Princess Augusta of Bavaria | |
Princess of Venice Grand Duchess of Frankfurt | |
Consort: | yes |
Succession: | Viceregal consort of Italy |
Reign: | 14 January 1806 – 11 April 1814 |
Succession1: | Duchess consort of Leuchtenburg Princess consort of Eichstätt |
Reign1: | 14 November 1817 – 21 February 1824 |
House: | Wittelsbach |
Father: | Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria |
Mother: | Augusta Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt |
Full Name: | German: Augusta Amalia Ludovika Georgia French: Auguste Amélie Louise Georgie |
Issue: | |
Birth Date: | 21 June 1788 |
Birth Place: | Strasbourg, Kingdom of France |
Death Place: | Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria |
Princess Augusta of Bavaria, Duchess of Leuchtenberg (German: Augusta Amalia Ludovika Georgia von Bayern) (21 June 1788 in Munich - 13 May 1851 in Strasbourg) was the second child and eldest daughter of Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt. By marriage, she was a French princess.
Augusta Amalia of Bavaria was the eldest daughter of Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and Princess Augusta Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1795, upon the death of her uncle, her father Maximilian became the reigning duke of Zweibrücken, but the troops of the young First French Republic occupied his States. Augusta lost her mother to tuberculosis in 1796; a year later, her father married the young Caroline of Baden, who imposed a seriousness on her husband’s court that some considered beneficial. At first, Augusta did not like her stepmother, unlike her younger siblings Karl Theodore and Charlotte, as she was still attached to her late mother; however, Augusta and Caroline’s relationship improved over time. In 1799, upon the death of his distant cousin Charles Theodore, Maximilian became count-elector, Palatine of the Rhine and Duke-Elector of Bavaria as Maximilian III.
Although promised in marriage to the heir of Baden, Charles, originally, the engagement was broken at the behest of Napoleon I of France. On 14 January 1806 in Munich, Augusta married Eugène de Beauharnais, the only son of Josephine de Beauharnais and Alexandre, vicomte de Beauharnais and stepson of Napoleon.[1] In return, Napoleon raised Bavaria from a state to a Kingdom. Although a diplomatic marriage, this union would turn out to be a happy one. In 1817, Augusta's father named his son-in-law Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince of Eichstädt, with the style Royal Highness.
Augusta and Eugène had seven children:
Augusta had outlived her husband and three of her children by the time she died in 1851 at the age of 62 in Munich. At that time, France's president was her nephew Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the son of Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland, the sister of Prince Eugène.
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