December 23, 1750: Birth of Friedrich August I of Saxony

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Confederation of the Rhine, Countess Palatine Amalie of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, Elector Frederick Augustus III of Saxony, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, King Stanislas II Augustus of Poland, Kingdom of Poland, Napoleon Bonaparte, Queen of Saxony

From the Emperor’s Desk: In this post I will be just dealing with how Friedrich August became King of Saxony. I will also reference his marriage and other family connections.

Friedrich August I (December 23, 1750 – May 5, 1827) was a member of the House of Wettin who reigned as the last Elector of Saxony from 1763 to 1806 (as Friedrich August III) and as King of Saxony from 1806 to 1827. He was also Duke of Warsaw from 1807 to 1815.

Throughout his political career Friedrich August tried to rehabilitate and recreate the Polish state that was torn apart and ceased to exist after the final partition of Poland in 1795. However he did not succeed, for which he blamed himself for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, his efforts at reestablishing an independent Polish nation did endear him to the Polish people.

Family Background

Friedrich August was the second (but eldest surviving) son of Friedrich Christian, Elector of Saxony and Maria Antonia Walpurgis, Princess of Bavaria, Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria and Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria who became Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII between 1742 and 1745.

Because he was underage at the time of his father’s death in 1763, Elector Friedrich August III’s mother served as Regent until 1768. His uncle, Prince Franz Xavier, functioned as his representative. Through his father’s side, he was descended from two kings of Poland, and through his mother’s side Siemowit, the first confirmed duke of Poland.

Friedrich August I, King of Saxony

Renunciation of the Polish throne

In 1765 Prince Franz Xavier ceded the Polish throne to Stanislas II Augustus on behalf of the underage Elector. However, when a Polish Constitution was ratified by the Polish Sejm Elector Friedrich August III was named successor to Stanislas II Augustus.

At the same time, the head of the Saxon Royal House was established as heir to the Polish throne (Article VII of the Polish Constitution). Elector Friedrich August III declined to accept the crown upon Stanislas II Augustus’s death in 1798, because he feared becoming entangled in disputes with Austria, Prussia and Russia, who had begun to partition Poland in 1772.

In fact, a full partition of Poland among the neighboring powers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia had already taken place by 1795.

Foreign policy up to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

In August 1791, Elector Friedrich August III arranged a meeting with Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia at Pillnitz Castle. The move was intended partly to offer support for the French monarchy in the face of revolutionary agitation in France.

The Declaration of Pillnitz warned of the possibility of military action against the French revolutionary government, a provocation that provided the latter with grounds to declare war on Austria in April 1792. Friedrich August III himself did not sign the Declaration.

Saxony wanted nothing to do with the defensive alliance against France formed between Austria and Prussia. Nonetheless, a proclamation of the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire issued in March 1793, obliged Elector Friedrich August III to take part.

There was great concern in Saxony in April 1795 when Prussia suddenly concluded a separate peace with France in order to facilitate the partition of Poland. Saxony dropped out of the coalition against France in August 1796 after France had advanced east into the German lands and additional conditions for the Holy Roman Empire to conclude a separate peace were agreed.

Both the peace agreement with France and Saxony’s participation in the Congress of Rastatt in 1797 served to demonstrate Elector Friedrich August III’s loyalty to the conventional constitutional principles of the Holy Roman Empire. The Congress of Rastatt was supposed to authorize the surrender to France of the territories on the left bank of the Rhine in return for compensation for the rulers relinquishing territory.

However, at Rastatt and again in 1803 at the issuance of the Final Report of the Empire Delegation [the law of the Holy Roman Empire that laid out the new order of the Empire], Saxony refused to agree to territorial adjustments, since these were designed to benefit Bavaria, Prussia, Württemberg, and Baden.

Countess Palatine Amalie of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, Queen of Saxony

Foreign policy until the peace with Napoleon

Elector Friedrich August III also did not participate in the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, which led to the final dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. With respect to the Prussian idea of a north German empire, within which Saxony was supposed to be raised to a kingdom, he appeared reserved.

However, after September 1806, in response to the Berlin Ultimatum, which demanded the withdrawal of French troops from the left bank of the Rhine, Napoleon advanced as far as Thuringia. At that point, Friedrich August III joined with Prussia.

However, at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 Napoleon inflicted a crushing defeat on the Prusso–Saxon troops. The Prussian government and army then withdrew headlong to the east. Friedrich August III, left without any information concerning Prussian intentions, and with Napoleon’s troops about to occupy Saxony, was forced to conclude peace.

On December 11, 1806 in Poznań a treaty was signed by authorized representatives of both sides. According to its terms, Saxony was forced to join the Confederation of the Rhine and to surrender parts of Thuringia to the recently organized Kingdom of Westphalia.

As compensation, Saxony was given the area around Cottbus and was raised to the status of a kingdom alongside the Confederation states of Bavaria and Württemberg. Elector Friedrich August III of Saxony became King Friedrich August I of Saxony.

Marriage

In Mannheim on January 17, 1769 (by proxy) and again in Dresden on January 29, 1769 (in person), Friedrich August III married the Countess Palatine Amalie of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, sister of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. During their marriage, Amalia gave birth to four children, but only one daughter, Princess Maria Augusta of Saxony (1782 – 1863) survived to adulthood.

Countess Palatine Amalie of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld was the daughter of Count Palatine Friedrich Michael of Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld-Bischweiler and his wife, Countess Palatine Maria Francisca of Palatinate-Sulzbach.

