Maria Carolina of Habsburg-Lorraine, the Austrian Queen of Naples

Intro

Brave and proud, superstitious and arrogant but also kind and passionate, Maria Carolina (1752-1814) was the last surviving daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria, and Queen of Naples and Sicily as wife of King Ferdinand IV.

As de facto ruler of her husband’s kingdoms, Maria Carolina oversaw the enactment of many reforms, including the revocation of the ban on Freemasonry, the expansion of the navy under her favourite, Sir John Acton, and the expulsion of Spanish influence. She was an advocate of enlightened absolutism until the advent of the French Revolution, when she made Naples a police state to prevent its ideas from taking hold.

Born Archduchess of Austria, the 13th child of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Franz I, Maria Carolina married Ferdinand as part of Austria’s alliance with Spain, of which Ferdinand’s father was king. After the birth of a male heir in 1775, Maria Carolina was admitted to the Privy Council. Thereafter, she ruled it until 1812, when she was sent back to Wien.

Maria Carolina promoted Naples as a centre of the arts. Abhorring the way the French treated their queen, her beloved sister Marie Antoinette, she had Naples allied with Britain and Austria during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. Following a failed Neapolitan invasion of French-occupied Rome, she fled to Sicily with her husband in December 1798. A month later the Neapolitan Republic was proclaimed, which repudiated Bourbon rule in Naples for six months. Deposed as Queen of Naples for the second time by French forces in 1806, Maria Carolina died in Wien in 1814.

Early years

Maria Carolina of Austria was born on 13 August 1752 as the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Franz of Lorraine. She was the third daughter to bear this name, as two older sisters with the same name died in infancy.

Her early years were spent in her parents’ palaces, the Hofburg, Schönbrunn and Laxenburg. Especially at Laxenburg, the atmosphere was free of rank and titles and the rules of protocol were more relaxed. Maria Carolina was close in age to her sister Maria Antonia (the future Marie Antoinette of France), born in 1755, and the two were practically raised as twins.

Maria Carolina was not considered as beautiful as Maria Antonia, and was described as ‘large, rawboned and bulky…with a pinched face and a severe expression’. With her stubborn character, Maria Carolina was a source of frustration for her mother. The close friendship with Maria Antonia would continue even after they were both married and Maria Theresa would often threaten to separate them if they did not behave well.

Maria Carolina studied Latin and Greek and was fluent in German, French and Spanish. She spent much of her time between the theatre, reading and music.

Fate

As smallpox raged in the family in October 1767, Maria Theresa’s unmarried daughters had their fate sealed. Maria Elisabeth, horribly disfigured by the disease, was now unfit for marriage. The 16-year-old Maria Josephine would have been the next Queen of Naples but a few days before her departure she died of smallpox. There was therefore a need for a new bride to be sent to Naples and Maria Carolina was the one.

The young archduchess feared marriage to King Ferdinand IV of Naples and fought tooth and nail with her mother to prevent the marriage. It was to no avail. Their marriage by proxy took place on 7 April 1768 in the Augustinian Church in Wien. She left for Naples the same afternoon. When the carriage pulled away, Maria Carolina jumped out at the last second and ran to Maria Antonia in ‘a series of passionate, tearful embraces‘.

Before marrying, Maria Theresa had advised her to adhere to four basic principles: gradual interest in the affairs of state, full agreement with her husband, friendship with her father-in-law Charles, King of Spain, and, finally, not to talk about her native country all the time and avoid making comparisons between the different customs.

The union between Maria Carolina and Ferdinand was indeed a meeting of two completely different worlds: for the young Austrian archduchess, who had grown up in comfort and luxury, it was a trauma to have to marry the king of Naples who, with all his court, had a much more rustic concept of nobility. In a letter to her former governess in Wien, she summed up her first impression as follows: ‘My husband is very ugly‘. Her mother later tried to reassure her young daughter by writing: ‘Although an ugly prince, he is not absolutely repulsive…at least he does not stink‘.

Later, Maria Carolina described her wedding night as so horrible that she thought of suicide. ‘One suffers real martyrdom, which is all the greater because one must pretend outwardly to be happy. I would rather die than endure again what I had to suffer. If religion had not said to me: “Think about God,” I would have killed myself rather than live as I did live for eight days. It was like hell, and I often wished to die.’

Maria Carolina soon learned to dominate her husband. Later she would say: ‘I must tell you and confess that I don’t love him except from duty‘.

The queen tried to bring her husband closer to art and culture, for example by trying to get him interested in the operas staged at the San Carlo theatre, but he was bored and would order plates of spaghetti and start eating them with his hands, triggering applause and laughter. One evening, while Carolina entertained the guests by singing on the harpsichord, Ferdinand begged the men to keep him company while he sat on the pot and struck up a long conversation with them while he did his needs!

Children

A few years passed before Maria Carolina became pregnant. On 6 June 1772 she gave birth to her first child, a girl who took the name of the Empress. The disappointment over the sex of the newborn child was great. ‘After waiting some years for the much-desired heir; Maria Carolina gave birth to a lovely infant; but alas! The perverse little creature was of the wrong sex.’.

