Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria (1743–1808)

Archduchess Maria Elisabeth
House	House of Habsburg-Lorraine
Father	Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor
Mother	Maria Theresa of Austria
Born	13 August 1743 Vienna
Died	22 September 1808 Linz

For the earlier archduchess of the same name, see Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria.

Archduchess Maria Elisabeth Josepha of Austria (13 August 1743 – 22 September 1808) was the sixth child of Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Biography

Maria Elisabeth was born on 13 August 1743. She was very attractive during her early youth and was considered the most beautiful of her sisters. In 1768, the recently widowed Louis XV of France considered marrying her. However, Archduchess Maria Elisabeth's chances of becoming Queen of France were destroyed by smallpox which terribly scarred her face, making her considered unfit for marriage.

Her elder sister Archduchess Maria Anna was also ineligible for marriage due to physical disability.

After the death of their mother in 1780, Joseph II appointed his sister Maria Elisabeth an abbess of the Convent for Noble Ladies in Innsbruck. Here - or rather in Innsbruck's Imperial Castle - Maria Elisabeth resided from May 1781 until January 1806, when the province of Tyrol was taken over by Napoleon Bonaparte's ally, the Kingdom of Bavaria. Maria Elisabeth first left for Vienna and later on moved to Linz, where she died on 22 September 1808.