MARIA CAROLINA of Habsburg-Lorraine, Queen of Naples and Sicily. — B. at Schönbrunn (Vienna) on 13 Aug. 1752, d. on 8 Sept. 1814. Daughter of Emperor Francis and Maria Theresa, she married King Ferdinand of Bourbon, IV of Naples and III of Sicily. Intelligent and unscrupulous, scheming and ambitious, she kept her indolent husband under her sway, assuming a clear predominance in the affairs of state.
Having freed Naples from Spanish tutelage to bind it to Austria and England, and having made the minister
Maria Antonietta, Queen of France M. A. on the cart taking her to the scaffold. Sketch by L. David.
131 MARIA CAROLINA OF NAPLES AND SICILY — MARIA CRISTINA OF SAVOY 132
Acton, her favourite, all-powerful, she was a bold inspirer of various reforms, carried out to alleviate the grave deficiencies of the Kingdom. Later, she became a tenacious and resolute opponent of the revolutionary movement spreading from France across Europe. In 1799, having returned from Sicily, where she had been forced to take refuge because of the French invasion of the Kingdom, she was relentless in persecuting the innovators who had led the Parthenopean Republic, and with the complicity of Nason she ensured that they were tried and executed, despite their being protected by the capitulation with which they had surrendered to Cardinal Ruffo, leader of the Sanfedist masses. In 1806, when the French returned to Naples because Ferdinand had joined the Third Coalition against Napoleon, she again fled with her husband to Sicily; there, having sought to resist the arrogant English tutelage, she was forced by Lord Bentinck, in June 1814, to leave the Island and take refuge in Vienna.