tutoring she received, the results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At the age of 10 she could not write correctly in German or in any language commonly used at court, such as French or Italian, and conversations with her were stilted.

Maria Antonia was raised together with her sister, Archduchess Maria Carolina, who was three years older, and with whom she had a lifelong close relationship. Maria Carolina of Austria (1752 – 1814) was Queen of Naples and Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies.

Maria Carolina of Austria, sister of Marie Antoinette

Maria Antonia had a difficult but ultimately loving relationship with her mother, who referred to her as “the little Madame Antoine”.

Maria Antonia formally renounced her rights to Habsburg domains, and on April 19 she was married by proxy to the Dauphin of France, Louis Augusté at the Augustinian Church in Vienna, with her brother Archduke Ferdinand standing in for the Dauphin.

On May 14, she met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compiègne. Upon her arrival in France, she adopted the French version of her name: Marie Antoinette. A further ceremonial wedding took place on May 16, 1770 in the Palace of Versailles and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ritual bedding. The couple’s longtime failure to consummate the marriage plagued the reputations of both Louis-Augusté and Marie Antoinette for the next seven years.

The marriage was met with hostility from the French public. France’s alliance with Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years’ War, in which it was defeated by the British and the Prussians, both in Europe and in North America. By the time that Louis-Augusté and Marie-Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked the Austrian alliance, and Marie-Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner.

When Louis Augusté’s father died in 1765, he became the new Dauphin. Upon his grandfather’s death on May 10, 1774, he assumed the title King of France and Navarre and she became Queen Consort of France and Navarre.

Marie Antoinette’s position at court improved when, after eight years of marriage, she started having children. She became increasingly unpopular among the people, however, with the French libelles accusing her of being profligate, promiscuous, harboring sympathies for France’s perceived enemies—particularly her native Austria—and her children of being illegitimate.

The false accusations of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace damaged her reputation further. During the Revolution, she became known as Madame Déficit because the country’s financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending and her opposition to the social and financial reforms of Turgot and Necker.

Several events were linked to Marie Antoinette during the Revolution after the government had placed the royal family under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace in October 1789.

The June 1791 attempted flight to Varennes and her role in the War of the First Coalition had disastrous effects on French popular opinion. On August 10, 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the royal family to take refuge at the Assembly, and they were imprisoned in the Temple Prison on August 13.

On September 21, 1792, the monarchy was abolished. Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793.

Marie Antoinette’s trial began on October 14, 1793; she was convicted two days later by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed, also by guillotine, at the Place de la Révolution.

May 5, 1747: Birth of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

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Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Empress Maria Theresa, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, King Carlos III of Spain, Louis XVI of France and Navarre

Leopold II (Peter Leopold Josef Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard; May 5, 1747 – March 1, 1792) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria from 1790 to 1792, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790.

He was a son of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduchess of Austria in her own right and her husband, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I.

Leopold was also and the brother of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre as the wife of King Louis XVI of France and Navarre; Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies; Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma by her marriage to Ferdinand, Duke of Parma; and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany (left) with his brother Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened absolutism. He granted the Academy of Georgofili his protection. Despite his brief reign, he is highly regarded. The historian Paul W. Schroeder called him “one of the most shrewd and sensible monarchs ever to wear a crown”.

Unusually for his time, he opposed capital punishment and abolished it in Tuscany in 1786 during his rule there, making it the first nation in modern history to do so.

As his parents’ third son, he was initially selected for a clerical career, he received education with focus on theology.

In 1753, he was engaged to Maria Beatrice d’Este, heiress to the Duchy of Modena and the eldest child of two monarchs, Ercole III d’Este, Duke of Modena and Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, reigning duchess of Massa and princess of Carrara.

As heiress to four states (Modena, Reggio, Massa and Carrara), she was a very attractive wedding partner. Empress Maria Theresa sought to arrange a marriage between Maria Beatrice and Archduke Leopold, but this never materialised. Instead she married Leopold’s brother, Archduke Ferdinand Charles bof Austria, in a union through which the Austrians aimed to expand their influence in Italy.

