Duke Karl Theodor and his wife, with several other members of Maria Theresa’s family, hastened at once to Arco to comfort Maria Sophia and be present at the ex-King’s funeral. It took place on the third of January, 1895, and was attended by a large number of royalties and other distinguished personages.
In the bright Winter sunshine the body of Francis the Second was borne to the cathedral where it was to be laid to rest. The narrow streets were thronged with black-garbed men and women, and bells were tolled in all the churches, while the trumpets of the two battalions of Austrian Jägers sent by the Emperor Francis Joseph, to pay the last honors to the deceased sovereign, sounded a farewell. At the door of the church the procession was met by the ex-Queen with her sisters, Mathilde and Sophie, with several of her sisters-in-law, and other noble ladies who formed the band of mourners. The services lasted five hours, and were conducted by the Archbishop of Trent; but at last all was ended, the dim cathedral was left silent and empty, and only the sound of tolling bells echoed mournfully through the wintry air.
The life of Francis the Second of Naples was one of renunciation. Little sympathy or affection fell to his lot. He was arbitrary where he should have been yielding, and yielding where he should have been firm; yet during his short reign he was one of the most conspicuous figures in European politics, and he had carried a kingdom with him in his downfall. He was a good man and a good Christian, and, in spite of his shortcomings, a real hero; for while his heart was bleeding, he bore his sorrows in silence and hid his sufferings from the world.
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Although Maria Sophia had never really loved her husband, a close and sincere friendship had grown up between them, and she truly mourned his death. After the funeral she returned with her brother and his wife to Munich, where for a time she occupied her old residence, the Schloss Biederstein; but now that she was alone the thought of living there was unbearable to her.
FRANCIS SECOND
in his sixtieth year
The claims of the ex-King to the throne of Naples passed at his death to Alfonzo, Count of Caserta; and while Francis had left his wife a large sum of money, the bulk of his fortune had been bequeathed to this brother whose marriage had been blessed with ten children. The residence in Paris occupied by the royal pair had been included in this; and as Maria Sophia wished to be free to live her own life, she bought an estate at Neuilly-sur-Seine, where she lives quite alone the greater part of the year. She rarely goes to Bavaria, but spends a few weeks each winter at Arco. It was her intention originally to have her husband’s body removed to her family burial-place in Tegernsee; but the last King of Naples still sleeps before the high altar in the cathedral of the little Tyrolean town. This quiet spot has grown dear to the ex-Queen, and she mixes freely and pleasantly with the people who go there for the baths. She is still a distinguished woman,—distinguished in the best sense of the word,—with much of that charm that is like a reflection of the past. Most of her time, however, she devotes to the real passion of her life, her farm, where she raises thoroughbred dogs and horses. Maria Sophia is not a recluse; but she lives in a world of her own, and cares for animals more than for people. In former days her sisters used often to visit her at Neuilly, the Duchess d’Alençon then living in Paris, and the Empress Elizabeth and Countess of Trani frequently stopping there on their journeys.
The portraits of these four sisters plainly show their differences of character. Mathilde of Trani is the picture of discontent and disillusionment; Elizabeth is the mourner; Sophie d’Alençon is resigned and weary of the world, while Maria, unlike all the others, looks bravely out at life, despite her years.
She accepted the decrees of fate with courage and fortitude, and bore her troubles more philosophically than her sisters, therefore she has kept her cheerfulness and serenity, and much of her former beauty. She is always active, for she still feels young. But her solitary life and her preference for the society of animals to people, show that the life of this gayest and soundest of the Wittelsbach sisters has also been a tragedy.