Kaiserin, Wittib : The Mourning Empress and the Struggle for Constancy

This chapter explores Maria Theresa's profound mourning for Francis Stephen, marked by her lifelong wearing of black and renunciation of coloured garments, reflecting both personal grief and symbolic devotion. It describes how her religious intensity deepened in parallel with her growing political mastery, blending prayer with statecraft in ways once familiar to rulers like Giulio Andreotti. It also reveals her wisdom in diplomacy, military affairs, and governance and traces the theological rigidity that increasingly shaped her approach to Jews and Protestants. The chapter details Maria Theresa's vigorous efforts to reform the decayed Moravian Catholic Church, creating a new diocese around Brünn, building forty churches, and sending a theological commission led by Leopold Hay. It shows that while Maria Theresa held more pragmatic views than the Vatican's zealots, her refusal to embrace systemic toleration and use of military force against Moravian Protestants marked the decline of her judgement in her final days.