Upon the early death of his older brother Archduke Charles in 1761, the family decided that Leopold was going to succeed his father as Duke of Tuscany. Tuscany had been envisioned and designated as a Secundogeniture, a territory and title bestowed upon the second born son, which was greater than an Appanage.

Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain

On August 5, 1765 Leopold married the Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, daughter of Carlos III of Spain and Maria Amalia of Saxony. Upon the death of his father, Franz on August 18, 1765, he became Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Leopold, during his government in Tuscany, had shown a speculative tendency to grant his subjects a constitution. When he succeeded to the Austrian lands he began by making large concessions to the interests offended by his brother’s innovations.

He recognized the Estates of his different dominions as “the pillars of the monarchy”, pacified the Hungarians and Bohemians, and divided the insurgents in the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium) by means of concessions. When these failed to restore order, he marched troops into the country and re-established his own authority, and at the same time the historic franchises of the Flemings.

Young Leopold as the Grand Duke of Tuscany

Yet he did not surrender any part that could be retained of what Maria Theresa and Joseph had done to strengthen the hands of the state. He continued, for instance, to insist that no papal bull could be published in his dominions without his consent (placetum regium).

One of the harshest actions Leopold took to placate the noble communities of the various Habsburg domains was to issue a decree on May 9, 1790 that forced thousands of Bohemian serfs freed by his brother Joseph back into servitude.

Leopold lived for barely two years after his accession as Holy Roman Emperor, and during that period he was hard pressed by peril from west and east alike. The growing revolutionary disorders in France endangered the life of his sister Marie Antoinette, the queen of Louis XVI, and also threatened his own dominions with the spread of subversive agitation. His sister sent him passionate appeals for help, and he was pestered by the royalist émigrés, who were intriguing to bring about armed intervention in France.

From the east he was threatened by the aggressive ambition of Empress Catherine II of Russia and by the unscrupulous policy of Prussia. Catherine would have been delighted to see Austria and Prussia embark on a crusade in the cause of kings against the French Revolution.

While they were busy beyond the Rhine, she would have annexed what remained of Poland and made conquests against the Ottoman Empire. Leopold II had no difficulty in seeing through the rather transparent cunning of the Russian empress, and he refused to be misled.

To his sister, he gave good advice and promises of help if she and her husband could escape from Paris. The émigrés who followed him pertinaciously were refused audience, or when they forced themselves on him, were peremptorily denied all help.

Leopold was too purely a politician not to be secretly pleased at the destruction of the power of France and of her influence in Europe by her internal disorders. Within six weeks of his accession, he displayed his contempt for France’s weakness by practically tearing up the treaty of alliance made by Maria Theresa in 1756 and opening negotiations with Great Britain to impose a check on Russia and Prussia.

Leopold put pressure on Great Britain by threatening to cede his part of the Low Countries to France. Then, when sure of British support, he was in a position to baffle the intrigues of Prussia. A personal appeal to King Friedrich Wilhelm II led to a conference between them at Reichenbach in July 1790, and to an arrangement which was in fact a defeat for Prussia: Leopold’s coronation as king of Hungary on November 11, 1790, preceded by a settlement with the Diet in which he recognized the dominant position of the Magyars.

Leopold II. Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria, and Grand Duke of Tuscany

He had already made an eight months’ truce with the Turks in September, which prepared the way for the termination of the war begun by Joseph II. The pacification of his eastern dominions left Leopold free to re-establish order in Belgium and to confirm friendly relations with Britain and the Netherlands.

During 1791, the emperor remained increasingly preoccupied with the affairs of France. In January, he had to dismiss the Count of Artois (afterwards Charles X of France) in a very peremptory way. His good sense was revolted by the folly of the French émigrés, and he did his utmost to avoid being entangled in the affairs of that country.