Friedrich August and Amalie (being the sister of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria) were the Aunt and Uncle to the Bavarian Princesses that made important dynastic marriages with two of thier nieces marrying Kings of Saxony.

Maximilian I Joseph’s second wife was Caroline of Baden, eldest child of Charles Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Baden, and his wife Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Princess Elisabeth Ludovika (“Elise”) (1801 – 1873) twin sister of Amalie Auguste. Married King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia.

Princess Amalie Auguste (1801 – 1877) twin sister of Elisabeth Ludovika. Married Johann I of Saxony.

Princess Marie Anne (1805 – 1877) twin sister of Sophie. Married King Friedrich August II of Saxony.

Princess Sophie (1805 – 1872) twin sister of Marie Anna. Married Archduke Franz Charles of Austria, mother of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary and Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico.

Princess Ludovika (1808 – 1892), married Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria. They were the parents of
Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary.

November 16, 1797: Death of Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and Prince-Elector of Brandenburg

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Frederica-Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, French Revolution, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, King Friedrich II The Great of Prussia, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, King Louis XVI or France and Navarre, Landgrave Ludwig IX of Hesse-Darmstadt, Prince August-Wilhelm of Prussia, Prince-Elector of Brandenburg, Wilhelmine Enke

Friedrich Wilhelm II (September 25, 1744 – November 16, 1797) was King of Prussia from 1786 until his death in 1797. He was in personal union the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg and (via the Orange-Nassau inheritance of his grandfather) sovereign prince of the Canton of Neuchâtel.

Friedrich Wilhelm was born in Berlin, the son of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia (the second son of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia) and Duchess Luise of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. His maternal Aunt, Elisabeth Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was his mother’s elder sister, and was the wife of his paternal uncle, King Friedrich II (“Frederick the Great”).

Friedrich Wilhelm became heir-presumptive to the throne of Prussia on his father’s death in 1758, since Friedrich II had no children. The boy was of an easy-going and pleasure-loving disposition, averse to sustained effort of any kind, and sensual by nature.

Friedrich Wilhelm’s accession to the throne (August 17, 1786) was, indeed, followed by a series of measures for lightening the burdens of the people, reforming the oppressive French system of tax-collecting introduced by Frederick, and encouraging trade by the diminution of customs dues and the making of roads and canals.

This gave the new king much popularity with the masses; the educated classes were pleased by Friedrich Wilhelm II’s reversal of his uncle’s preference for the French language and the promotion of the German language, with the admission of German writers to the Prussian Academy, and by the active encouragement given to schools and universities.

Friedrich Wilhelm II also terminated his predecessor’s state monopolies for coffee and tobacco and the sugar monopoly. Under his reign the codification known as Allgemeines Preußisches Landrecht, initiated by Friedrich II, continued and was completed in 1794.

On July 9, 1788 a religious edict was issued forbidding Evangelical ministers from teaching anything not contained in the letter of their official books, proclaimed the necessity of protecting the Christian religion against the “enlighteners” (Aufklärer), and placed educational establishments under the supervision of the orthodox clergy.

Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and Prince-Elector of Brandenburg

On December 18, 1788 a new censorship law was issued to secure the orthodoxy of all published books. This forced major Berlin journals like Christoph Friedrich Nicolai’s Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek and Johann Erich Biester’s Berliner Monatsschrift to publish only outside the Prussian borders. Moreover, people like Immanuel Kant were forbidden to speak in public on the topic of religion.

Finally, in 1791, a Protestant commission was established at Berlin to watch over all ecclesiastical and scholastic appointments. Although Wöllner’s religious edict had many critics, it was an important measure that, in fact, proved an important stabilizing factor for the Prussian state.

Aimed at protecting the multi-confessional rights enshrined in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the provisions of Wöllner’s edict were intended to safeguard against religious strife by imposing a system of state sponsored limits. The edict was also a notable step forward regarding the rights of Jews, Mennonites, and Herrnhut brethren, who now received full state protection.

Given the confessional divides within Prussian society, primarily between Calvinists and Lutherans but increasingly Catholics as well, such a policy was important for maintaining a stable civil society.

The attitude of Friedrich Wilhelm II towards the army and foreign policy proved fateful for Prussia. The army was the very foundation of the Prussian state, as both Friedrich Wilhelm I and Friedrich II the Great had fully realised. The army had been their first care, and its efficiency had been maintained by their constant personal supervision.

Friedrich Wilhelm II had no taste for military matters and put his authority as “Warlord” (Kriegsherr) into commission under a supreme college of war (Oberkriegs-Collegium) under Charles Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick and General Wichard Joachim Heinrich von Möllendorf. It was the beginning of the process that ended in 1806 at the disastrous Battle of Jena.

Although the Prussian army reached its highest peacetime level of manpower under Friedrich Wilhelm II (189,000 infantry and 48,000 cavalry), under his reign the Prussian state treasury incurred a substantial debt, and the quality of the troops’ training deteriorated.

Under the circumstances, Friedrich Wilhelm II’s interventions in European affairs were of little benefit to Prussia. The Dutch campaign of 1787, entered into for purely family reasons, was indeed successful, but Prussia received not even the cost of her intervention.

An attempt to intervene in the war of Russia and Austria against the Ottoman Empire failed to achieve its objective; Prussia did not succeed in obtaining any concessions of territory, and the dismissal of minister Hertzberg (July 5, 1791) marked the final abandonment of the anti-Austrian tradition of Friedrich II the Great.

