Princess Augusta Amalia Ludovika
of Bavaria was the second child and eldest daughter of Maximilian I Joseph,
King of Bavaria and his first wife, Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of
Hesse-Darmstadt. Augusta was born on June 21, 1788 in Strasbourg, a present-day
French city close to the German border. Augusta had three other full-blooded
surviving siblings, including: Ludwig I, King of Bavaria and Caroline Augusta, Empress of Austria. When Augusta was seven years old, her
mother (who had always had weak lungs) died on March 30, 1796 at the age of
thirty from tuberculosis. It wasn’t long before Augusta’s father married again a year later to
Caroline of Baden, the daughter of the Hereditary Prince of Baden.
It took some time for young
Augusta to accept her stepmother, who had eight children with the King (five of
which survived infancy), including Princess Ludovika, the mother of the five
famous Duchesses in Bavaria. As Augusta matured, she was praised for her beauty
and her gentle character. One contemporary described her as “very gentle and
very amiable, and, what was more, remarkably handsome. An indescribable charm emanated from this sweet young girl who was not
yet eighteen years of age. She was very tall, well shaped and as slender as a
nymph. She was gifted with a natural dignity which made everybody respect her;
her face was more handsome than pretty, and her complexion was remarkably
fresh, although perhaps a trifle highly-coloured. But the most pleasing thing
about her was the air of kindness which won the love of everybody who had the
honour of her acquaintance. These advantages were not all natural; education
had done much for her; she had been brought up with extreme simplicity, and she
always dressed remarkably plainly."
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| Princess Augusta of Bavaria (Andrea Appiani, 1806-07) |
Her father initially betrothed
her to her stepmother’s youngest brother, the future Charles, Grand Duke of
Baden. When the pair met, it was clear that the two were besotted with each
other and were looking forward to their wedding day but things changed dramatically
when the engagement was abruptly called off by the Emperor of France, Napoleon
Bonaparte. Napoleon was searching for a respectable spouse for his stepson,
Eugene de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, and he was interested in matching
Eugene with a Bavarian princess. When Napoleon came to Munich in search of the
right Bavarian lady, he saw the seventeen year-old Augusta and was instantly
enchanted by her beauty. He thought that this “pretty creature”, as he
described Augusta in a letter to his brother, was as perfection in the form of
a young woman and the right fit for Eugene. When Napoleon asked Augusta’s
father to break off his daughter’s engagement so she could marry Eugene, he was
very tentative at first since he knew of his daughter’s love for Charles. But
when Napoleon sweetened the deal with the promise of making Bavaria a kingdom
and Maximilian its king (at this time, Bavaria was just an electorate and
Maximilian was the Elector), he agreed.
On Christmas Day of the year
1805, Augusta received a letter from her father, pleading with her to marry
Eugene and detach herself from her beloved Charles. He wrote that although he
knew how devastated she would be to have to give up her betrothed, she had to
keep in mind what was best for her home, as it would not be wise to refuse the
most powerful man in Europe at the time. Augusta, who broke into tears upon
reading the letter, knew she had no choice but to do her duty as a daughter and
marry Eugene. She wrote an poignant parting letter to Charles, in which her
devastation and grief, as well as her sense of commitment to her father, is
clear in her words: “My pain is indescribably great, but I must obey the
command of my father, and the will of my country…”
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| Eugene de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy (Andrea Appiani, 1810) |
As soon as a tearful Augusta
agreed to the match, Napoleon wasted no time in arranging the preparations for
the wedding. While Augusta’s father was overjoyed that his daughter had
consented to the union because of the benefits Bavaria would gain, her
stepmother, Caroline of Baden, was not pleased at all with the match. She had an
extreme dislike for Napoleon and his rule, not to mention the fact that
Augusta’s former betrothed was her jilted little brother. The man in question,
Charles, was played by Napoleon a second time when the French Emperor quickly
arranged a marriage between his adopted daughter, Stéphanie de Beauharnais, and
Charles not long after Charles received the heartbreaking news of his broken
engagement with Augusta.
While the wedding ceremony was
being arranged, Napoleon sent for Eugene to leave Milan for Munich so he could
meet his lovely bride (he even told him to shave off his whiskers to make a
better impression on Augusta). When the couple met not long before the wedding,
Augusta’s grief over Charles was forgotten. It was love at first sight for both
Eugene and Augusta, a love which would only further cement itself in both
partners in the years to come. Eugene shared his betrothed’s gentle nature and was
described as a modest, prudent man with a talent for battle and politics. The
two were officially married on January 14, 1806 in Munich, the bride being just
seventeen and the groom seven years her senior. Two days before the marriage,
Napoleon had adopted Eugene, his stepson, as his own son and named him “Eugene
Napoleon of France”. Two days after the ceremony, the love-struck couple left
for their new home of Italy while the wedding celebrations continued in Bavaria
for weeks. Napoleon stayed true to his word and thirteen days before the
marriage, he made Augusta’s father the King of Bavaria, raising its status from
that of an electorate to a royal kingdom. He could not be more pleased with the
fact that Augusta and Eugene had fallen in love and her adored his new
daughter-in-law, who he addressed as his own daughter, immensely.
