Archduchess Marie Valerie, the youngest child of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth (Sisi), passed away on 6 September 1924.
Marie Valerie was the Empress’s favourite child, the sole object of her overwhelming motherly love. On some occasions this granted her great advantages – for instance, she was spared a dynastic marriage and was able to marry her own choice, Franz Salvator, her distant cousin from the Austria-Este branch of the family. Yet more often she felt burdened by her mother’s excessive affection, not to mention that such an unbalanced position within the Imperial family strained her relationships with her siblings.
Paradoxically, Marie Valerie proved conservative and pious – quite the opposite of the liberal and extravagant Elisabeth. She was emotionally close to her sober, rational and dutiful father, Franz Joseph, to whom she resembled both in appearance and in character. Especially after the family tragedies – the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889 and the assassination of Elisabeth in 1898 – she did her utmost to support and console the devastated Emperor.
Throughout her life, Marie Valerie devoted herself to the traditional pursuits of an archduchess: family (she bore ten children from her marriage), charity, and religion. Her devout faith probably sustained her during the last months of her life when her health deteriorated. She died of lymphoma at the age of 56.
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