The insults inflicted on Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, however, at the time of their attempted flight to Varennes in June, stirred his indignation, and he made a general appeal in the Padua Circular to the sovereigns of Europe to take common measures in view of events which “immediately compromised the honour of all sovereigns, and the security of all governments.” Yet he was most directly interested in negotiations with Turkey, which in June led to a final peace, the Treaty of Sistova being signed in August 1791.

On August 25, 1791, he met King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia at Pillnitz Castle, near Dresden, and they drew up the Declaration of Pillnitz, stating their readiness to intervene in France if and when their assistance was called for by the other powers.

The declaration was a mere formality, for, as Leopold knew, neither Russia nor Britain was prepared to act, and he endeavored to guard against the use which he foresaw the émigrés would try to make of it. In face of the reaction in France to the Declaration of Pillnitz, the intrigues of the émigrés, and attacks made by the French revolutionists on the rights of the German princes in Alsace, Leopold continued to hope that intervention might not be required.

When Louis XVI swore to observe the constitution of September 1791, the emperor professed to think that a settlement had been reached in France. The attacks on the rights of the German princes on the left bank of the Rhine, and the increasing violence of the parties in Paris which were agitating to bring about war, soon showed, however, that this hope was vain.

Leopold meant to meet the challenge of the revolutionists in France with dignity and temper, however the effect of the Declaration of Pillnitz was to contribute to the radicalization of their political movement.

Mozart’s opera La clemenza di Tito was commissioned by the Estates of Bohemia for the festivities that accompanied Leopold’s coronation as king of Bohemia in Prague on September 6, 1791.

Leopold died suddenly in Vienna, in March 1792.

His mother Empress Maria Theresa was the last Habsburg. His brother Joseph II died without any surviving children, but Leopold in turn had also 16 children, just like his mother, and became the founder of the main line of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

The eldest of Leopold II’s eight sons being his successor, Emperor Franz II, the last Holy Roman Emperor and first Emperor of Austria. Some of his other sons were prominent personages in their day. Among them were: Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany; Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen, a celebrated soldier; Archduke Johann of Austria, also a soldier; Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary; and Archduke Rainer, Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia.

The Life of Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans, Duchess of Lorraine

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Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, Carl Ludwig of the Palatine, Duchess of Lorraine, Duke of Orleans, Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatine, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, House of Habsburg-Lorraine, King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Regent. Philippe I

Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans (September 13, 1676 – December 23, 1744) was a petite-fille de France, and duchess of Lorraine and Bar by marriage to Leopold, Duke of Lorraine. She was regent of Lorraine and Bar during the minority (1729–1730) and absence of her son (1730–1737), and suo jure Princess of Commercy 1737–1744.

Among her children was Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor, a co-founder (and patrilineal agnatic ancestor) of the royal House of Habsburg-Lorraine. She was the Grandmother of Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, wife of King Louis XVI of France and Navarre.

Philippe I, Duke of Orléans

Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans was born at the Château de Saint-Cloud outside Paris. She was the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, Monsieur, and of his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatine, the daughter of Carl I Ludwig, Elector Palatine and his wife Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel *

Her father Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, was the only sibling of King Louis XIV of France and Navarre. As a petite-fille de France, she was entitled to have the style of Her Royal Highness, as well as the right to an armchair in the presence of the King.

At birth, she was given the style Mademoiselle de Chartres, taken from the name of one of her father’s appanages. After the marriage of her two older half-sisters, Marie Louise and Anne Marie, born of the first marriage of their father to Henrietta Anne of England, she was known as Madame Royale, according to her status as the highest-ranking unmarried princess in France.

Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d’Orléans with her two surviving children, including her daughter Élisabeth Charlotte

As a child, Élisabeth-Charlotte was described by her mother as ‘so terribly wild’ and ‘rough as a boy’. To her father’s displeasure, she shared the frank opinions of her mother.