Meanwhile, the French Revolution alarmed the ruling monarchs of Europe, and in August 1791 Friedrich Wilhelm II, at the meeting at Pillnitz Castle, agreed with Emperor Leopold II to join in supporting the cause of King Louis XVI of France.

However the king’s character and the confusion of the Prussian finances could not sustain effective action in this regard. A formal alliance was indeed signed on February 7,1792, and Friedrich Wilhelm II took part personally in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793, but the king was hampered by want of funds, and his counsels were distracted by the affairs of a deteriorating Poland, which promised a richer booty than was likely to be gained by the anti-revolutionary crusade into France.

A subsidy treaty with the sea powers (Great Britain and the Netherlands, signed at The Hague, 19 April 1794) filled Prussia’s coffers, but at the cost of a promise to supply 64,000 land troops to the coalition. The insurrection in Poland that followed the partition of 1793, and the threat of unilateral intervention by Russia, drove Friedrich Wilhelm into the separate Treaty of Basel with the French Republic (April 5, 1795), which was regarded by the other great monarchies as a betrayal, and left Prussia morally isolated in the struggle between the monarchical principle and the new republican creed of the Revolution.

Personal life and patronage of the arts

Frederick William’s first marriage, to Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick (his first cousin) daughter of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, contracted 14 July 1765
had ended after four years during which both spouses had been unfaithful. Their uncle, Friedrich II, granted a divorce reluctantly, as he was more fond of Elisabeth than of Friedrich Wilhelm.

Months after his first marriage Friedrich Wilhelm II then married Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt on July 14, 1769 also in Charlottenburg. His second marriage lasted until his death.

Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt

Although he had seven children by his second wife, he had an ongoing relationship with his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke (created Countess Wilhelmine von Lichtenau in 1796), a woman of strong intellect and much ambition, and had five children by her—the first when she was still in her teens.

In 1794–1797 he had a castle built for her on the Pfaueninsel. Moreover, he was involved in two more (bigamist) morganatic marriages: with Elisabeth Amalie, Gräfin von Voß, Gräfin von Ingenheim in 1787 and (after her death in 1789) with Sophie Juliane Gräfin von Dönhoff.

He had another seven children with those two women, which explains why his people also called him der Vielgeliebte (“the much loved”) and der dicke Lüderjahn (“the fat scallywag”).

His favourite son—with Wilhelmine Enke—was Graf Alexander von der Mark. His daughter from Sophie Juliane, Countess Julie of Brandenburg (1793 –1848) married to Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Anhalt-Köthen.

On November 16, 1797, Friedrich Wilhelm II died in Potsdam. He was succeeded by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm III, who had resented his father’s lifestyle and acted swiftly to deal with what he considered the immoral state of the court.

Franz II, the Last Holy Roman Emperor

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Bohemia, Caroline Charlotte Auguste of Bavaria, Croatia Holy Roman Empire, Elisabeth of Württemberg, Franz I of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, King of Hungry, Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este, Maria Teresa of the Two Sicilies

From the Emperor’s Desk: Tomorrow, August 6th, is the anniversary of the abdication of Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, and also the disillusion of the Holy Roman Empire itself. Today I’m featuring a small biography of Emperor Franz II, and tomorrow I will give a brief telling of the end of the Holy Roman Empire, and starting next week I will do a detailed series on the end of the Holy Roman Empire.

Imperial Standard of the Holy Roman Empire

Franz II (February 12, 1768 – March 2, 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor (from 1792 to 1806) and, as Franz I, the first Emperor of Austria, from 1804 to 1835. He also served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.

Early life

As Archduke Franz of Austria he was a son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), daughter of Carlos III of Spain (previously King of Naples and Sicily) and Maria Amalia of Saxony. She was the fifth daughter, and second surviving child, of her parents.

Archduke Franz was born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke from 1765 to 1790 prior to his becoming Emperor. Though he had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew Franz was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Emperor Joseph II had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.

Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor

Emperor Joseph II himself took charge of the development of Archduke Franz. His disciplinarian regime was a stark contrast to the indulgent Florentine Court of Leopold. The Emperor wrote that Archduke Franz was “stunted in growth”, “backward in bodily dexterity and deportment”, and “neither more nor less than a spoiled mother’s child.” Emperor Joseph II concluded that “the manner in which he was treated for upwards of sixteen years could not but have confirmed him in the delusion that the preservation of his own person was the only thing of importance.”

Emperor Joseph II martinet method of improving the young Franz was “fear and unpleasantness.” The young Archduke was isolated, the reasoning being that this would make him more self-sufficient as it was felt by Joseph that Franz “failed to lead himself, to do his own thinking.”

Nonetheless, Franz greatly admired his uncle, if rather feared him. To complete his training, Franz was sent to join an army regiment in Hungary and he settled easily into the routine of military life. He was present at the siege of Belgrade which occurred during the Austro-Turkish War.

After the death of Joseph II in 1790, Franz’s father became Emperor Leopold II. He had an early taste of power while acting as Leopold’s deputy in Vienna while the incoming Emperor traversed the Empire attempting to win back those alienated by his brother’s policies.

The strain told on Leopold and by the winter of 1791, he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792; on the afternoon of March 1 Leopold died, at the relatively young age of 44. Franz, just past his 24th birthday, was now Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, much sooner than he had expected.

