Archduchess Louise of Austria - Later Life

Later Life

In 1911, Luise broke her silence and published a memoir blaming her disgrace on her late father-in-law and Saxon politicians, whom she claimed feared that when she became queen, she would use her influence to dismiss them from office. Throughout the book, she claimed that her popularity exceeded that of her father-in-law, King Georg of Saxony, and her husband, the future king. There is strong evidence to support this. Luise implied that her popularity had alienated her from the royal family and politicians. Luise was indeed popular with the Saxon people. She ascribed her popularity to her insistence on ignoring the etiquette of the Saxon court and, perhaps to cast herself as a victim, compared herself to her Habsburg relative, Marie Antoinette, who disliked court rituals at Versailles and, like Luise, had avoided the noble courtiers who depended on those rituals to affirm their places at court. Her sister-in-law, Mathilda did a great deal to harm her. Luise's flight from Dresden was due to her father-in-law threatening to have her interned in Sonnestein Mental Asylum for life. Her brother supported her in her wish to escape Saxony.

After the Habsburg monarchy collapsed in 1918, Luise called herself "Comtesse d'Ysette", a title with even less legitimacy than the one her father had given her. Her former husband, the ex-King of Saxony, never remarried, as he believed in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church that he was still married to Luise.

She died in Brussels and her urn is in the Erdlinge Church in Sigmaringen. A number of her children are buried nearby including her son Prince Ernst Heinrich.