Marriage

Her mother wanted her to marry with the same level of prestige as that of her sisters. When her cousin’s wife, the Dauphine, (Maria Anna Christine Victoria of Bavaria 1660 – 1690 was Dauphine of France by marriage to Louis, Grand Dauphin, son and heir of Louis XIV) suggested she should marry the Dauphine’s younger brother Joseph Clemens of Bavaria, Élisabeth Charlotte said, “I am not made, madame, for a younger son.”

As her mother despised the king’s illegitimate children, the chances of such an alliance were remote; however, in 1692, to the ‘horror’ of the Duchess of Orléans, such a mismatch occurred when her eldest son, the Duke of Chartres (future Philippe II, Duke of Orléans) married Françoise Marie de Bourbon, the youngest legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.

Élisabeth’s mother initially wanted her daughter to marry King William III of England, who was the widower of Queen Mary II of England, but, due to William being a Protestant, the marriage did not materialise.

Other candidates considered were Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I; Joseph was highly regarded, and, had the marriage taken place, the union would have been a way of reconciling the Bourbons and their traditional rivals, the Habsburgs.

Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans, Duchess of Lorraine

Even her widowed first cousin Monseigneur, Louis, the Grand Dauphin, was considered, as were his son, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, and another cousin, the legitimised Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine, eldest son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. The latter, much to the relief of Madame did not occur as the Duke of Maine married Mademoiselle de Charolais (Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon-Condé) in May 1692.

Élisabeth Charlotte was finally married on October 13, 1698 at the Palace of Fontainebleau to Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, son of Charles V, Duke of Lorraine, and of the Archduchess Eleonora Maria Josefa of Austria the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III and his wife, Eleanora of Mantua.

Leopold, Duke of Lorraine is the direct male ancestor of all rulers of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, including all Emperors of Austria.

The marriage was the result of the Treaty of Ryswick, one of its conditions being that the Duchy of Lorraine, which had been for many years in the possession of France, be restored to Leopold Joseph, a son of Charles V, Duke of Lorraine.

Thus, Élisabeth Charlotte was but an instrument to cement the peace treaty. Her mother later said that her daughter “was a victim of war”.

Duchess of Lorraine
The marriage was seen as a brilliant match by the House of Lorraine but was regarded by some as unworthy of a petite-fille de France. Despite this, the bride carried to the House of Lorraine a dowry of 900,000 livres.

Leopold, Duke of Lorraine

The jealousy of some members of the royal family prompted certain princesses to use as pretext the death of Louis Constantin de Bourbon, prince de Dombes (17 November 1695 – 28 September 1698), son of Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine, to attend the marriage ceremonies by proxy or in mourning clothes.

To everyone’s surprise, what had been expected to be an unhappy union turned out to be a marriage of love and happiness at first. Élisabeth Charlotte turned out to be a caring mother and gave birth to fifteen children, of whom five survived into adulthood. Three of them died within a week in May 1711 due to a smallpox outbreak at the Château de Lunéville, the country seat of the dukes of Lorraine.

In 1708, after ten years of marriage her husband turned his attentions to another, Anne-Marguerite de Ligniville, princesse de Beauveau-Craon. Embarrassed, Élisabeth Charlotte, on her mother’s advice, remained silent and continued to live in the Château de Lunéville with her husband and his mistress.

During this time, Élisabeth Charlotte was herself ill, suffering from serious coughing, fainting, and fever. Lunéville remained the favourite of Duke Leopold Joseph until his death in 1729. Yet the couple had five more children, one of whom, François of Lorraine, would become Holy Roman Emperor, Franz I, and the father of Queen Marie Antoinette.

Élisabeth Charlotte was religiously intolerant and supported the persecution of non-Catholics. She persuaded her husband to issue many oppressive laws against Protestants and Jews. During this time over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in persecutions.

In June 1701, her father died after having a heated argument with Louis XIV at Versailles about the Duke of Chartres. Her brother thus became the new Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and head of the House of of the House of Orléans.