Imperial Crown of the Austrian Empire

Emperor

As the head of the Holy Roman Empire and the ruler of the vast multi-ethnic Habsburg hereditary lands, Emperor Franz II felt threatened by the French revolutionaries and later Napoleon’s expansionism as well as their social and political reforms which were being exported throughout Europe in the wake of the conquering French armies.

Emperor Franz II had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Archduchess Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI and Queen consort of France, was guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, at the beginning of his reign, although they were not close and on the whole, he was indifferent to her fate.

Emperor Franz II continued his leading role as an opponent of Napoleonic France in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered several more defeats after the Battle of Austerlitz. The marriage of his daughter Marie Louise of Austria to Napoleon on March 10, 1810 was arguably his severest personal defeat.

After the abdication of Napoleon following the War of the Sixth Coalition, Austria participated as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna, which was largely dominated by Franz’s chancellor Klemens von Metternich culminating in a new European map and the restoration of most of Franz II’s ancient dominions. Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which largely resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Franz was viewed as a reactionary later in his reign.

Franz I, Emperor of Austria

Franz II’s grandchildren include Napoleon II (Napoleon’s only legitimate son), Franz Joseph I of Austria, Maximilian I of Mexico, Maria II of Portugal and Pedro II of Brazil.

Marriages

Franz II married four times:

1. On January 6, 1788, to Elisabeth of Württemberg (April 21, 1767 – February 18, 1790).

Elisabeth Wilhelmine Luise was born in Treptow an der Rega, Pomerania, in what today is Poland. She was born as the third daughter and eighth child borne to Friedrich II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg and his wife, Princess Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Her name came from her baptism.

At the age of 15, she was called by the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, to Vienna. There, she was educated in the Salesianerinnenkloster by the nuns, in which she also converted to Catholicism. The purpose of this was to make her the future wife of Archduke Franz, the future Holy Roman Emperor.

In Vienna on January 6, 1788, Elisabeth and Franz were married. At this time, Emperor Joseph was in ill health; the young archduchess was close to the emperor and brightened his last years with her youthful charm.

At the end of 1789, Elisabeth became pregnant; however, her condition was very delicate. After her visitation to the anointing of the sick, held by the emperor, on February 15, 1790, Elisabeth fainted—and on the night of February 18, she prematurely gave birth to Archduchess Ludovika Elisabeth, who lived for only 16 months.

Despite an emergency operation to save her life, Elisabeth did not survive the birth, which lasted more than 24 hours. She is buried in the Imperial Crypt, in Vienna. The Emperor Joseph II died two days after the death of his niece.

2. On September 15, 1790, Emperor Franz II was married to his double first cousin Maria Teresa of the Two Sicilies (June 6, 1772 – April 13, 1807), daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria (both were grandchildren of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband Emperor Franz I, formerly Duke of Lorraine and they shared all of their other grandparents in common), with whom he had twelve children, of whom only seven reached adulthood.

Born on 6 June 1772 at the Royal Palace of Naples, Maria Theresa Carolina Giuseppina was her mother’s favorite child from birth, and was henceforth named after her maternal grandmother Empress Maria Theresa. Princess Maria Theresa was taught French, mathematics, geography, theology, music, dancing, and drawing.

In the February of 1790, Archduke Franz’s wife, Archduchess Elisabeth, died in childbirth, and it was announced that he would marry one of the princesses of Naples. Maria Theresa and her sister Luisa were both considered for the match. In the end, though, Luisa was chosen to marry Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Maria Theresa was to marry Francis. The marriage was in accordance with the traditional Habsburg marriage policy.

Marriage

On September 15, 1790, at the age of 18, Princess Maria Theresa married her double first cousin Archduke Franz. The marriage was described as a happy one based on mutual understanding, despite differences in personality. Franz was described as a melancholic character. He was shy and reserved, and was serious with a preference for a spartan lifestyle and duty. Maria Theresa, on the other hand, was described as a gracious blue-eyed blonde with a vivacious personality, a hot temper and a sensual nature.

Maria Theresa reportedly adapted well to her new home in Vienna and did not suffer from homesickness. She participated with enthusiasm in court life, and it was noted that she enjoyed dancing and partaking in carnival balls—even while pregnant. She particularly enjoyed the Waltz, which had been recently introduced as an innovation and became fashionable during her years in Vienna.

In the winter of 1806, Empress Maria Theresa (pregnant with her 12th child) contracted tuberculous pleurisy, which the imperial physician, Andreas Joseph von Stifft, treated with bloodletting. However, it did not trigger an improvement in health, but a premature birth. When Empress Maria Theresa died after following complications after her last childbirth (the daughter died a few days before the mother) on 13 April 1807 at the age of 34, the Emperor was inconsolable and had to be removed by force from the corpse of his wife. She was buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. The shattered Emperor stayed away from the funeral, instead traveling to Buda with his two eldest children.

3. On January 6, 1808, Emperor Franz of Austria married again to another first cousin, Archduchess Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este (December 14, 1787 – April 7, 1816) with no issue. She was the daughter of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este and Maria Beatrice d’Este, Princess of Modena. She was a member of the House of Austria-Este, a branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

She is not to be confused with Marie-Louise of Austria (who was given the Latin baptismal name of Maria Ludovica Leopoldina Francisca Theresa Josepha Lucia), who married Napoleon in 1810.

She, as leader of the war party in Austria, was a great enemy of the French Emperor Napoleon I of France and therefore also in opposition to the Austrian foreign minister Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. The French had protested against the marriage because of her political views. She had considerable influence on her husband, and her talent at ruling marvelled many officials, including the Prussian minister who considered her the ruling genius at court.

