On 7 June 1840, Princess Marie Charlotte of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the youngest and only female child of Leopold I, King of Belgium, and his second wife Louise Marie of Orléans, was born in Laeken. Orphaned by her mother, who died of tuberculosis, Charlotte was entrusted to the care of a governess, Countess Denise d’Hulst – a close family friend, to whom she will become deeply attached.
She met Maximilian at a court ball in the palace of Laeken, and a mutual liking immediately developed, leading to their engagement in 1856 and marriage a few months later. The honeymoon included several stops including Vienna, Trieste and Venice.
On 6 September 1857, the couple entered Milan, capital of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, of which Maximilian was governor. After Maximilian resigned as governor of Lombardy-Venetia, Charlotte settled in Trieste with her husband, living in Miramare, first in the Castelletto and then in the Castle. During a trip with Maximilian that began in November, Charlotte stayed for a few months in Funchal, on the island of Madeira, while Maximilian continued alone to Brazil.
In July 1859, the couple moved to Trieste and on Christmas Eve they went to live in the apartments on the ground floor of Miramare Castle where they spent the next four years in peace and harmony.
In 1864, after Maximilian of Habsburg received the crown as emperor of Mexico, they set out for the new continent aboard the frigate Novara.
Life in Mexico proved difficult because of Benito Juarez’s revolutionary uprising that led young Charlotte to seek military and economic aid in Europe, at the court of Napoleon III and Pope Pius IX, but she was dismissed. She began to show signs of loss of lucidity and was brought back to Trieste shortly thereafter by her brother Leopold II, King of Belgium.
Charlotte was placed in the care of doctors Riedel and Jilek, who diagnosed the princess’s insanity. Wanting to conceal his wife’s true illness, Maximilian was told that she had been stricken with severe meningitis.
In the meantime, the situation in Mexico worsened and, on 19 June 1867, Maximilian was executed by Benito Juarez’s revolutionaries.
Now isolated and under close surveillance in the Castelletto, Charlotte was hidden her husband’s tragic death for many years. A few months later, on 27 July 1867, the queen of Belgium, Marie Henriette of Austria, took the Archduchess with her to Belgium, where she would die at the age of eighty-seven on 19 June 1927.
She rests in Notre Dame Church in Laeken.