Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/524

 MARIA LOUISA LEOPOLDINE CAROLINE, of Austria, Duchess of Parma, was the eldest daughter of Francis the First, Emperor of Austria, by his second marriage, with Maria Theresa, daughter of the King of Naples. She was born in 1791, and April 1st., 1810, married Napoleon. Her son was born March 20th., 1811. When Napoleon left Paris to meet the allied army, he made her regent of the empire. On the 29th. of March, 1814, she was obliged to leave Paris; Napoleon abdicated his authority April 11th., and Maria Louisa went to meet her father at Rambouillet, who would not allow her to follow her husband, but sent her, with her son, to Schönbrunn. When Napoleon returned, from Elba, he wrote to his wife to join him, but his letters remained unanswered. In 1816 she entered upon the administration of the duchies of Panna, Piacienza, and Guastalla, secured to her by the treaty of Fontainebleau. While there she privately married her master of the horse, Colonel Neipperg, by whom she had several children. She was apparently amiable, but weak, self-indulgent, and surrounded by artful advisers, who kept her in the thraldom of sensuous pleasures till she lost the moral dignity of woman. What signified her royal blood and high station! She lived unhonoured, and died unwept.

MARIA, THERESA, of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Empress of Germany, born in 1717, was the eldest daughter of Charles the Sixth of Austria, Emperor of Germany. In 1724, Charles, by his will, known as the Pragmatic Sanction, regulated the order of succession in the house of Austria, declaring that in default of male issue, his eldest daughter should be heiress of all the Austrian dominions, and her children after her. The Pragmatic Sanction was guaranteed by the diet of the empire, and by all the German princes, and by several powers of Europe, but not by the Bourbons. In 1736, Maria Theresa married Francis of Lorraine, who, in 1737, became Grand-duke of Tuscany; and in 1739, Francis, with his consort, repaired to Florence.

Upon the death of Charles the Sixth, in 1740, the ruling powers of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, France, Spain, and Sardinia, agreed to dismember the Austrian monarchy, to portions of which each laid claim. Maria Theresa, however, went immediately to Vienna, and took possession of Austria, Bohemia, and her other German states; she then repaired to Presburg, took the oaths to the constitution of Hungary, And was solemnly proclaimed queen of that kingdom in 1741. Frederic of Prussia offered the young queen his friendship on condition of her giving up to him Silesia, which she resolutely refused, and he then invaded that province. The Elector of Bavaria, assisted by the French, also invaded Austria, and pushed his troops as far as Vienna. Maria Theresa took refuge in Presburg, where she convoked the Hungarian diet; and appearing in the midst of them with her infant son in her arms, she made a heart-stirring appeal to their loyalty. The Hungarian nobles, drawing their swords, unanimously exclaimed, "Moriamur pro Rege nostro, Maria Theresa!" "We will die for our queen, Maria Theresa." And they raised an army and drove the French and Bavarians out of the hereditary states. What would have been.