Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

1768 – 1835 · Generation XVIII · Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1792–1806) · Habsburg-Lorraine

Francis (1768 – 1835). Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1792–1806). Married Maria Teresa in 1790. Last Holy Roman Emperor (as Francis II) and first Emperor of Austria (as Francis I). His reign was one long contest with revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Successive defeats — Austerlitz among them — stripped away territory, and after Napoleon formed the Confederation of the Rhine he laid down the ancient crown, dissolving the Holy Roman Empire in 1806; he had already proclaimed a hereditary Austrian empire in answer to Napoleon’s own coronation. Beaten again with the Fifth Coalition, he ceded more land and was forced to give his daughter Marie Louise to Napoleon in marriage — then turned against him in 1813 and shared in his final defeat. At the Congress of Vienna, steered by his chancellor Metternich, he recovered most of his old dominions, presided over the new German Confederation, and grew ever more the reactionary as the order he anchored resisted liberal and national stirrings.

One of 20 people of Habsburg-Lorraine (from 1736) in this archive. Maria Theresa’s marriage carried the inheritance into a new name, which its heirs still bear.

Parents

Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (1747 – 1792)
Maria Luisa of Spain (1745 – 1792)

Siblings

Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1769 – 1824)

Partners

Married Maria Teresa of Naples and Sicily (1772 – 1807) in 1790 — 2 children together

Children

Ferdinand I of Austria (1793 – 1875)
Archduke Franz Karl of Austria (1802 – 1878)

Life

1768 — Born
1790 — Married Maria Teresa
1835 — Died