Maria Ludovika was also immensely popular with her subjects who hailed her a second Maria Theresa. Together with her brother-in-law Archduke Johann, she made the war effort popular. During her coronation in Pressburg, she impressed the Hungarians so much that they declared large financial and military support for the monarchy if needed. But the Emperor hesitated and Archduke Charles who had extensive control over military matters advised caution. Only the effects of the Spanish revolt in 1808 allowed the war party to prevail.

When Napoleon was finally defeated she traveled at the end of the year 1815 to her home country, North Italy, but died of tuberculosis in Verona. She was only 28 years old. She is buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna.

4. On October 29, 1816, Franz II married Caroline Charlotte Auguste of Bavaria (8 February 1792 – 9 February 1873) with no issue. She was daughter of Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and had been previously married to Wilhelm I of Württemberg.

First marriage

On June 8, 1808, at Munich, Caroline Augusta married Crown Prince Wilhelm of Württemberg (1781–1864) becoming Crown Princess of Württemberg.

Her first marriage was arranged to avoid a political marriage arranged by Napoleon. After the marriage ceremony, her spouse said to her: We are victims to politics. She spent her time writing letters to her brother Ludwig, and learning Italian and English.

The couple never bonded with each other and the marriage was finally annulled by Pope Pius VII to enable both of them to make remarriages that were valid in the Catholic Church. At the time of the annulment, it was claimed by them that they had lived separately in the palace and that the marriage had never been consummated.

Empress

After the annulment of her marriage, Caroline Augusta was considered as a bride for both the Emperor Franz II and his younger brother, Ferdinand. Later, Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany withdrew his proposal and Caroline Augusta became the Emperor’s bride.

On October 29, 1816, Caroline Augusta married Franz, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia and Croatia. She became the fourth wife of the emperor, who was 24 years older than her and had fathered thirteen children by two of his previous wives. The English diplomat Frederick Lamb called the new empress “ugly, clever and amiable,” and the emperor her husband had this to say of her: “She can stand a push, the other was nothing but air.” The wedding, and indeed their married life, was very simple due to the strict economy favoured by the Emperor. Prior to this marriage, Caroline Augusta had always been known as Charlotte, but now she began using the name Caroline.

This marriage, which lasted until the emperor’s death almost 20 years later, was harmonious but remained childless. She became popular in Austria and was active in social work; she founded several hospitals and residences for the poor. After the death of her spouse in 1835, she moved to Salzburg and lived there in quiet dignity until her own death nearly four decades later. The dowager empress died in February 1873, one day after her 81st birthday.

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.

September 25, 1744: Birth of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia

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Frederick II of Prussia, Frederick the Great, Frederick William II of Prussia, Frederick William III of Prussia, French Revolution, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Mistresses, Morganatic Marriages

Friedrich Wilhelm II (September 25, 1744 – November 16, 1797) was King of Prussia from 1786 until his death. He was in personal union as the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg and (via the Orange-Nassau inheritance of his grandfather) was the sovereign P rince of the Canton of Neuchâtel. Pleasure-loving and indolent, he is seen as the antithesis to his predecessor, Friedrich the Great. (Friedrich II).

Under the reign of Friedrich WilhelmII, Prussia was weakened internally and externally, as he failed to deal adequately with the challenges to the existing order posed by the French Revolution. His religious policies were directed against the Enlightenment and aimed at restoring a traditional Protestantism. However, he was a patron of the arts and responsible for the construction of some notable buildings, among them the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Early life

Friedrich Wilhelm was born in Berlin, the son of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia (the second son of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia) and Duchess Luise of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. His mother’s elder sister, Elisabeth, was the wife of August Wilhelm’s brother, King Friedrich II.

Friedrich Wilhelm became heir-presumptive to the throne of Prussia on his father’s death in 1758, since Friedrich II had no children. The boy was of an easy-going and pleasure-loving disposition, averse to sustained effort of any kind, and sensual by nature.

His marriage with his first cousin Princess Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, daughter of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife Philippine Charlotte, (daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia) that was contracted on July 14, 1765 in Charlottenburg, was dissolved in 1769.

Friedrich Wilhelm then married Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken on July 14, 1769 also in Charlottenburg. Although he had seven children by his second wife, he had an ongoing relationship with his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke (created Countess Wilhelmine von Lichtenau in 1796), a woman of strong intellect and much ambition, and had five children by her—the first when she was still in her teens.

Friedrich Wilhelm, before the corpulence of his middle age, was a man of singularly handsome presence, not without mental qualities of a high order; he was devoted to the arts – Boccherini, Mozart and the young Beethoven enjoyed his patronage, and his private orchestra had a Europe-wide reputation. He also was a talented cellist.

However, an artistic temperament was hardly what was required of a king of Prussia on the eve of the French Revolution, and Friedrich II the Great, who had employed him in various services (notably in an abortive confidential mission to the court of Russia in 1780), openly expressed his misgivings as to the character of the prince and his surroundings. For his part, Friedrich Wilhelm, who had never been properly introduced to diplomacy and the business of rulership, resented his uncle for not taking him seriously.

Reign

The misgivings of Friedrich II appear justified in retrospect. Friedrich Wilhelm II’s accession to the throne (August 17, 1786) was, indeed, followed by a series of measures for lightening the burdens of the people, reforming the oppressive French system of tax-collecting introduced by Friedrich II, and encouraging trade by the diminution of customs dues and the making of roads and canals.

