15 October – How to secure an inheritance and found a dynasty

Archduke Ferdinand and Maria Beatrice d’Este were married on 15 October 1771.

She was the last descendant of several Italian dynasties. In some of their realms she was the legitimate heiress, but in the main principality, the Duchy of Modena, the Salic law excluded women from succession. Thus, an early agreement between the Houses of Este and Habsburg was concluded: the young ducal princess would marry one of Maria Theresa and Francis Stephan’s sons. The final choice fell on the Imperial couple’s fourth son, Archduke Ferdinand, who was designated as the future Duke of Modena. The year 1771 had already seen another imperial and royal union only a few months earlier, when Ferdinand’s sister Maria Antonia married Louis, the Dauphin of France.

The newlyweds settled in Milan, where they remained for nearly twenty-five years until Napoleon’s invasion in 1796 forced the ducal family to flee. For two decades they lived in Vienna, where Ferdinand died in 1806. Maria Beatrice survived her husband by nearly twenty-three years.

The ducal couple had ten children, seven of whom reached adulthood. One of their daughters, Maria Ludovika, became the fourth wife of Emperor Francis II — her first cousin. In 1814, the Congress of Vienna restored the Duchy of Modena to their eldest son, Francis IV. This House of Austria-Este, a junior line of the Habsburgs, ruled Modena until 1859. Even after being deposed from the ducal throne, the cadet branch remained far more numerous and wealthier than the main imperial one — a fact that caused constant tension within the family until the dissolution of the monarchy.