Four wives of Emperor Franz II (I)

[Mari]

Yes, She actually looked better than her Paintings as you can see in old Age....

[beladona]

I think she was beautiful even in painting of her:

[Mari]

Yes, She was! 

[Norbert]

Sadly she was severely pock-marked which is not shown on this lovely print. Apparently her first love was for Duc D'Enghien but her father regarded him as too poor. Her first marriage  was arranged in haste  to avoid the ambitions of Napoleon and was never consummated. She was suggested as Empress by GD of Tuscany. Franz called her his " domestic pearl"  and she was a great patron of charity and a kind step mother.

[Princess Susan]

I read somewhere that she had a very strange relationship with Archduchess Sophie...why?Does the thing that they were ''just'' half-sisters?

I read, that their relationship had been strange particulary since FJ's accession to the trone. Sophie didn't want to be on second place and Caroline as a former Empress could endanger her position. She attempted to get her far from court to Salzburg. Then she lived in Salzburg almost till end of her live and came back only shortly before her death. But I don't know when exactly.
But seems it, that before their relationship was good. Caroline was adoring kind step mother and step grandmother.
I don't think, that reason of later complications was thing, that they were "just" half-sisters.

She looks indeed  pretty as a young woman and also in older age she has something nice in face.

[YaBB_Jose]

Sadly she was severely pock-marked which is not shown on this lovely print. Apparently her first love was for Duc D'Enghien but her father regarded him as too poor. Her first marriage  was arranged in haste  to avoid the ambitions of Napoleon and was never consummated. .

Where did you get this information ?
Her first husband was the king of Wurttemberg, who was a protestant.
Apparently for her father a good match was always a good match, regardless of the husband's religion - as in her sister Elisabeth wedding to the king of Prussia.

[Maria_Pavlovna]

The Empress Caroline Augusta looks beautiful to me, but back then a lot though she was ugly, whats with that story?

[Eric_Lowe]

Yes she had a horrible life. I wrote about this fasinating woman in an article on Royalty Digest. The title was "The Regected Queen That Became an Empress".

[Yseult]

Eric...why she had a horrible life? I always thought the only horrible thing in her life has been to be rejected for her first husband, who wanted to marry a russian grand duchess...

[Eric_Lowe]

That was the worst of it. She and her youngest brother were the only one who got along with her stepmother (grandmother to Sisi and Franz Josef). She was torn her loyalty to her brother and stepmother and siblings. When she married the Crown Prince of Wurttemberg, he did not even touch her finger and banished her to another wing of the palace. After the annulment (they were never man & wife), she was persued by the aged Emperor of Austria (who made sure her health was good) and his cousin the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The Emperor won and she became his fourth wife with grown children (including Empress Marie Louise and future Empress of Brazil, Leopoldina). Carolina Augusta was childless. When her half sister Sophie married her stepson, she went out of her way to welcome her to Austria. However after Sophie's son became Emperor Franz Josef, her half sister turned on her and exiled her to Salzburg. She made a few bids to return to visit, but only rarely was she allowed to return to Vienna as Sophie do not want to be remionded that she was not Empress or the highest lady in Austria. Maybe nor a horrible lifem but definitely sad...

[Maria_Pavlovna]

Poor Empress!

Sophie being a brat, not an Empress but an High ranking Archduchess! selfish! Apparently Sophie was not very nice lady and wanted to be the top dog! she was also nasty to her daughter-in-law Empress Elisabeth "Sisi" (Sisi, whom is not a nice woman herself!) but poor Caroline Augusta! 

[Eric_Lowe]

Indeed ! In one book on Franz Josef it shows Sophie correcting his letter not to allow the Ex-Empress to come to Vienna. She missed her other step children badly. 

However she got along well with Sisi, and she was one of the young empress's staunch supporters. 

[Trianon]

I know there's a long time left, but could someone please repost the pictures of Elisabeth Wilhelmine? She's one of my favourite Habsburgs and I could only found two pictures of her...

[Rani]

Very strange picture

[aleksandr pavlovich]

Presumptively, a death-bed sketch of the Emperor Franz I.  I have not seen this before.    AP