Note 2 — Chapter I · The Young Queen

Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Empress of Germany, was the daughter of Charles VI of Austria and Elizabeth Christina of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. After the death of Archduke Leopold, her only brother, she became sole heiress of the Austrian dominions in 1724, married Francis Stephen of Lorraine in 1736, came to the throne in 1740, her husband being declared co-regent. She died in 1780. Of her sixteen children, ten reached maturity. Her sons were Joseph II, who succeeded his father as Holy Roman Emperor in 1765; Emperor Leopold II; Ferdinand, Duke of Modena, and Maximilian, Elector of Cologne. Her most famous daughter was Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI of France, one of the many victims of the French Revolution.