Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily
Princess Maria Theresa of Naples and Giuseppina Carolina of the Two Sicilies (* June 6, 1772 in Naples, † April 13, 1807 in Vienna) was by marriage, the last Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and the first Empress of Austria.
Life
Maria Theresa was the eldest daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and the Two Sicilies from the house of Bourbon- Sicily (1751-1825) and his wife Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria (1752-1814), daughter of Emperor Francis I and Archduchess Maria Theresa. The princess grew up on her parents' farm and was provided in 1790 as wife of the future German Emperor Franz II.
Kinship and Marriage
After the first wife of Emperor Franz II / I. (1768-1835) and sister of the Russian throne, Grand Duke Paul, Princess Elisabeth of Württemberg (Elisabeth Wilhelmine Louise, 1767-1790 ) died at the birth of their first child on February 18, 1790, he married again after only seven months. On September 19, 1790, the second marriage took place in Vienna with the Princess Maria Theresa.
The young couple was immediately pleasure in each other, even though the couple was very contradictory by nature is here. The young archduke had already turned in his youth a tendency to melancholy was, in feeling, shy, serious, and in itself, also of Spartan simplicity. He was strict with himself and dutiful. His figure was gaunt, the facial features pale and expressionless. Maria Theresa, however, was a charming blonde woman with light blue eyes, full lips and a little too big nose. She was a cheerful person of southern temperament exuded sensuality. The two understood each other, however dazzling and their seventeen years lasting marriage was happy.
The couple was a product of one of those carefully ingenious marriage of the old Empress Maria Theresa: The marriage policy of the Habsburgs won in this case several times about marriage hygiene, when Emperor Leopold II, his eldest son Francis in 1790 married the daughter of his sister Maria Carolina, the his mother Maria Theresia had the time, married to the King of Naples, Ferdinand of Bourbon.
Emperor Franz II / I. had by his mother Maria Ludovica, born a princess of Spain and sister of Ferdinand of Bourbon same grandfather, King Charles III. as his bride. Together had Maria Theresa and Francis II but also the Habsburg grandmother Maria Theresa of Habsburg- Lorraine.
Francis II married so not only his biological first cousin - he was related far more closely with their basically. Since Princess Maria Theresa brought by the Habsburgs coveted fecundity, the close blood relationship had an impact fatal: The unfortunate children of the first Austrian imperial couple, especially Ferdinand I had to bear the consequences.
Maria Theresa's younger sister Maria Amalia Teresa of Bourbon was from 1830 to Queen of the French. Through them, Maria Theresa was posthumously for Great Aunt in 1857 with the Austrian Archduke and later Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico married Charlotte, Princess of Belgium and Empress of Mexico ( 1840-1927 ).
Maria Theresa's grandson Peter II of Brazil, a son of King Peter IV of Portugal and the Archduchess Maria Leopoldine of Austria married 1843 Teresa Maria Cristina of Naples and Sicily, Princess of Bourbon and the Two Sicilies. Teresa Maria Christina in turn was the cousin of Peter's mother Maria Leopoldine of Austria frühverstorbener, a daughter of Maria Theresa.
In Vienna, Maria Theresa lived a good. Much like her mother Maria Carolina who had also lived through a turbulent youth in Vienna on her parents' farm, she loved parties and entertainment. Despite the many pregnancies she participated in almost all the carnival balls during her time in Vienna in part. In particular, she loved the then fashionable waltz.
Policy
Outwardly, she pretended not to interfere in politics. Because it but for the political and military events of their time was very interested and anyway never talked to her opinion behind the mountain, she gave her husband advice often hesitant and also influenced his decisions. So it seems even with the dismissal of Cabinet Johann Baptist Freiherr von Schloissnigg and the Head of the Imperial Chancery, Count Franz Colloredo to have had a hand in it. The fierce opponent of Napoleon encouraged her husband also to fight against France.
Progeny
This dynastic marriage policy revenged on the posterity. In the seventeen years of their marriage the Neapolitan brought twelve children. Of the children only two survived: Ferdinand and the younger by nine years Franz Karl. One of the four surviving daughters was even less happy Maria Ludovica, called Marie Louise, Empress of the French.
In winter 1806, she contracted a tuberculous pleurisy, which treated the imperial personal physician, Andreas Joseph of Stifft with phlebotomy. However, he resolved that no improvement in the condition, but rather a premature birth. As Empress Maria Theresa after premature birth ( the daughter died a few days after the mother) died on April 6, 1807, the emperor was heartbroken and had to be forcibly removed from the corpse of his wife. She was buried in the imperial crypt of the Capuchin Church in Vienna. The shaken emperor remained the funeral away and instead traveled with his two oldest children on the furnace. Her heart was buried separately and is located in the heart of the Habsburg crypt in the Loreto chapel, Vienna St. Augustine's Church.
- Maria Louisa (1791-1847), Empress of the French, Duchess of Parma,
- Ferdinand I (1793-1875) ∞ 1831 Princess Maria Anna, daughter of King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia and his wife Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria - Este of Modena
- Karoline Leopoldine (1794-1795), Archduchess
- Karoline Luise (1795-1799), Archduchess
- Maria Leopoldine (1797-1826), Empress of Brazil, ∞ 1817 Emperor Peter I of Brazil, son of King John VI. of Portugal and his wife Infanta Charlotte Johanna of Spain
- Mary Clementine (1798-1881) ∞ 1818 Prince Leopold of Naples and Sicily, Duke of Salerno, son of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies adH Bourbon and his wife Archduchess Maria Caroline of Austria
- Franz Josef (1799-1807), Archduke
- Mary Caroline Ferdinanda (1801-1832) ∞ 1819 King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, son of Duke Maximilian of Saxony and his wife Princess Caroline of Parma
- Franz Karl (1802-1878), Archduke ∞ 1824 Princess Sophie Friederike of Bavaria ( 1805-1872 ), daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria
- Maria Anna (1804-1858), Archduchess
- Johann Nepomuk (1805-1809), Archduke
- Amalia Theresia (* / † 1807), Archduchess