#it's honestly a pity that max was never part of his nephew's life. I bet they would have understood and support each other :(

[archduchessofnowhere]

Hello ! I would like to know more about Maximilian's life? his relationship with Charlotte? ...Thanks.

Hello! Casually I'm currently reading The Crown of Mexico by Joan Haslip because I also want to know more about Max and Charlotte, so my short answer it's that you should ask me again in a week when I finished it and I can give a more fleshed out response.

For a longer answer, I can tell you what I know about Max and Charlotte (things that I learned through books about other subjects in which they featured). Archduke Maximilian was very different from his brother Franz Josef, almost his exact opposite. Max was quite charming, loved the arts and nature and had very liberal ideas that he openly championed. He thought that reforms had to be made throught out the empire and was against the extreme regime that was installed in most of the territories after the Revolution of 1848. However he did believe in the divine right of kings and that the Habsburgs were chosen by God to rule. Honestly he reminds me a lot to his nephew Rudolf, whom also was simultaneously progressive and a hardcore monarchist, and was heavily frustrated because the Emperor kept pushing him to the side lines.

More under!

Franz Josef seemed to have been jealous of his younger brother. Max was not only their mother's favorite child - he was everyone's favorite. Empress Elisabeth? Loved him. The people of Vienna? Loved him. Apparently every single person that met him? Loved him. Queen Victoria was absolutely against her cousin marrying him and like, openly insulted him in her correspondance - two days after meeting him she was writing to King Leopold I about how he was the most perfect match Charlotte could have made. He was just that charismatic, and worst for his elder brother, a natural leader. A lot of people thought that he was King material: after 1848 some proposed that Hungary should be separated from Austria and Maximilian made King, before the war of 1859 in which Austria lose the province of Lombardy the same was proposed. After that war Franz Josef was so unpopular in Vienna that people wanted him to abdicate in favor of Max. Even though he does seem to have loved his brother (specially when they were younger), he didn't trust him, or at least didn't trust his popularity, and as time went by he purposefully made sure to give him little to no power and relegated him to secondary roles. This made Max very dissatisfied with his life and was probably one the things that pushed him to accept the Mexican throne.

I haven't read that much to write too in depth about his relationship with Charlotte - the common agreement it's that she was very in love with him and he wasn't. Maximilian was once in love with a cousin of his, Princess Maria Amelia of Brazil, the only daughter of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil and his second wife Amelie of Leuchtenberg. They were briefly engaged but shortly after she died. And in death, Maria Amelia became perfect, forever frozen in Max's memories in those weeks in which they met and fell in love. Charlotte was never like Maria Amelia to him, and although they do seem to have been happy during their first years of marriage Max grew cold as years went by. He also allegedly passed her a venereal disease during this time but I don't know what's the general agreement on this (Haslip for instance doesn't buy it).

Unreciprocated love beside, they were a good couple when it came to ruiling. When Max was appointed Governor of Lombardy-Venice (though as I said Franz Josef made sure that he had very little actual power) Charlotte fullfilled her role as his consort perfectly. Max believed that he was meant to a position of importance and so did she, and was more than eager to be a great consort. I can't say how this dynamic worked out in Mexico though, as I haven't read in detail of their short time there. As it's known ultimately everything ended up very badly for them :(