Her mother was left at the mercy of Louis XIV, who forbade her from visiting foreign soil. As a result, Élisabeth Charlotte was only able to see her mother when she went to Versailles. Despite this, Élisabeth Charlotte and her mother kept in contact through letters. Their correspondence was destroyed in a fire at the Château de Lunéville in 1719.

Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor, son of Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans and father of Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, wife of King Louis XVI of France and Navarre.

On the death of Louis XIV in 1715, her brother became the Regent of France for the five-year-old King Louis XV. In 1718, during a brief visit to the French court in Paris, her niece, the Dowager Duchess of Berry, gave a lavish reception in her honour at the Palais du Luxembourg.

Upon leaving France, her husband, Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, was accorded the style of His Royal Highness, usually reserved for members of foreign dynasties headed by a king.

Louis XV’s coronation at Reims Cathedral on 25 October 25, 1722 was the only occasion on which Élisabeth Charlotte’s youngest child, Anne Charlotte, would see her grandmother, who died a few weeks later on December 8; Élisabeth Charlotte’s brother died the following December, still ruling France as regent.

Regent of Lorraine

Her husband died in 1729, leaving his wife Regent of Lorraine for their son, Duke François Stephen. He interrupted his education in Vienna to return home in 1730 for the investiture of his mother as regent, then returned to Austria.

Élisabeth Charlotte tried to engage her daughter Anne Charlotte to King Louis XV; this project failed due to the intrigues of Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon; Élisabeth Charlotte then tried to arrange the marriage of Anne Charlotte to her nephew Louis, Duke of Orléans, who had been recently widowed, but the devout duke chose not to remarry.

Princess of Commercy

Unable to prevent her son from giving up the duchy of Lorraine to Stanisław Leszczyński when he married the Habsburg heiress, Maria Theresa of Austria, Élisabeth Charlotte moved into the Château d’Haroué in nearby Commercy, which was erected into a sovereign principality for her to reign over during her dowager years.

In 1737, her daughter, Élisabeth Thérèse d’Orléans married Carlo Emmanuel III of Sardinia. Elisabetta Teresa, as she was known in Italy, died in childbirth in 1741 after giving birth to Élisabeth Charlotte’s grandson, Benedetto, Duke of Chablais.

On January 7, 1744 her youngest son, Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, made a “marriage of love” with Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, who died in childbirth on December 16, 1744.

Élisabeth Charlotte died of a stroke at the age of sixty-eight on December 23, 1744, one week after her daughter-in-law and grandchild. She was the last of her siblings to die and had outlived most of her children. Nine months after her death, her son François Stephen became Holy Roman Emperor Franz I.

She was buried in the funerary chapel of the Dukes of Lorraine in the Saint-François-des-Cordeliers church in Nancy.

* Carl I Ludwig, Elector Palatine, grandfather of Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans (and the subject of this blog post) was the elder brother of Sophia of the Palatine, Electress of Hanover the mother of King George I of Great Britain. Carl I Ludwig’s mother was Princess Elizabeth (Stuart) of England the daughter of King James I-VI of England Scotland and England. This also means that Princess Elizabeth (Stuart) of England was the aunt of Henrietta Anne of England the first wife of Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans father, Philippe I Duke of Orléans!

December 19, 1778: Birth of Marie-Thérèse de Bourbon, Duchess of Angoulême. Part I.

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Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Dauphin of France m French Revolution, Duchess of Angoulême, Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Louis-Joseph, Marie-Thérèse de Bourbon, Palace of Versailles

Marie-Thérèse de Bourbon, Duchess of Angoulême (Marie-Thérèse Charlotte; December 19, 1778 – October 19, 1851), was the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and the only one to reach adulthood (her siblings all dying before the age of 11). She was married to Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, who was the eldest son of the future Charles X, her father’s younger brother; thus the bride and groom were also first cousins.

Marie-Thérèse was born at the Palace of Versailles on December 19, 1778, the first child (after eight years of her parents’ marriage), and eldest daughter of King Louis XVI of France and Navarre and Queen Marie Antoinette. As the daughter of the king of France, she was a fille de France, and as the eldest daughter of the king, she was styled Madame Royale at birth.