This gave the new king much popularity with the masses; the educated classes were pleased by Friedrich Wilhelm II’s reversal of his uncle’s preference for the French language and the promotion of the German language, with the admission of German writers to the Prussian Academy, and by the active encouragement given to schools and universities. Friedrich Wilhelm II also terminated his predecessor’s state monopolies for coffee and tobacco and the sugar monopoly. Under his reign the codification known as Allgemeines Preußisches Landrecht, initiated by Friedrich II, continued and was completed in 1794.

Mysticism and religious policies

In 1781 Friedrich Wilhelm II, then The Prince of Prussia, inclined to mysticism, had joined the Rosicrucians, and had fallen under the influence of Johann Christoph von Wöllner and Johann Rudolf von Bischoffswerder. On August 26, 1786 Wöllner was appointed privy councillor for finance (Geheimer Oberfinanzrath), and on October 2, 1786 was ennobled. Though not in name, he in fact became prime minister; in all internal affairs it was he who decided; and the fiscal and economic reforms of the new reign were the application of his theories.

Bischoffswerder, too, still a simple major, was called into the king’s counsels; by 1789 he was already an adjutant-general. The opposition to Wöllner was, indeed, at the outset strong enough to prevent his being entrusted with the department of religion; but this too in time was overcome, and on July 3, 1788 he was appointed active privy councillor of state and of justice and head of the spiritual department for Lutheran and Catholic affairs. From this position Wöllner pursued long lasting reforms concerning religion in the Prussian state.

The king proved eager to aid Wöllner’s crusade. On July 9, 1788 a religious edict was issued forbidding Evangelical ministers from teaching anything not contained in the letter of their official books, proclaimed the necessity of protecting the Christian religion against the “enlighteners” (Aufklärer), and placed educational establishments under the supervision of the orthodox clergy.

On December 18, 1788 a new censorship law was issued to secure the orthodoxy of all published books. This forced major Berlin journals like Christoph Friedrich Nicolai’s Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek and Johann Erich Biester’s Berliner Monatsschrift to publish only outside the Prussian borders. Moreover, people like Immanuel Kant were forbidden to speak in public on the topic of religion.

Finally, in 1791, a Protestant commission was established at Berlin (Immediate-Examinationscommission) to watch over all ecclesiastical and scholastic appointments. Although Wöllner’s religious edict had many critics, it was an important measure that, in fact, proved an important stabilizing factor for the Prussian state. Aimed at protecting the multi-confessional rights enshrined in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the provisions of Wöllner’s edict were intended to safeguard against religious strife by imposing a system of state sponsored limits.

The edict was also a notable step forward regarding the rights of Jews, Mennonites, and Herrnhut brethren, who now received full state protection. Given the confessional divides within Prussian society, primarily between Calvinists and Lutherans but increasingly Catholics as well, such a policy was important for maintaining a stable civil society.
In his zeal for establishing Prussia as a paragon of stable Christian statehood, Friedrich Wilhelm II outstripped his minister; he even blamed Wöllner’s “idleness and vanity” for the inevitable failure of the attempt to regulate opinion from above, and in 1794 deprived him of one of his secular offices in order that he might have more time “to devote himself to the things of God”; in edict after edict the king continued to the end of his reign to make regulations “in order to maintain in his states a true and active Christianity, as the path to genuine fear of God”.

Foreign policies

The attitude of Friedrich Wilhelm II towards the army and foreign policy proved fateful for Prussia. The army was the very foundation of the Prussian state, as both Friedrich Wilhelm II and Friedrich II the Great had fully realised. The army had been their first care, and its efficiency had been maintained by their constant personal supervision.

Friedrich Wilhelm II had no taste for military matters and put his authority as “Warlord” (Kriegsherr) into commission under a supreme college of war (Oberkriegs-Collegium) under the Duke of Brunswick and General Wichard Joachim Heinrich von Möllendorf. It was the beginning of the process that ended in 1806 at the disastrous Battle of Jena. Although the Prussian army reached its highest peacetime level of manpower under Friedrich Wilhelm II (189,000 infantry and 48,000 cavalry), under his reign the Prussian state treasury incurred a substantial debt, and the quality of the troops’ training deteriorated.

Under the circumstances, Friedrich Wilhelm II’s interventions in European affairs were of little benefit to Prussia. The Dutch campaign of 1787, entered into for purely family reasons, was indeed successful, but Prussia received not even the cost of her intervention. An attempt to intervene in the war of Russia and Austria against the Ottoman Empire failed to achieve its objective; Prussia did not succeed in obtaining any concessions of territory, and the dismissal of minister Hertzberg (July 5, 1791) marked the final abandonment of the anti-Austrian tradition of Friedrich II the Great.

Meanwhile, the French Revolution alarmed the ruling monarchs of Europe, and in August 1791 Friedrich Wilhelm II at the meeting at Pillnitz Castle, agreed with Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II to join in supporting the cause of King Louis XVI of France. However the king’s character and the confusion of the Prussian finances could not sustain effective action in this regard. A formal alliance was indeed signed on February 7, 1792, and Friedrich Wilhelm II took part personally in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793, but the king was hampered by want of funds, and his counsels were distracted by the affairs of a deteriorating Poland, which promised a richer booty than was likely to be gained by the anti-revolutionary crusade into France.

