Marie in Bavaria

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Marie Sophie Amalie, portrait around 1860

Marie Sophie Amalie, Duchess in Bavaria (born October 4, 1841 in Possenhofen , † January 19, 1925 in Munich ) came from the line of the dukes in Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach and was the last queen of the two Sicilies .

Life

Duchess Marie in Bavaria, 1859
Marie with her husband Franz II.
Queen Marie defending Gaeta Fortress (painting by Piloty )
Marie in Sicilian costume
Seven of Max Joseph's eight surviving children in Bavaria, Marie on the far right. Painting by Joseph Karl Stieler , 1854.

Marie was the daughter of Duke Max Joseph in Bavaria and his wife Ludovika von Bayern , i.e. a sister of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth and sister-in-law of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Her birth was a sudden birth; she was almost in the garden at noon on October 4, 1841 was born in Possenhofen Castle . Just in time, her mother made it into the parlor on the first floor of the castle, where the birth took place. She grew up with her siblings - three brothers and four sisters - at Possenhofen Castle and in Munich.

At the age of 17, on January 8, 1859, she was married to Crown Prince Franz (1836-1894), the eldest son of King Ferdinand II. , In the absence of the bridegroom in Munich, with a man whom she could only see from a beautiful picture that she had been given by her future husband in Munich.

queen

She traveled via Trieste to Bari to her new home, where the actual wedding took place on February 3, 1859. Marie was not allowed to take anything from her old life with her, she felt alone in a foreign country. When she arrived in Sicily, her father-in-law was dying. Her husband Franz II was to succeed the throne, but was incapable of governing and was more concerned with church literature. The government took over after the death of King Franz 'stepmother Maria Theresa von Habsburg , while Marie was only formally queen. An important pillar of the young royal couple at that time was the Swiss general Felix von Schumacher , adjutant of Ferdinand II's wing and later defender of Gaeta . Pope Pius IX was already under his protection during the revolution . and Leopold II , Grand Duke of Tuscany .

The radical unification fighters Giuseppe Garibaldi and Francesco Crispi planned, with the help of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, to wrest power from the Neapolitan royal family , which belonged to the Bourbons, and to incorporate their territory into the future Italian national state . Army and volunteers joined Garibaldi, and Naples was captured. Queen Marie implored her sister and brother-in-law in Vienna for military help; but Austria was defeated in the Sardinian War and could not help.

Marie and Franz found refuge with General von Schumacher in the fortress of Gaeta, taking only 66 reliquaries and the ashes of St. Iasonia with them, as Franz assumed that the situation would calm down within a few days. But eventually Gaeta was shot at and bombed as well. Hunger and epidemics in the castle made defense difficult; Franz finally wanted to resign and go into exile, but Marie was determined to hold out. She did everything in her power to stand by the fighting soldiers, divided supplies, cared for the wounded and encouraged the few loyal troops (four Swiss battalions and remnants of the Neapolitan army) to continue fighting. Finally, armed with a rifle, she placed herself on the battlements of the fortress to help defend it. An impressive painting by the history painter Carl Theodor von Piloty in Bad Kreuth shows how she, accompanied by General Felix von Schumacher, visits the batteries in extreme danger.

The ruling couple remained in their declining kingdom until the last minute, until there was no other way out and Gaeta surrendered in February 1861. Franz signed the surrender on February 13, 1861. On behalf of Cavour , the royal couple was allowed an honorable exit, as the enemies were impressed by the bravery of the only 19-year-old queen. The royal couple traveled into exile in Rome on a French ship and accompanied by General Felix von Schumacher, where they initially found refuge in the Vatican . The fortress was then stormed and taken.

Throughout Europe, the brave attitude, which was not at all appropriate for a princess, aroused Marie's attention and admiration; the conservatives, especially the high nobility , quickly saw her as a “new star in the sky of legitimism ”: Count Moritz zu Bentheim-Tecklenburg wrote “To Naples Queen” on her, and even Franz Grillparzer sang about her in an epigram:

Stand firm as Gaeta's rock,
Your name's glory will not perish.
Trust in god! you will see her again.