Marie Antoinette almost died of suffocation during this birth due to a crowded and unventilated room, but the windows were finally opened to let fresh air in the room in an attempt to revive her. As a result of the horrible experience, Louis XVI banned public viewing, allowing only close family members and a handful of trusted courtiers to witness the birth of the next royal children. When she was revived, the queen greeted her daughter (whom she later nicknamed Mousseline) with delight.

Marie-Thérèse was baptized on the day of her birth. She was named after her maternal grandmother, the reigning Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Her second name, Charlotte, was for her mother’s favourite sister, Maria Carolina of Austria, queen consort of Naples and Sicily, who was known as Charlotte in the family.

Louis XVI was an affectionate father, who delighted in spoiling his daughter, while her mother was stricter.

Marie Antoinette was determined that her daughter should not grow up to be as haughty as her husband’s unmarried aunts. She often invited children of lower rank to come and dine with Marie-Thérèse and, according to some accounts, encouraged the child to give her toys to the poor. In contrast to her image as a materialistic queen who ignored the plight of the poor, Marie Antoinette attempted to teach her daughter about the sufferings of others. One account, written by a partisan source some years after her death, says that on New Year’s Day in 1784, after having some beautiful toys brought to Marie-Thérèse’s apartment, Marie Antoinette told her:

“I should have liked to have given you all these as New Year’s gifts, but the winter is very hard, there is a crowd of unhappy people who have no bread to eat, no clothes to wear, no wood to make a fire. I have given them all my money; I have none left to buy you presents, so there will be none this year.”

Marie-Thérèse was joined by two brothers and a sister, Louis Joseph Xavier François, Dauphin of France, in 1781, Louis-Charles de France, Duke of Normandy, in 1785, and Sophie Hélène Béatrix, Madame Sophie, in 1786. Out of all her siblings, she was closest to Louis Joseph, and after his death, Louis Charles. As a young girl, Marie-Thérèse was noted to be quite attractive, with beautiful blue eyes, inheriting the good looks of her mother and maternal grandmother. She was the only one of her parents’ four children to survive past age.

As Marie-Thérèse matured, the march toward the French Revolution was gaining momentum. Social discontent mixed with a crippling budget deficit provoked an outburst of anti-absolutist sentiment. By 1789, France was hurtling toward revolution as the result of bankruptcy brought on by the country’s support of the American Revolution and high food prices due to drought, all of which was exacerbated by propagandists whose central object of scorn and ridicule was the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette.

As the attacks upon the queen grew ever more vicious, the popularity of the monarchy plummeted. Inside the Court at Versailles, jealousies and xenophobia were the principal causes of resentment and anger toward Marie Antoinette. Her unpopularity with certain powerful members of the Court, including Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, led to the printing and distribution of scurrilous pamphlets which accused her of a range of sexual depravities as well as of spending the country into financial ruin.

While it is now generally agreed that the queen’s actions did little to provoke such animosity, the damage these pamphlets inflicted upon the monarchy proved to be a catalyst for the upheaval to come.

The worsening political situation, however, had little effect on Marie-Thérèse, as more immediate tragedies struck when her younger sister, Sophie, died in 1787, followed two years later by the Dauphin, Louis-Joseph, who died of tuberculosis, on June 4, 1789, one day after the opening of the Estates-General.

October 6, 1738: Birth of Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria

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Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Maria Theresa of Austria, Princess-Abbess of the Theresian, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduchess of Austria

Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria (Maria Anna Josepha Antonia; October 6, 1738 – November 19, 1789) was the second child of Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia Archduchess of Austria. As a child, and for a time the eldest surviving child, she was heiress presumptive, but she suffered from ill health and physical disability, and did not marry. In 1766 she became abbess of the Frauenstift in Prague. Soon thereafter she moved to Klagenfurt and remained there for the rest of her life. Her palace in Klagenfurt, the Mariannengasse, now houses the Episcopal Palace.

