von Österreich

Marie-Jeanne-Gabrielle Josephe Antoinette of Austria was born on 4 February 1750 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. She was the eleventh child and eighth daughter of Emperor Francis I Stephen of Lorraine and Empress and Queen Maria Theresa. Her birth came after the War of the Austrian Succession, during which Maria Theresa had defended her hereditary lands with great perseverance and secured her husband’s election as emperor. As a result, she gained considerable esteem throughout Europe. Like her many siblings, Marie-Jeanne grew up in the so-called Kindskammer. She was especially close to her sister Maria Josepha, who was born in 1751 and was one year younger. The two girls were educated together by the same tutors and teachers. Her education was comprehensive for a member of the Habsburg court. From the age of three, Marie-Jeanne studied Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, German and English, as well as history, geography, surveying, mathematics and theology. She also received training in the arts. While her brothers learned to play various instruments, Marie-Jeanne and her sisters were taught singing and dancing. Marie-Jeanne was said to have excelled in both subjects and performed in singing presentations. She was also interested in the theatre. A theatre was built specifically at Schönbrunn Palace, where Marie-Jeanne and her siblings frequently presented musical and dramatic performances. Contemporaries described her and Maria Josepha as diligent students who completed their lessons well and took part enthusiastically in the court’s numerous festivities. The family’s political environment also shaped Marie-Jeanne’s life. The Seven Years’ War, in which Austria had unsuccessfully attempted to reconquer Silesia, led to a rapprochement between the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and the House of Bourbon. As part of this political connection, Marie-Jeanne’s elder brother Joseph, heir to the throne, married Princess Maria Isabella of Bourbon-Parma in 1760. In the same context, Marie-Jeanne was betrothed, despite her young age, to Ferdinand IV, King of Naples. Ferdinand was one year younger than she was. Marie-Amalia of Austria had initially also been considered for the match. However, the groom’s father, Charles III of Spain, rejected her because she was five years older than Ferdinand and therefore, in his view, too old for the planned marriage. The choice consequently fell on Marie-Jeanne. The engagement was never followed by a wedding. During the second half of the eighteenth century, smallpox claimed numerous victims in the Holy Roman Empire and throughout Europe. Contemporary reports illustrate how widespread and feared the disease was in Vienna: smallpox dominated conversation in the city, and a large proportion of deceased children had died from it. The Habsburg family was not spared. Marie-Jeanne’s brother Charles died of smallpox in 1761 at the age of sixteen. The following year, Marie-Jeanne herself fell ill. She died on 23 December 1762, aged only twelve, from the effects of the disease. Her final hours were witnessed by her sister-in-law, Maria Isabella of Bourbon-Parma. Maria Theresa found comfort in the thought that her daughter had still been able to make a full confession to a Catholic priest. In a letter to her daughter Maria Christine, she described the dying girl’s remorse and devotion and entrusted her fate confidently to God. After Marie-Jeanne’s death, her younger sister Maria Josepha was considered a possible future Queen of Naples. However, she too died in 1767. In the end, Maria Carolina of Austria married Ferdinand IV. Marie-Jeanne’s early death was therefore not only a personal loss for her family but also altered the dynastic marriage plans of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The repeated deaths of several children from smallpox eventually convinced Maria Theresa to protect her younger children through variolation, an early form of smallpox vaccination. This decision contributed to the further spread of variolation in Austria. Marie-Jeanne was remembered as a musically and theatrically gifted archduchess whose life was shaped by her family’s dynastic politics and cut tragically short by a disease that was still largely beyond control.