My Life

On September 22nd, 1808, Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria died in the city of Linz. She was the 6th child and 5th daughter of Maria Theresa and Francis I. Nicknamed Liesl, she was widely considered to be the most beautiful of her many sisters. Despite expecations for an advantageous marriage, the complications of the Seven Years War and a bout of smallpox that scarred her face meant that she would never marry.

Althought she was appointed Cannoness of a convent by her mother, she continued to live at the Imperial Court. After Maria Theresa’s death, she and her sisters were asked to leave by their brother Joseph II, who wanted to break up what he called his sisters’ “Women’s Republic”. He appointed Maria Elisabeth Abbess of the Convent for Noble Ladies in Innsbruck, where she would live until the area was taken over by allies of Napoleon, and she eventually ended up in the city of Linz where she died two years later.