On the fifteenth of February, the exiles landed at Terracina, heavy at heart, and were escorted by a company of French dragoons to Rome, where they took up their residence in the Palazzo Farnese as guests of Pope Pius the Ninth. Maria Sophia was not a devout Catholic like her husband. She had not wished to go to Rome, and found no comfort in the Holy Father’s friendship. The dowager Queen was also living in Rome with her children, and the close companionship into which the exiles were thus forced by circumstances did not tend to improve the relations between the ex-Queen and her mother-in-law.
In times of trouble we naturally turn to our kin for sympathy, and Maria Sophia was seized with desperate longing for her mother and her Bavarian home. Early in April, therefore, she set out for Possenhofen, accompanied by General Bosco. The two years she had spent in Naples had been far from happy. She returned a queen without a crown, deprived of all save honor. But the familiar scenes and faces, and above all the comfort of pouring out her heart to the strong, noble mother, who had suffered so much herself, restored her courage, and she soon became her cheerful, lively self once more, her eyes sparkling with animation, full of spirit and energy.
The young Queen’s heroic behavior during the defence of Gaeta had taken Europe by storm. Her praises were on every tongue, and the beauty, the courage, the warm-heartedness of the “Heroine of Gaeta” were lauded in prose and verse. She was deluged with tokens of admiration and sympathy, among which were a gold laurel wreath from the princesses of Germany and a sword of honor from the women of Paris. The dowager Queen, Maria Theresa, had not yet given up hope that she and her children might return to Naples. Since Francis the Second had proved himself incapable of maintaining his place on Ferdinand’s throne, she was more determined than ever that her own eldest son should occupy it; and in order to prevent any opposition on the part of the Wittelsbach and Hapsburg families, she succeeded in arranging a marriage between the Count of Trani and Maria Sophia’s sister Mathilde soon after the arrival of the exiles in Rome, neither of the young people’s wishes in the matter having been consulted in the least. Maria Sophia returned to Rome after a month’s stay with her parents, and in May the bridegroom went to Munich to meet his unknown bride. This prince was far more attractive than his stepbrother in outward appearance, having a frank, winning manner and the utmost propriety of behavior. The wedding was put off for a month, that the young people might become better acquainted, the Count accompanying the ducal family to Possenhofen, where he occupied a neighboring villa on Starnberg Lake.
On the sixth of June, 1861, the ceremony took place in the ducal palace at Munich, and the next morning the newly married pair set out on their wedding journey, escorted as far as Zürich by the bride’s parents and sisters. At Marseilles a Spanish warship was waiting to convey them to Civita Vecchia, where they were warmly welcomed by the ex-King and Queen of Naples, who accompanied them back to Rome.
Immediately after the fall of Gaeta, Francis had despatched a letter to the Emperor Napoleon, thanking him for the friendly interest he had shown and expressing his appreciation of the courteous treatment he and his wife had received from the officers of La Movette. As yet the exiled sovereign scarcely knew how his position was regarded by the European powers; Victor Emanuel had already assumed the title of King of Italy, and this moved Francis to issue a circular urging them to discountenance any pretensions on the part of the King of Sardinia.
It is doubtful whether he had at first any idea of continuing the struggle, but he had no sooner arrived in Rome than he became the centre of a counter revolution planned by the Legitimist and Papist party, the object of which was to make Naples again an absolute monarchy, this being regarded as the surest safeguard of the Pope’s temporal power in Rome. The dowager Queen contributed a large share of her property to aid this undertaking, and Francis himself gave all he could spare of the little he had been able to retain of his private fortune. But all in vain. The attempt was unsuccessful and the Bourbon cause in Italy hopelessly lost.
Maria Sophia took no part in these efforts to recover the lost crown. She had no confidence in her husband’s ability and strongly disapproved of her mother-in-law’s intrigues. As Queen of the Two Sicilies she had boldly put aside everything that interfered with her personal liberty; but under these changed conditions and the protection of the papal power she had no longer the right to assert her independence or resent the elder woman’s jealous opposition. The monotony and inactivity to which she was doomed in Rome were torture to her energetic spirit, and she became nervous and irritable. By way of retaliation and diversion she resorted to all sorts of tricks and foolish pranks, which enraged her mother-in-law and were little becoming a queen on whom the eyes of Europe had been so recently fixed with admiration and respect.
But this unnatural life had much more serious results also. Meeting, as she constantly did, men far more clever and attractive than the ex-King of Naples, it was not strange that the latter should have suffered in comparison, although, had he shown his love for her in the early days of their married life, she might still have preferred him to others. Her husband’s apparent coldness, however, had chilled the warmth of her impulsive nature and turned her affections back upon herself. With such a temperament and capacity for love, these pent-up emotions could not fail to find an outlet sooner or later. A Belgian officer won her heart; and Maria Sophia, full of life and ardor, forgot her dignity as Queen, remembering only that she was young, a woman desperately craving affection, alone in a dull, joyless court, where the life was intolerable to her.
Less than a year after the heroic defence of Gaeta it was said that the ex-Queen of Naples was suffering from a disease of the lungs, and much alarm was felt for her health. Early in the Summer she left Rome, accompanied by the Count and Countess of Trani, and went to Possenhofen, where the family was once more reunited. Fate had not dealt kindly with the Wittelsbach sisters. It was no secret that the Empress of Austria’s happiness was wrecked and her health deranged, and Hélène of Thurn and Taxis had fared little better. Elizabeth’s marriage to Francis Joseph had crushed her ambitious hopes, and the disappointment had embittered her whole life, although it had made no difference in the affectionate relations between the sisters, Hélène having left her own home to accompany the invalid Empress to Madeira. Mathilde of Trani had been married only a year; but the temperaments of the Count and Countess were totally unsuited to each other. The young couple had no permanent place of residence, no prospects for the future, and the present was full of difficulties.
It was generally known that the climate and life in Rome had seriously affected the health of the ex-Queen of Naples; but a mother’s sharp eyes soon discovered that there was a deeper source of trouble. This daughter, who had inherited all her father’s brilliancy and charm, was especially dear to the Duchess Ludovica, and as she had always shared her child’s joys, she now comforted her in her hour of despair. Early in August Maria Sophia left Possenhofen for a sojourn at the baths of Soden, which it was hoped would benefit her health, and after a visit to her eldest sister at Taxis, returned to Bavaria with her mother and the Empress Elizabeth. Francis still loved his wife deeply, in spite of the blow his faith in her had received, and both he and her own family tried to persuade her to return to him; but her health was still so poor she had little wish to expose herself again to the climate of Rome. In October she retired to an Ursuline convent at Augsburg, much against the wishes of her family, who feared it would appear to the world like a permanent separation from her husband. They begged her at least to come to Munich and live; but the quiet convent life suited Maria and she refused to leave her peaceful retreat.