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| Princess Augusta of Bavaria (François Gérard, 1800-15) |
Eugene and Augusta, now the Vicereine
of Italy, were given a warm welcome by the people of Milan once they arrived.
Eugene was already a popular leader and his new wife only boosted his
popularity amongst the people, who adored her good-natured and amiable
personality. The couple only fell more in love with each other as their
marriage lengthened. Both become entirely devoted to one another through mutual
respect, trust, and admiration. A year into the marriage, Augusta gave birth to
her first child – a daughter named Princess Joséphine after her paternal
grandmother by Napoleon’s request. In their eighteen years of marriage, Augusta
ultimately had a total of seven children with her husband, five daughters and
two sons, with just one daughter dying in infancy.
Augusta and Eugene’s children:
- Princess Joséphine of Leuchtenberg (1807-1876) married: Oscar I, King of Sweden and Norway – had issue
- Princess Eugénie de Beauharnais (1808-1847) married: Constantine, Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen – no issue
- Prince Auguste de Beauharnais, 2nd Duke of Leuchtenberg (1810-1835) married: Maria II, Queen of Portugal – no issue
- Princess Amélie of Leuchtenberg (1812-1873) married: Pedro I and IV, Emperor of Brazil and King of Portugal – had issue
- Princess Théodolinde de Beauharnais (1814-1857) married: Wilhelm, Duke of Urach – had issue
- Princess Carolina de Beauharnais (1816) died in infancy
- Prince Maximilian de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg (1817-1852) married: Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia – had issue
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| Augusta of Bavaria, Duchess of Lecuchtenberg (Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820) |
Things took a turn for the worst
in 1814 when Napoleon was forced to abdicate his crown and Milan teetered on
the brink of revolution. Eugene tried everything to prevent an uprising but
despite his efforts, he had to give up his position in Italy and leave the
country with his family. They fled to Munich to be welcomed by Augusta’s father
and relatives, who treated the couple and their children with great kindness.
Though Eugene and Augusta had lost their home and power in Italy, they managed
to create a new, happy life for their young family in Augusta’s native land. In
1817, King Maximilian gave the couple the state of Eichstätt and named them the
Duke and Duchess of Leuchtenberg. With their new lands and titles, they had a
palace built for them called the Leuchtenberg Palace where they would reside
for the rest of their lives raising their much-loved offspring.
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| Augusta's eldest daughter - Josephine, Crown Princess of Sweden (Fredric Westin, 1825) |
On June 19, 1823, the couple’s
eldest daughter, Princess Joséphine (who held the titles of Princess of Bologna
and Duchess of Galliera), made an advantageous marriage to the Crown Prince of
Sweden and Norway, the future King Oscar I. Coincidently enough, Oscar was the
son of Napoleon’s old love, Queen Désirée Clary. Right after the wedding,
Eugene suffered an attack of apoplexy and was constricted to his bed for some
time. He recovered, much to the relief of his wife, but just a month later he
had yet another attack that was far more severe than the first. His health
began to fall apart completely and Augusta, who remained loyal to the end,
cared for him unfailingly until he died on February 21, 1824 at the age of
forty-two.
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| Augusta's second daughter - Eugénie de Beauharnais (Joseph Karl Stieler, 1826) |
Augusta and Eugene’s eldest child, Queen Joséphine, had five children with her husband, four sons and one daughter, including: King Charles XV and IV of Sweden and Norway and King Oscar II of Sweden. Augusta’s eldest son, Auguste, became the Duke of Leuchtenberg and Santa Cruz, as well as the 2nd Prince of Eichstätt. He made an expedient marriage to Queen Maria II of Portugal, becoming the Prince Consort, but the marriage only lasted for two months before his unexpected death. Princess Amélie became an Empress and Queen when she became the second wife of Pedro I and IV, Emperor of Brazil and King of Portugal, who was the father of Maria II of Portugal by his first marriage. The couple had just one daughter together before Pedro’s early death five years after the wedding. Augusta’s youngest child, Prince Maximilian, became the 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg after his brother’s death and married Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, the first cousin of Emperor Napoleon III of the French and Francis Joseph I of Austria. They had seven children together, four sons and three daughters, with just one daughter dying in infancy.
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| Augusta's youngest daughters (left to right) - Amélie of Leuchtenberg and Théodolinde de Beauharnais |
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