A subsidy treaty with the sea powers (Great Britain and the Netherlands, signed at The Hague, April 19, 1794) filled Prussia’s coffers, but at the cost of a promise to supply 64,000 land troops to the coalition. The insurrection in Poland that followed the partition of 1793, and the threat of unilateral intervention by Russia, drove Friedrich Wilhelm II into the separate Treaty of Basel with the French Republic (April 5, 1795), which was regarded by the other great monarchies as a betrayal, and left Prussia morally isolated in the struggle between the monarchical principle and the new republican creed of the Revolution.

Although the land area of the Prussian state reached a new peak under his rule after the third partition of Poland in 1795, the new territories included parts of Poland such as Warsaw that had virtually no German population, severely straining administrative resources due to various pro-Polish revolts; it also removed the last remaining buffer state between Prussia and Russia.

Personal life and patronage of the arts

Friedrich Wilhelm II’s first marriage, to Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick (his first cousin) had ended after four years during which both spouses had been unfaithful. Their uncle, Friedrich II, granted a divorce reluctantly, as he was more fond of Elisabeth than of Friedrich Wilhelm. His second marriage lasted until his death, but he continued his relationship with Wilhelmine Enke. In 1794–1797 he had a castle built for her on the Pfaueninsel.

Moreover, he was involved in two more (bigamist) morganatic marriages: with Elisabeth Amalie, Gräfin von Voß, Gräfin von Ingenheim in 1787 and (after her death in 1789) with Sophie Juliane Gräfin von Dönhoff. He had another seven children with those two women, which explains why his people also called him der Vielgeliebte (“the much loved”) and der dicke Lüderjahn (“the fat scallywag”).

His favourite son—with Wilhelmine Enke—was Graf Alexander von der Mark. His daughter from Sophie Juliane, Countess Julie of Brandenburg (January 14, 1793 – January 29, 1848, Vienna), married to Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Anhalt-Köthen.

Other buildings constructed under his reign were the Marmorpalais in Potsdam and the world-famous Brandenburger Tor in Berlin.

On November 16, 1797, Friedrich Wilhelm II died in Potsdam. He was succeeded by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm III, who had resented his father’s lifestyle and acted swiftly to deal with what he considered the immoral state of the court. Friedrich Wilhelm II is buried in the Berliner Dom.

The Life of Archduchess Hermine of Austria

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Archduke Joseph of Austria, Archduke Stephen of Austria, Carlos III of Spain, Hermine of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, House of Habsburg-Lorraine, Infanta Maria Louisa of Spain, Kingdom of Hungary, Palatine of Hungary

Hermine of Austria (Hermine Amalie Marie, September 14, 1817 – February 13, 1842 ) was a member of the Hungarian branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine as an Archduchess of Austria.

Archduchess Hermine, with her twin brother Archduke Stephen, Palatine of Hungary, c. 1840.

Hermine of Austria was the daughter of Archduke Joseph of Austria, Palatine of Hungary and his second wife, Princess Hermine of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym, and she was eldest daughter of Victor II, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym, and Princess Amelia of Nassau-Weilburg.

Hermine’s father, Archduke Joseph of Austria, was one of fifteen children born to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and Infanta Maria Louisa of Spain, the fifth daughter, and second surviving child of King Carlos III of Spain, Naples and Sicily, and Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Archduke Joseph of Austria was born in Florence, where his father Leopold was ruling as Grand Duke of Tuscany at that time. In 1796, Archduke Joseph was made Palatine of Hungary. This old title was, in effect, a deputy of the King of Hungary, and ruled when the king was absent from the country. Archduke Joseph became the founder of the Hungarian branch of the Habsburg family

Archduke Joseph first married the Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna of Russia (1783–1801), on October 30, 1799 at Saint Petersburg. Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna was the third child and eldest daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and his second wife Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg (renamed Maria Feodorovna after her wedding). Archduke Joseph was 23 years old, while Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna was 16. She died of puerperal fever at the age of 18 soon after delivering a short-lived daughter, the Archduchess Alexandrine of Austria, on March 9, 1801 in Buda.

Archduke Joseph married his second wife, Princess Hermine of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym on August 30, 1815 at Schaumburg Castle. The princess was just 17 years old when she married the 39-year-old Archduke. This marriage was also short lived when she died in childbirth two years later at the age of 19, after giving birth to Archduchess Hermine of Austria and her faternal twin brother, Archduke Stephen of Austria, Palatine of Hungary.

Archduke Joseph’s third wife was the Duchess Maria Dorothea of Württemberg, the daughter of Duke Ludwig of Württemberg (1756–1817) and Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg (1780–1857) whom he wed on August 24, 1819 at Kirchheim unter Teck. He was 43 years old, and she was 21. They were the parents of five children, Hermine’s half-siblings.

Hermine of Austria was brought up by her stepmother, and spent much of her childhood in Buda and at the family estate in Alcsútdoboz and received an excellent education.

Contemporaries described Archduchess Hermine as a pretty, kind and modest. However, she was a slim young woman, frail body, and prone to diseases. Hermine was Princess-Abbess of the Theresian Royal and Imperial Ladies Chapter of the Castle of Prague (1835-1842), and she died February 13, 1842 in Vienna, Austria at the young age of aged 24. However, I have been unable to find the cause of her death. She never married.

Her full brother, Archduke Stephen was appointed governor of Bohemia by Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. He stayed in that capacity until, in January 1847, his father died. Stephen succeeded him as Palatine of Hungary on November 12, 1847, but resigned in September 1848 as a result of the Hungarian Revolution. Archduke Stephan died in 1867, unmarried and without issue at the age of 49.

