Maria Josepha von Österreich

Maria Josepha Benedikta Antonia Theresia Xaveria Philippine of Austria was born on December 8, 1699, in Vienna, as the eldest child of Emperor Joseph I and Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Her younger brother Leopold Joseph died in infancy, while her sister Maria Amalia later married the Bavarian elector and emperor Charles VII. Maria Josepha grew up under the strict Catholic education of her grandmother, Eleonore Magdalene Therese of the Palatinate. Together with her sister, she took part in pilgrimages. She learned Latin and French and later also acquired Polish. Her religious upbringing profoundly shaped her life; as an adult, she strongly supported the Catholic Church. While Maria Josepha was still a child, Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, sought to arrange her marriage to his son Frederick Augustus. He hoped the marriage would strengthen Saxony against the rising power of Prussia. At the same time, if the male line of the Habsburg dynasty became extinct, his son might have had good prospects of attaining the imperial crown. These dynastic expectations were connected with the Habsburg house law of 1703, which initially gave the daughters of Joseph I precedence over the daughters of his brother Charles. After ascending the throne, however, Charles VI revoked this arrangement through the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, thereby establishing the basis for the later succession of his daughter Maria Theresa. An important condition for Maria Josepha’s marriage was that Frederick Augustus had converted to the Catholic faith in Bologna in November 1712. The step was initially kept secret; he did not make it public in Vienna until 1717. After the engagement was announced on February 26, 1718, and Maria Josepha recognized the Pragmatic Sanction, renouncing her own claims to succession in the Austrian states, the couple married in Vienna on August 20, 1719. The subsequent celebrations in Dresden lasted for almost the entire month of September and included, among other events, banquets and opera performances. The young couple moved into the renovated Taschenberg Palace beside the Dresden Castle, which had previously belonged to Countess Cosel, a former mistress of Augustus the Strong. After Augustus the Strong died on February 1, 1733, Frederick Augustus became elector of Saxony as Frederick Augustus II. Maria Josepha consequently became electress. With the support of Austria and Russia, her husband prevailed in the struggle with Stanisław Leszczyński for the Polish throne. On January 17, 1734, he was crowned king of Poland in Kraków as Augustus III, and Maria Josepha became queen of Poland. In 1737, Anna of Russia admitted her to the Order of Saint Catherine as its first Catholic member. Their marriage was regarded as exemplary. Unlike his father, Frederick Augustus II had no relationships with other women. Maria Josepha devoted herself intensely to raising their many children and personally undertook this responsibility, although that was unusual at the time. She imposed strict rules on her offspring. Her two eldest sons both died young: one shortly after birth and the other in childhood. Their third son, Frederick Christian, therefore became heir to the throne. He had been born with a disability, and Maria Josepha blamed herself because she had taken part in a hunting excursion during her pregnancy and fallen from a horse. Nevertheless, Frederick Christian remained electoral prince. Maria Josepha was also politically active. She spoke Polish and frequently attended meetings of the Polish parliament. Over time, however, she lost influence over her husband, as he increasingly relied on Count Heinrich von Brühl and granted him ever greater power. After the death of Charles VI in 1740, Maria Josepha persuaded Frederick Augustus to assert his claim to the imperial crown, although Brühl advised against it. The attempt was unsuccessful. The electoral couple promoted art and music and shaped Saxony’s cultural life in the style of the Austrian and southern German Baroque. For Maria Josepha’s birthday in 1733, Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated the congratulatory cantata “Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten!” to the queen; he later incorporated much of its music into his Christmas Oratorio. In religious policy, Maria Josepha sought to promote Catholicism in predominantly Lutheran Saxony. She received support from the Jesuits, and her confessor was the Jesuit Anton Steyerer. She also supported the interests of the Catholic Church in Poland. In Dresden, the construction of the Imperial Chapel, consecrated in 1732, was undertaken on her initiative. In 1746, she had the Catholic Josephinen Institute built, providing poor girls with accommodation and instruction in needlework. A Catholic hospital foundation followed a year later. Together with her husband, she also commissioned the construction of the Catholic Court Church, carried out in Dresden between 1739 and 1755. When Frederick II of Prussia had Saxony occupied at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War in 1756, Frederick Augustus II and Count Brühl withdrew to Poland. Maria Josepha, by contrast, remained in Dresden with her eldest surviving son, Frederick Christian, and his family. Within the limits of her ability, she attempted to sustain Saxon resistance. Secret wartime correspondence was exchanged in Dresden. She also initially refused the Prussian general Friedrich von Wylich access to a secret archive located in three rooms of the royal palace. Only after he threatened, on the orders of the Prussian king, to use force did she have to hand over the keys. Her courageous conduct earned her the respect and affection of many Saxons toward the end of her life, although they had long viewed her with reserve because she was Catholic. Maria Josepha and Frederick Augustus II had fifteen children in total. They included Frederick Christian, who later became elector of Saxony, as well as Maria Amalia, Maria Anna, Maria Josepha Karolina, Maria Christina, Maria Elisabeth, and Maria Kunigunde. Several of their children entered into important dynastic marriages, including connections with the ruling houses of Parma, Bavaria, and France. Her sons Franz Xaver, Karl Christian, Albert Casimir, and Clemens Wenceslaus later assumed important political, military, or ecclesiastical positions. Frederick the Great had Maria Josepha closely watched during the Prussian occupation of Saxony. A little over a year after the invasion, and still separated from her husband, she died in Dresden on November 17, 1757, at the age of nearly 58, from a stroke. She was buried in the Wettin crypt of the Catholic Court Church. The martyrology of the Cistercian monastery of Heiligenkreuz commemorates her on November 17.