Charles II, Duke of Parma - Last Years

Last Years

After his abdication Charles Louis assumed the title of Count of Villafranca. Living as a private man, he dedicated his time to his hobbies alternating his stays between Paris and Nice and the castle of Weisstropp in Saxony. Always short of money, he sold his Austrian estate of Urschendorff to his friend Thomas Ward. In 1852 he went to Spain to recognize his cousin Isabella II as rightful Queen. He began to return to Lucca where, once soothed the grudge for the sale of the city, its citizen still had some sympathy for his former ruler. He was allowed to attend a family reunion held at Pianore in April 1853. His only son Charles III, Duke of Parma, age 31, was assassinated on 27 March 1854. In 1854 Charles Louis moved to Paris. In 1856 he visited the tomb of his son in Viareggio and saw his wife. His grandson, Robert I, Duke of Parma, who was reigning in Parma under the regency of his mother, lost his throne in March 1860 during the Italian unification. Charles Louis, unlike other dethroned Italian monarchs, welcomed the unification of Italy as a positive development. He had voluntarily surrendered the Duchy of Lucca and had no attachment to Parma, where his reign was brief and bitter. He disliked Parma, where his son had been killed

After 1860 Charles Louis was able to come to Italy more freely. He visited Lucca with increasing frequency staying in the Villas of Montignoso and San Martino in Vignale. His wife, Maria Theresa, who lived in complete retirement as a nun in villa San Martino in Lucca died on 16 July 1879. Charles Louis was in Vienna at the time and only in October came to pay respect to her remains. His great granddaughter Archduchess Louise of Tuscany, later Crown Princess of Saxony, described him in her memoirs: "My maternal great grandfather, Duke Charles of Parma and Lucca was one of the most amusing and original men. He had states in Saxony, to which he retired when he became weary of court life. He was always a protestant at Meissen, where his favorite castles was situated, and when he was remonstrated with on the subject by his spiritual advisers he replied. "when I go to Constantinople I shall be a Mohammedan; In fact wherever I go I always adopt, for the time being, the religion of the country, as it keeps me so much more intone with the local color scheme."

Charles Louis survived his wife for less than three years. He died at Nice on 16 April 1883, age 83. He was buried at the large property at Viareggio belonging to the Parma family.