And even after seventy years she praised Benedetto Croce with the words:

“E la regina, rampollo della non meno generosa stirpe dei Wittelsbach, da margravi e duchi diventati re di Baviera, cinti di aureola guerriera e di più recente aureola artistica, poetica e romantica, la regina Maria Sofia, degna di quello sposo, che sugli spalti di Gaeta combatteva quasi semplice soldato: essa, imperterrita tra il piovere delle bombe, suora di carità e amazzone ad una, evocante le più eroiche figure femminili della storia, pia e guerriera come la fanciulla d'Orléans ”

“And the Queen, offspring of the no less noble House of Wittelsbach, of margraves and dukes who had become kings of Bavaria, radiated from war fame and only young artistic, poetic, romantic fame, Queen Marie Sophie - she was worthy of this husband, who fought like a simple soldier on the bastions of Gaëta: fearless in the smoke of the grenades, nurse and Amazon in one, she conjured up the greatest heroines in history, pious and warlike like the Maid of Orléans . "

In exile

After the deposition of the royal couple in Sicily, Marie traveled through Europe, usually accompanied by her sister Mathilde . She continuously produced scandals, swam naked in the sea in Ostia, smoked cigarillos in public. During her time in Rome, Marie became pregnant with an illegitimate child. In order to avoid a public scandal, she gave health reasons to urgently visit her parents' house in Possenhofen. The family council decided that Marie should retire to the Ursuline convent in Augsburg, where she gave birth to a daughter in November 1862, who was passed on to foster parents soon after the birth.

Countess Marie Larisch , a niece of the queen, spread the story many years later that the child's father was a Belgian officer of the papal guard named Count Armand de Lavaÿss. Although the Larisch biographer Brigitte Sokop was able to permanently refute this claim, she has remained extremely persistent in research to this day. In addition to other sound arguments that shed light on the origins of Marie Larisch's story in detail, Sokop was able to prove that there is no aristocratic family de Lavaÿss in Belgium or has ever existed. The Vatican Archives also found no evidence of an officer of that name in its files. A possible candidate for paternity of the child may include: a. the Spanish envoy Salvador Bermúdez de Castro, Marchese di Lema, who was often seen in the company of the Neapolitan royal couple and who was also said to have had an affair with Marie's sister Mathilde Countess Trani.

At the encouragement of her family, Marie decided to confess everything to her husband. After a discussion, the couple's relationship seemed to have improved; Franz had an operation carried out so that he could finally consummate the marriage and Marie gave birth to another daughter, this time from her husband. However, the child died after a few weeks. Franz and Marie left Italy and moved to France.

An avid hunter, she bought a hunting lodge in England. She invited the imperial sister Sisi to one of her riding hunts; Since she was a better and more elegant rider, she stole the show from Marie, whereupon the jealous Marie then told Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary with warmth that his mother had a relationship with her forerunner, Captain Bay Middleton . The gossip reached the ears of the Empress, who broke up with her sister and avoided her. The two never reconciled.

After the First World War , Marie returned to Munich, where she died in 1925. She was buried next to her husband and daughter in Rome. In 1984 the remains were transferred to the burial place of the Sicilian Bourbon Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples.

progeny

  • illegitimate daughter (born November 24, 1862)
  • Maria Christina Pia (7 December 1869 - 28 March 1870) from her marriage to Franz II.

Movie

Sisi's famous siblings, BR film documentary by Bernhard Graf , 2016

literature

Biographies

Others

Web links

Commons : Marie in Bayern  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christian Sepp: Ludovika. Sisi's mother and her century . Munich 2019, p. 189
  2. ↑ Gollwitzer, p. 219.
  3. ↑ Gollwitzer, p. 220.
  4. ↑ Grillparzer, Complete Works . Hanser, Munich 1960-65, Volume 1, p. 566.
  5. ↑ Croce: Uomini e cose della vecchia Italia. Series seconda . Laterza, Rome / Bari 1927, p. 312.
  6. ↑ Brigitte Sokop: That Countess Larisch . 3. Revised version. Vienna / Cologne / Weimar, pp. 25–26, 479–480
predecessor Office Successor
Maria Theresia Isabella of Austria Queen of the Two Sicilies
1859–1860 		---


personal data
SURNAME Bavaria, Marie in
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bavaria, Marie Sophie Amalie Duchess in
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duchess in Bavaria, Queen of both Sicilies and Naples, "The heroine of Gaeta"
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Possenhofen , Germany
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1925
Place of death Munich , Germany