by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2019

Archduke Franz Karl of Austria was the father of two emperors: Franz Joseph I of Austria and Maximilian I of Mexico, the grandfather of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria whose assassination sparked World War I, and the great-grandfather of  Karl I, the last Emperor of Austria.  Born in Vienna on December 17, 1802, Franz Karl was the ninth of the twelve children and the third of the four sons of Emperor Franz I of Austria and the second of his four wives, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily.

Franz Karl had eleven siblings:

• Archduchess Marie- Ludovica (1791 – 1847), married (1) Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French; had one son, Napoleon II (2) Adam Albert, Count von Neipperg; had three children (3) Charles, Count of Bombelle, no children
• Emperor Ferdinand I (1793 – 1875), married Maria Anna of Savoy; no issue
• Archduchess Marie Karoline (1794 – 1795), died in childhood
• Archduchess Caroline Ludovika (1795 – 1797), died in childhood
• Archduchess Maria Leopoldina (1797 – 1826), married Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, had four daughters and three sons
• Archduchess Maria Clementina (1798 – 1881), married her maternal uncle Leopold, Prince of Salerno, had one surviving daughter
• Archduke Joseph Franz Leopold (1799 – 1807), died in childhood, no issue
• Archduchess Marie Caroline (1801 – 1832), married Crown Prince (later King) Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, no issue
• Archduchess Maria Anna (1804 – 1858), unmarried, intellectually disabled like her eldest brother, Emperor Ferdinand I
• Archduke Johann Nepomuk (1805 – 1809), died in childhood
• Archduchess Amalie Theresa (born and died 1807)

While pregnant with her twelfth child, Franz Karl’s mother Maria Theresa fell ill with the lung infection pleurisy. Her doctor bled her and this caused premature labor. Maria Theresa gave birth to her twelfth child who lived only three days. On April 13, 1807, a week after giving birth, Maria Theresa died at the age of 34. Franz Karl was only 4 ½ years old when his mother died.

Emperor Franz I consoled his grief with visits to his uncle and aunt, Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Austria-Este and Maria Beatrice Ricciarda d’Este, and fell in love with their beautiful and literate daughter and his first cousin Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este who was 19-years-old, twenty years younger than Franz. Maria Ludovika and Franz were married on January 6, 1808. Their marriage was childless but Maria Ludovika adopted a very maternal attitude toward her stepchildren, Sadly, Maria Ludovica died of tuberculosis just eight years later. Franz Karl’s father married for the fourth time to Caroline Augusta of Bavaria and that marriage was also childless.

With the deaths of two of his three brothers in childhood, Franz Karl and his elder brother Ferdinand were the heirs to the throne. Franz Karl was somewhat feeble-minded but Ferdinand was developmentally delayed and suffered from epilepsy, hydrocephalus, neurological problems, and a speech impediment. Some thought he was incapable of reigning and his father Emperor Franz I considered removing him from the succession.

On 4 November 1824, Franz Karl married Princess Sophie of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. Despite Franz Karl’s issues, Sophie’s family agreed to the marriage because they thought that the disabilities of Franz Karl’s brother might cause Franz Karl to succeed to the throne. In 1831, Ferdinand married Maria Anna of Savoy, the daughter of King Vittorio Emanuele I of Sardinia. The marriage was childless and probably never consummated, but the couple remained devoted to each other.

Luckily, Franz Karl and Sophie had five children and so they provided the heirs to the throne:

• Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria (1830 – 1916), married Elisabeth of Bavaria, had three daughters and one son
• Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, Emperor of Mexico (1832 – 1867), married Princess Charlotte of Belgium, no children
• Karl Ludwig, Archduke of Austria (1833 – 1896), married (1) Princess Margaretha of Saxony,  no children (2) Princess Maria Annunziata of Bourbon-Two-Sicilies, had three sons and one daughter including Archduke Franz Ferdinand (3) Infanta Maria Theresia of Portugal, had two daughters
• Maria Anna, Archduchess of Austria (1835 – 1840), died in childhood from an epileptic seizure
• Ludwig Viktor, Archduke of Austria (1842 – 1919), unmarried

Franz Karl’s brother Ferdinand did succeed to the throne in 1835 upon the death of his father. His epilepsy caused him to have as many as twenty seizures per day, and this severely restricted his ability to rule with any effectiveness. His father’s will stipulated that Ferdinand’s uncle Archduke Ludwig be consulted on government matters and during Ferdinand’s reign a council called the Secret State Conference controlled the government.

Franz Karl had no ambitions of power and had never been interested in politics, the exact opposite of his wife Sophie. Sophie’s biggest ambition was to place her oldest son Franz Joseph on the Austrian throne. During the Revolutions of 1848, she persuaded her husband to give up his rights to the throne in favor of their son Franz Joseph, and on December 2, 1848, Emperor Ferdinand abdicated the throne in favor of his 18-year-old nephew. Franz Joseph was now Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Croatia, and King of Bohemia.

After his son Franz Joseph became Emperor of Austria, Franz Karl rarely participated in court life, appearing only on a few formal occasions. He preferred to live as a private person, enjoying carriage rides, long walks, and hunting. He spent his summers at the Kaiservilla (Imperial Villa) in the spa town of Bad Ischl, Austria, and became he became very interested in the local theater which was in ruins.  He arranged for it to be restored and used as a theater for himself and his friends, which made him extremely popular in Bad Ischl.

On March 8, 1878, in Vienna, Archduke Franz Karl died at the age of 75. He was buried at the Imperial Crypt beneath the Capuchin Church in Vienna. Franz Karl was the last Habsburg whose viscera were entombed at the Ducal Crypt of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and whose heart was placed in the Herzgruft of the Augustinian Church in Vienna. From 1960 – 1962, the New Vault was added to the Imperial Crypt to relieve overcrowding. Franz Karl’s remains and those of his wife Sophie were transferred to the West Wall of the New Vault.

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Works Cited

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• Flantzer, S. (2016). Franz I, Emperor of Austria. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/franz-i-emperor-of-austria/ [Accessed 5 Aug. 2018].
• Flantzer, S. (2013). Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily, Empress of Austria. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/june-6-daily-featured-royal-date/ [Accessed 5 Aug. 2018].
• It.wikipedia.org. (2018). Francesco Carlo d’Asburgo-Lorena. [online] Available at: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Carlo_d%27Asburgo-Lorena [Accessed 6 Aug. 2018].