Vem gifte sig med Joseph II (empereur du Saint-Empire)?

Joseph de Habsbourg-Lorraine, puis Joseph II, né le 13 mars 1741 à Vienne et mort le 20 février 1790 dans la même ville, est empereur du Saint-Empire romain germanique de 1765 à 1790.

Il était le fils aîné de François de Lorraine et de Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche. Il est élu empereur des Romains à la mort de son père en 1765 et devient corégent des possessions héréditaires des Habsbourg d'Autriche dont il hérite en 1780, à la mort de sa mère.

Joseph II se montra un souverain moderne et réformiste. Mais ses réformes, trop rapides, n'ont été ni comprises ni acceptées par ses sujets. Il s'allia à la Prusse et à l'Empire russe pour le premier partage de la Pologne (1772) et faillit déclencher une guerre européenne en 1778 en voulant s'emparer de la Bavière. Il tenta d'influencer la politique étrangère de la France grâce à sa sœur Marie-Antoinette, épouse de Louis XVI. Il essaya également de démembrer l'Empire ottoman en s’alliant à l'Empire russe.

Son frère cadet, Léopold II, lui succède à sa mort.

Isabella of Bourbon-Parma (Spanish: Isabel María Luisa Antonieta, German: Isabella Maria Ludovica Antonia, French: Isabelle-Marie-Louise-Antoinette; 31 December 1741 – 27 November 1763) was a princess of Parma and infanta of Spain from the House of Bourbon-Parma as the daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma, and Louise-Élisabeth of France. She became an archduchess of Austria and crown princess of Bohemia and Hungary in 1760 by her marriage to Archduke Joseph of Austria, the future Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (she never became empress due to her early death).

Secretly an Enlightenment thinker, she was a prolific writer, and nineteen separate works by her have been preserved. She discussed philosophy, religion, ethics, politics, diplomacy, military theory, world trade, education and childrearing, human culture and societies, and the position of women. In secret essays, she argued for the intellectual equality of women. None of her writings were published in her life. Her Méditations chrétiennes ('Christian Meditations') were published in 1764, a year after her death. Some of her personal correspondence and other works have been published by biographers and historians.

Although her husband loved her, she did not fully return his feelings and found more fulfillment in her (likely romantic, possibly sexual) relationship with her sister-in-law, Archduchess Maria Christina. Despite her popularity at the Viennese court, she was unhappy because of the guilt of being unable to reciprocate her husband's feelings, compounded by the same-sex attraction that she considered sinful. A lonely childhood with demanding and unaffectionate caretakers, the sudden loss of her mother, a difficult birth and two miscarriages in the span of ten months, and later a fourth pregnancy all adversely affected her physical and mental health. She was described as melancholic and experienced suicidal ideation. Biographers have suggested that she suffered from depression or bipolar disorder, to which she was likely genetically predisposed. She died at the age of 21 from smallpox.

Maria Josepha av Bayern, född 20 mars 1739, död 28 maj 1767, tysk-romersk kejsarinna, gift 1765 med Josef II. Hon var dotter till kurfursten Karl Albert av Bayern och Maria Amalia av Österrike. Hon valdes ut att gifta sig med den nyblivna änklingen Josef II för att åstadkomma en arvinge, men båda parterna var ovilliga och tvingades gifta sig med varandra mot sin vilja. Äktenskapet blev troligen aldrig fullbordat, och paret levde separata liv från början. Josepha ansågs vara oattraktiv och isolerades i Österrike på grund av den besvikelse hennes misslyckade äktenskap orsakade.