Franz Josef von Österreich-Toskana

Archduke Franz Josef of Austria-Tuscany was born on 4 February 1905 in Vienna as the ninth child and fourth son of Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria, Prince of Tuscany, and Princess Blanca of Bourbon. His full baptismal name was Franz Josef Karl Leopold Blanka Adelgunde Ignatius Raphael Michael von Habsburg-Lothringen. On his father’s side, he belonged to the Tuscan line of the Habsburgs and descended from Emperor Leopold II. His father was Inspector General of the Austrian Artillery and commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment. His mother, born an Infanta of Spain, was the eldest daughter of Infante Carlos, Duke of Madrid, who had claimed the Spanish throne as Carlos VII. Franz Josef’s childhood coincided with the final years of the Habsburg monarchy. The family led a wealthy and privileged life on their various estates, particularly at the Palais Toskana in Vienna’s Wieden district and Schloss Wilhelminenberg on the eastern slope of the Gallitzinberg. The First World War changed his education, however. Unlike his three eldest brothers, he was not taught by private tutors but attended Stella Matutina, a Catholic boarding school for boys run by Jesuits in Feldkirch. There he shared a classroom with Prince Gaetan of Bourbon-Parma, the youngest brother of Empress Zita. With the end of the Habsburg monarchy, the family lost its Austrian properties and fortune after the republican government confiscated them. Franz Josef’s older brothers Rainer and Leopold remained in Austria and recognized the new republic. The rest of the family emigrated to Spain. In January 1919, they settled in Barcelona, where they remained for more than a decade. Franz Josef continued his education at the Catholic Bonanova boarding school. In 1926, he officially became a Spanish citizen and adopted the name Francisco José Carlos de Habsburgo y Borbón. He initially earned his living in unusual ways. In Barcelona, he worked as an automobile mechanic, studied at the Peritaje Industrial de Terraza and the Barcelona School of Agriculture, and obtained a pilot’s license from the Marine Flying School. Together with his brother, Archduke Anton, he bought a small airplane. The two brothers offered sightseeing flights over Barcelona. During the Spanish Civil War, Franz Josef returned to Austria. At first, he lived with his widowed mother and his unmarried siblings, Archduchess Dolores and Archduke Karl Pius. He later worked in advertising and moved to Paris, where he was employed in tourism promotion for two airlines. During a stay in Berlin, he fell in love with the Austrian émigré Marta Baumer. She was the daughter of the army officer Andreas Rudolf and Countess Anna di Locatelli, and had previously been married to Baron von Kahlera, a wealthy Czech sugar exporter. With his mother’s approval, Franz Josef married her in London on 22 July 1937. The marriage was morganatic, meaning that the wife and any children of the union did not inherit the rank of the dynastic house. The couple settled in France. During the Second World War, Franz Josef and his wife emigrated to the United States. They lived in Franconia, New Hampshire, where Franz Josef worked in agriculture and forestry. During this period, he assisted the writer Bertita Harding with her book “Lost Waltz: A Story of Exile,” which recounted the history of his family from the final years of the Habsburg monarchy through 1943. After the war, the couple returned to Europe and lived for periods in Madrid and in Berndorf, Lower Austria. Their childless marriage ended in divorce in 1954. From 1955 onward, Franz Josef lived permanently in Austria again and worked in forestry. On 21 January 1962, he married for a second time in Zurich: Maria Elena Seunig, Countess of Basus, the daughter of Egon Seunig and Nella Penelope Gialdini. They had one daughter, Patricia of Habsburg-Lorraine. Through the deaths of his brothers, Archduke Karl Pius, Prince of Tuscany, in 1953 and Archduke Leopold of Austria in 1958, Franz Josef inherited the Carlist claims to the Spanish throne. As a nephew of Infante Jaime, Duke of Madrid, he derived these claims through his maternal family. He assumed the title of Duke of Madrid and became involved in the Carlist movement. From 1956 until his death, he represented himself there under the name Francisco I. Archduke Franz Josef died on 9 May 1975 in Hernstein, Austria.