On September 9, 1828 in the town of Tegernsee, the young Maximilian Joseph (1808-1888), future Duke in Bavaria, married his first cousin once removed, Princess Ludovika of Bavaria (1808-1892). Maximilian Joseph, who was nineteen at the time of his marriage, was the only son of Duke Pius August in Bavaria and his wife, Princess Amélie Louise of Arenberg. His new wife, Princess Ludovika, was the sixth child of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his second wife, Karoline of Baden. She was also nineteen when the marriage took place. Born Marie Ludovika Wilhelmine, her siblings included: Elisabeth Ludovika, Queen of Prussia, Amalie Auguste, Queen of Saxony, Sophie, Archduchess of Austria, and Marie Anna, another Queen of Saxony. Maximilian Joseph and Princess Ludovika became the Duke and Duchess in Bavaria in 1837 after the death of Maximilian Joseph’s father. Though Ludovika had a successful marriage (in terms of producing children) with Maximilian Joseph, she was always frustrated that she was the only one amongst her sisters who didn’t marry a monarch or a prince with a title. Instead, she had married a eccentric, childish duke who loved the circus and traveled for long periods of time just to dodge his responsibilities. But she was a very determined woman and she vowed that because she hadn’t been able to marry a member of royalty, her daughters would not share the same fate. As soon as her daughters, who were all famous for their beauty, were old enough for marriage, she was determined to marry them into the royal houses of Europe.
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| Engagement Portrait of Princess Ludovika of Bavaria and Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavria (Joseph Stieler, 1828) |
Princess Ludovika and Maximilian Joseph
had a total of ten children, five daughters and five sons, but one son died in
infancy and another son was stillborn. All of her daughters either married into
a royal European house or a noble, aristocratic family.
* Click each daughter's name to read their individual biographies *
The Daughters:
Helene Caroline Therese
(1834-1890) was the eldest daughter of Maximilian Joseph and Princess Ludovika.
A pious and attractive woman, she was first suggested as a bride for her first
cousin, the young Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, but he supposed fiancée fell
in love with Helene’s younger and astonishingly beautiful sister, Elisabeth,
instead. So, in 1858, she married the rich Maximilian Anton Lamoral, Hereditary
Prince of Thurn and Taxis. The couple had a very happy marriage and produced four
children. Out of all of Princess Ludovika and Duke Maximilian Joseph's daughters, Helene had arguably the happiest life.
Elisabeth
Amalie Eugenie (1837-1898), known more commonly as “Sisi”, is undoubtedly the
most famous of Maximilian Joseph and Princess Ludovika’s daughters. She is best
known for her stunning features and her marriage to Franz Joseph I, Emperor of
Austria and King of Hungary. Despite her lavish lifestyle as a queen, she had
an unhappy and grim life in the Austrian court due to poor relations with her
husband and his family. She had four children, of which only three survived
infancy. Her obsession with maintaining her beauty and slim figure along with her unique beauty and exercise regimes became legendary. Elisabeth was the longest serving Empress Consort of Austria and she
sat on the throne beside her husband for forty-four years before she met her
end in a random assassination by an Italian anarchist.
Maria Sophie
Marie Sophie Amalie (1841-1925)
shared her sisters’ beauty and was married at a young age in a political
arrangement to Francis II, Crown Prince of Naples and Duke of Calabria, the
eldest son of Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies. Less than a year after her marriage, Marie’s husband became
the King of the Two Sicilies and she his Queen Consort. She earned the
reputation of a “warrior queen” due to her bravery in the Expedition of the
Thousand, a conflict where revolutionary republicans overthrew the monarchy of
the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Maria Sophie (after her marriage, she took the
Italian name “Maria”) spent most of her life in exile and, although she had one
daughter who died in infancy with her husband, she also had an illegitimate
daughter with her lover, an officer of the papal guard. Tragically, Maria
Sophie was forced to give up her daughter on the day of her birth and never saw
her again.
Mathilde
Mathilde Ludovika (1843-1925) was
a passionate young woman who married Lodovico, Count of Trani, the heir
presumptive of the throne of the Two Sicilies, in 1861. Lodovico was the
younger half-brother of Francis II, King of the Two Sicilies, the husband of
Mathilde’s older sister – Marie Sophie. Mathilde, the Countess of Trani, had
only one daughter with her husband but she supposedly had an affair with a
Spanish diplomat in the early years of her marriage. As a result of the alleged
affair, she had an illegitimate daughter who she never saw again after the day
of her birth.
Sophie Charlotte Augustine
(1847-1897) was the youngest daughter of Maximilian Joseph and Princess
Ludovika, as well as the favorite sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. She
was engaged to her cousin, the homosexual King Ludwig II of Bavaria, for a few
months in 1867 but the marriage was called off when Ludwig discovered that his
bride had fallen in love with a court photographer. Instead, she married Prince
Ferdinand, Duke of Alençon, a grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of France as
well as the first cousin of Queen Victoria, in 1868. The couple had a happy
marriage together and had two children, a daughter and a son, before Sophie
Charlotte tragically died in a fire in Paris.
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