By autumn Maria Carolina was pregnant again and in the course of the marriage they would have 18 children, but only seven would live to adulthood, including the successor, Francis I, the last Empress of the Holy Roman Empire Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily, a Grand Duchess of Tuscany, the last Queen of France Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily and a Princess of Asturias.

We could say that Maria Carolina, despite her growing interest in politics, was a loving, attentive and caring mother with regard to the health and education of her children. She knew their strengths and weaknesses, took personal care of their nutrition, games, clothing and studies.

The queen wanted her children to have high ethical and moral principles, honesty and generosity, and for this reason the choice of nurses and governesses was crucial to her.

Disasters

Between deliveries, Maria Carolina brought down the despotic prime minister Bernardo Tanucci and diminished Spanish influence in Naples. However, the growing Austrian influences did not make her popular at all.

1783 was a catastrophic year. A strong earthquake hit the densely populated areas of Calabria and Sicily, which were devastated. Maria Carolina emptied the royal bank accounts to help those affected by the disaster.

The queen started to build a strong navy for Naples, as she no longer wanted to rely on support from Spain. For this, she enlisted the help of Sir John Acton, an English nobleman and officer in the Tuscan navy. She became so dependent on Sir John that rumours soon began to circulate that the two were lovers. It was never proven but Ferdinand believed it, so much so that he shouted to Maria Carolina: ‘I am trying to surprise you together. I will kill you both, and have your bodies thrown out of the windows of the palace!“

In 1791 she became grandmother to her favourite granddaughter, as her eldest daughter Maria Theresa gave birth to Archduchess Marie Louise, the future Empress of France and wife of Napoleon. In the following two years Maria Carolina had her last two children, mother and grandmother at the same time!

The outbreak of the French Revolution marked the psychic collapse of Maria Carolina, especially after the tragic executions of her sister Marie Antoinette and her husband King Louis XVI. The only survivor of the family, their daughter Maria Theresa would later write to her aunt: ‘My mother often spoke of you…She loved you more than all her other sisters.‘

Thus, when the French Revolution began to destabilise Europe, Naples also became feverish. Soon Maria Carolina became paranoid and suspicious, putting down in blood any riots and protests. She became an authoritarian and harsh woman, unforgivable in her fear of losing everything she had built.

Maria Carolina was an opponent of the French Revolution but also a bitter enemy of Napoleon afterwards. ‘I am not and never shall be on good terms with the French… I shall always regard them as the murderers of my sister and the royal family‘.

On 29 November 1798, the Neapolitan army was destroyed in an attempt to liberate Rome. Ferdinand fled the city in fear of being captured. The attempted liberation of Rome was indeed in violation of the Treaty of Brescia and Napoleon ordered the invasion of Naples. The royal family was advised to flee immediately but the people surrounded the palace.

Eventually, they managed to escape through a secret passage under the palace. They reached the harbour and made their way to Palermo. If all this were not tragic enough, Maria Carolina’s young son Albert became seasick and dehydrated. For a day he suffered ‘heart-rendering convulsions‘ and died on Christmas Day 1798. Naples fell to the French before the end of December.

In June 1799, they were reinstated to the throne on the condition of granting amnesty to those who had collaborated with the French, but Maria Carolina and Ferdinand launched a devastating attack on the republicans. Out of ‘8,000 political prisoners 105 were condemned to death, only six of whom were reprieved, 222 were condemned life imprisonment, 322 to shorter terms, 288 to deportation and 67 to exile.‘

Fearing for the safety of her family, Maria Carolina hired food tasters and exchanged the flats of the royal family members on a daily basis.

In June 1800, Maria Carolina travelled with her three unmarried daughters and her youngest son Leopold through Livorno, Florence, Trieste and Laibach to Wien, where she arrived two months later. She stayed two years in her homeland, where she arranged advantageous marriages for her children.

She returned to Naples in August 1802. She no longer dominated her husband and her political influence had completely diminished. Tragedy struck in September, when her daughter Maria Luisa died after giving birth to her sixth child. She was buried in the Imperial Crypt in Wien with her baby wrapped in her arms.

Later years

In 1803, a second invasion by the French loomed and Maria Carolina appealed to Napoleon himself, without success. It was not until 1806 that the actual invasion took place. While her husband fled, Maria Carolina stayed behind to organise the resistance movement.

Napoleon did not hesitate to conquer Naples and installed first his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne and four years later his brother-in-law Joachim Murat. The royal family was forced to flee to Sicily in February 1806.

In their exile, they counted on the help of Great Britain, but after the death of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, the British developed a growing aversion to Maria Carolina. Finally, in 1813, her husband essentially (but not officially) abdicated and appointed her son Francis as regent. This deprived her of any political influence and the queen was forced to leave Sicily and return to Wien with only her son Leopold.

She settled in Hetzendorf Castle and died suddenly on 8 September 1814 of a stroke. She was unable to see the defeat of her great enemy Napoleon or even the Restoration that would lead to the Bourbons reigning over Naples again.

For further reading

Cinzia Recca, The Diary of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples, 1781-1785, 2018

Harold Acton, The Bourbons of Naples (1734-1825), 2011