Biography

Early life

Archduchess Maria Anna was born on October 6, 1738 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, the center of the vastly powerful Habsburg Monarchy. As the second but eldest surviving daughter of Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia Archduchess of Austria, and Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor, she was heiress presumptive of the hereditary lands of the Austrian Habsburgs between 1740 and 1741, until her younger brother Joseph (later to be the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II) was born.

Her mother gave her the customary education of the princely courts at that time. Maria Anna’s musical talents were highly encouraged, but not her humanities talents. Maria Anna was the child least respected and loved by Maria Theresa—her younger brother Joseph and sisters Maria Elisabeth and Maria Christina always received the attention and care of the Empress: Joseph because he was the male heir, Liesl because she was considered the most beautiful of the daughters, and Mimi because she was the undisputed favorite child of her mother.

Reign of Maria Theresa

Maria Anna was highly intelligent but physically disabled. She suffered from bad health, worsened by the drafty and cold rooms of the Hofburg Palace. In 1757 she contracted pneumonia and almost died, the last rites being called for her. Although she survived, her breathing capacity was permanently damaged, and she also developed a fusion of her spine which caused her to have a lump on her back.

After that time, she began to have a close relationship with her father, and reportedly became Franz I’s favourite child. She shared his interest in science and conducted experiments in chemistry and physics. Despite being disabled, Maria Anna often played important roles in major events of state, including acting as sponsor at the christening of her youngest sister Marie Antoinette.

In July 1765 the whole Imperial family traveled to Innsbruck for the wedding of the second-oldest son, Leopold. They halted in Klagenfurt, where Maria Anna visited the small monastery that belonged to the Order of Saint Elisabeth, established there in 1710.

The encounter with the sisters was to be a turning point in Maria Anna’s life. Thea Leitner explains that the Archduchess became enthusiastic for the monastic life because the nuns didn’t care about appearances and Maria Anna always lived with the fear of being ridiculed because of her hump.

The death of Emperor Franz I on August 18, 1765 was a devastating blow for Maria Anna. Because her mother was unable to find a royal husband for her, in 1766 Maria Anna was made Princess-Abbess of the Theresian Imperial and Royal Convent for Noble Ladies (Frauenstift) in Prague with the promise of 80,000 florins per year.

Despite the opposition of her mother, she decided to give up the Prague position and became an abbess in Klagenfurt with a smaller provision. A palace for her was built by Nicolò Pacassi near the monastery as her residence, the construction of which was completed in 1771.

To the abbess of the convent, she wrote:

“God has given me the grace to know the world and its vanity, and thereby given me the strength to close my life not as a nun, but in solitude and in the service of neighbors. I have thus selected Klagenfurt, specifically you and your pious sisters, hoping that—my imperfect value spurred on by your good examples—my salvation is certainly assured to me.“

During the time prior to her final move to Klagenfurt, Maria Anna completed her father’s coin collection (which later became part of the Vienna Museum of Natural History) with the help of her mentor Ignaz von Born, and established her own mineral and insect collection. She financed social projects, archaeological exhumations, artists and scientists.

Maria Anna also wrote a book about her mother’s politics. Her watercolors and drawings were praised in the professional world. Maria Anna was made an honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1767 and elected member of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1769.

Despite her talents and intelligence, Maria Anna was disliked by high society because her scientific interests were considered unsuitable for her gender, but she was appreciated by the scientific and art world.

Reign of Joseph II

Empress Maria Theresa died on November 29, 1780, and four months later, Maria Anna moved permanently to Klagenfurt. She quickly developed a deep friendship with Xaveria Gasser, Abbess of the convent. Thanks to the generous financial support of the Archduchess the monastery hospital could soon be extended, and her own personal physician supervised the patients of the hospital. She also provided welfare assistance in the municipality of Klagenfurt.