A bit of genealogical trivia for you. Princess Amelia of Nassau-Weilburg, the mother of Archduke Joseph’s second wife, Princess Hermine of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym, and Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg, mother of Archduke Joseph’s third wife, Duchess Maria Dorothea of Württemberg, were siblings, the daughters of Charles Christian, Prince of Nassau-Weilburg and his wife Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau.

This means that Archduke Joseph’s second and third wives were first cousins.

Also, the parents of these two Nassau-Weilburg siblings, were Charles Christian, Prince of Nassau-Weilburg and his wife Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau, and they were from separate branches of the House of Nassau. The Nassau-Weilburg branch ruled the Duchy of Nassau until 1866 and from 1890 the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The younger (Ottonian) branch of the House of Nasau, (Orange-Nassau) gave rise to the Princes of Orange and later the monarchs of the Netherlands, whom also ruled Luxembourg for a while.

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.

March 13, 1741: Birth of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

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Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, Empress Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Holy Roman Empire, Isabella of Parma, Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria

Joseph II (German: Joseph Benedikt Anton Michel Adam; March 13, 1741 – February 20, 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg lands from November 1780 until his death. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor Franz I, and the brother of Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI of France and Navarre. He was thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine. Joseph was a proponent of enlightened absolutism; however, his commitment to modernizing reforms subsequently engendered significant opposition, which resulted in failure to fully implement his programs.

Joseph married Princess Isabella of Parma in October 1760, a union fashioned to bolster the 1756 defensive pact between France and Austria. (The bride’s mother, Princess Louise Élisabeth, was the eldest daughter of King Louis XV of France and Navarre. Isabella’s father was Philip, Duke of Parma.) Joseph loved his bride, Isabella, finding her both stimulating and charming, and she sought with special care to cultivate his favor and affection. Isabella also found a best friend and confidant in her husband’s sister, Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen.

The marriage of Joseph and Isabella resulted in the birth of a daughter, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria (1762–1770), Just a few months short of her eighth birthday, Archduchess Maria Theresa became ill with pleurisy. Her father, by that time Holy Roman Emperor, did everything in his power to save her and attended her bedside even at night. However, the medicine in those days was highly undeveloped and Archduchess Maria Theresa died on January 23, 1770 from a very high fever.

Princess Isabella of Parma

In November 1763, while six months pregnant, Isabella fell ill with smallpox and went into premature labor, resulting in the birth of their second child, Archduchess Maria Christina, who died shortly after being born. Progressively ill with smallpox and strained by sudden childbirth and tragedy, Isabella died the following week. The loss of his beloved wife and their newborn child was devastating for Joseph, after which he felt keenly reluctant to remarry.

For political reasons, and under constant pressure, in 1765, he relented and married his second cousin, Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria, the daughter of Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor, and Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, the daughter of Emperor Joseph I and Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg. This marriage proved extremely unhappy, albeit brief, as it lasted only two years. Though Maria Josepha loved her husband, she felt timid and inferior in his company. Lacking common interests or pleasures, the relationship offered little for Joseph, who confessed he felt no love (nor attraction) for her in return.

Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria

Four months after the second anniversary of their wedding, Maria Josepha grew ill and died from smallpox. Joseph neither visited her during her illness nor attended her funeral, though he later expressed regret for not having shown her more kindness, respect, or warmth. Joseph never remarried.

On the death of his father, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I in 1765, he was succeeded as Emperor by his eldest son, Joseph II, and as Grand Duke of Tuscany by his younger son, Peter Leopold (later Emperor Leopold II). Maria Theresa retained the government of her hereditary dominions, Austria, Hungary and Bohemia until her own death in 1780. As emperor, he had little true power, and his mother had resolved that neither her husband nor her son should ever deprive her of sovereign control in her hereditary dominions.

Joseph II (right) with his brother Peter Leopold, then Grand Duke of Tuscany, later Emperor Leopold II, by Pompeo Batoni, 1769, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

The death of Maria Theresa on November 29, 1780 left Joseph free to pursue his own policy, and he immediately directed his government on a new course, attempting to realize his ideal of enlightened despotism acting on a definite system for the good of all. He undertook the spread of education, the secularization of church lands, the reduction of the religious orders and the clergy, in general, to complete submission to the lay state, the issue of the Patent of Tolerance (1781) providing limited guarantee of freedom of worship, and the promotion of unity by the compulsory use of the German language (replacing Latin or in some instances local languages)—everything which from the point of view of 18th-century philosophy, the Age of Enlightenment, appeared “reasonable”.

Despite making some territorial gains, his reckless foreign policy badly isolated Austria. He has been ranked, with Catherine II the Great of Russia and Friedrich II the Great of Prussia, as one of the three great Enlightenment monarchs. His reputation as an enlightened monarch was somewhat legendary, leading to false, but influential letters depicting him as a radical philosopher. His policies are now known as Josephinism. He was a supporter of the arts, and most importantly, of composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri.

In November 1788, Joseph returned to Vienna with ruined health and was left abandoned. His minister Kaunitz refused to visit his sick-room and did not see him for two years. His brother Leopold remained at Florence. At last, Joseph, worn out and broken-hearted, recognized that his servants could not, or would not, carry out his plans.

Joseph died on February 20, 1790. He is buried in tomb number 42 in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. He asked that his epitaph read: “Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook.” Joseph was succeeded by his brother, Leopold II.