page_title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria
section_title: Marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria / Marriage
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Sophie, Erzherzogin von Österreich, mit ihrem Sohn Erzherzog Franz Joseph. English: Princess Sophie of Bavaria (Sophie Fürstin von Bayern), with her child son, Franz Joseph, later Emperor of Austria.
context_page_description: Princess Sophie of Bavaria was born to King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his second wife Caroline of Baden. She was the identical twin sister of Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria, Queen of Saxony as wife of Frederick Augustus II of Saxony. Her eldest son Franz Joseph reigned as Emperor of Austria, and King of Hungary; her second son Maximilian reigned as Emperor of Mexico.
context_section_description: On 4 November 1824, she married Archduke Franz Karl of Austria. Her paternal half-sister, Caroline Augusta of Bavaria, had married the groom's widowed father, Francis II, in 1816. Sophie and Franz Karl had six children. Emperor Francis II was truly fond of Sophie. Although Sophie had little in common with her husband she was a caring and devoted wife to Franz Karl who loved and respected her.
  Unlike her husband Sophie was attached to all her children especially Francis Joseph as well as Ferdinand Maximilian who was her favourite son. She had a reputation for being strong-willed and authoritarian by nature but she was also known as familiar and sociable person devoted to her family and the Habsburg empire she  married into. She enjoyed court life, dance, art and literature as well as horse riding. 
  Her ambition to place her oldest son on the Austrian throne was a constant theme in Austrian politics. At the time she was called "the only man at court". During the Revolution of 1848, she persuaded her somewhat feeble-minded husband to give up his rights to the throne in favour of their son Franz Joseph. 
  After Franz Joseph's accession, Sophie became the power behind the throne.
  Historically, Sophie is remembered for her extremely adversial relationship with Franz Joseph's wife Sisi, who was also her niece. Elisabeth hated Sophie for being strict and demanding to her but there is no evidence that Archduchess had the same feelings toward her niece since she usually described Elisabeth quite pleasantly in her diary and letters.  Nonetheless she had a good relationships with her other daughters-in-law and was caring mother-in-law to Maria Annunziata.
  Sophie kept a detailed diary most of her life, which reveals much about Austrian court life. She was deeply affected in 1867 by the execution in Mexico of her second son Maximilian. She never recovered from that shock, and withdrew from public life. She died of a brain tumor in 1872.
  She was also noted for her close relationship with Napoleon II, who lived at the Austrian Court as the Duke of Reichstadt. There were rumors of a sexual affair between them. There was even suspicion that Maximilian, born two weeks before Reichstadt's death in 1832, was actually his child. These claims were never verified, but it is certain that they were very good friends and that his death affected her very much. She is said to have turned into the hard, ambitious woman described in fiction after he died.
caption: Archduchess Sophie and her son the future emperor Franz Joseph (by Joseph Karl Stieler)
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