Her friends were nuns, artists, scientists, and nobles, including the Carinthian iron industrialist Maximilian Thaddäus von Egger. Some of them belonged to the Freemasons. In 1783, the Klagenfurt Masonic Lodge was founded with a dedication “to charitable Marianna” (Zur wohltätigen Marianna) as she was called. Maria Anna devoted herself in Klagenfurt to her scientific interests. She discovered her love for archeology: she donated 30,000 florins for excavations at Zollfeld and also took part in the excavations herself.

Close to her younger sister Maria Elisabeth, the two lived together in the same convents until their deaths. While her youngest sister, Marie Antoinette, was traveling on her way to Versailles in 1770, she stayed at Klagenfurt for one night.

From the winter of 1788 Maria Anna’s health deteriorated further. Her shortness of breath became worse and she could hardly move without a wheelchair. She died on November 19, 1789 in the presence of her closest friends.

Reportedly, her last words were:

“It is indeed a good country, I’ve had always loved it. There are good people with whom I lived happily and I leave them reluctantly.“

Maria Anna left her entire inheritance (amounting to more than 150,000 guilders) to the monastery of Klagenfurt. Her brother, Emperor Joseph II, deducted the inheritance tax from the income. Her palace is now home to the Prince Bishop’s residence, in the Mariannengasse.

August 13, 1792: King Louis XVI of France and Navarre is arrested.

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Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, French Revolution, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Ki`g Frederick William II of Prussia, Legislative Assembly, Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Tuileries Palace

The monarchies of Europe looked with concern upon the developments in France as the Revolution became severe and widespread in France, and considered whether they should intervene, either in support of Louis or to take advantage of the chaos in France. The key figure was Marie-Antoinette’s brother, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II. Initially, he had looked on the Revolution with equanimity. However, he became more and more disturbed as it became more and more radical. Despite this, he still hoped to avoid war.

On August 27, 1791 Emperor Leopold II and King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, in consultation with émigrés French nobles, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe in the well-being of Louis and his family, and threatened vague but severe consequences if anything should befall them.

In the end, the Legislative Assembly, supported by Louis XVI, declared war on Austria (“the King of Bohemia and Hungary”) first, voting for war on April 20, 1792, after a long list of grievances was presented to it by the foreign minister, Charles François Dumouriez. Dumouriez prepared an immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expected the local population to rise against Austrian rule. However, the Revolution had thoroughly disorganised the army, and the forces raised were insufficient for the invasion. The soldiers fled at the first sign of battle and, in one case, on April 28, 1792, murdered their general, Irish-born comte Théobald de Dillon, whom they accused of treason.

While the revolutionary government frantically raised fresh troops and reorganised its armies, a Prussian-Austrian army under Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick assembled at Coblenz on the Rhine. In July, the invasion began, with Brunswick’s army easily taking the fortresses of Longwy and Verdun. The duke then issued on July 25 a proclamation called the Brunswick Manifesto, written by Louis’s émigré cousin, Louis Joseph, Prince de Condé, declaring the intent of the Austrians and Prussians to restore the king to his full powers and to treat any person or town who opposed them as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law.

Contrary to its intended purpose of strengthening Louis XVI’s position against the revolutionaries, the Brunswick Manifesto had the opposite effect of greatly undermining his already highly tenuous position. It was taken by many to be the final proof of collusion between the king and foreign powers in a conspiracy against his own country. The anger of the populace boiled over on August 10, when an armed mob – with the backing of a new municipal government of Paris that came to be known as the Insurrectional Paris Commune – marched upon and invaded the Tuileries Palace. The royal family took shelter with the Legislative Assembly.

Louis was officially arrested on August 13, 1792 and sent to the Temple, an ancient fortress in Paris that was used as a prison. On September 21, the National Assembly declared France to be a republic, and abolished the monarchy. Louis was stripped of all of his titles and honors, and from this date was known as Citizen Louis Capet.

The Girondins were partial to keeping the deposed king under arrest, both as a hostage and a guarantee for the future. Members of the Commune and the most radical deputies, who would soon form the group known as the Mountain, argued for Louis’s immediate execution.