Archduchess Sophie of Austria

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Archduchess Sophie of Austria (birth name: Sophie Friederike Dorothea Maria Josepha von Habsburg-Lothringen) (b. March 5, 1855 in Vienna – d. May 29, 1857 in Budapest) was born to Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sissi) and Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. She was their first child, and was named after her grandmother, Sophie, Princess of Bavaria.

In 1857, the Imperial couple visited Hungary, taking with them Sophie and her younger sister Archduchess Gisela of Austria. During this trip, both children fell ill with diarrhea. While Gisela recovered quickly, Sophie became steadily weaker until she finally succumbed and died. She was two years old. Later it was theorized that she died not of diarrhea and fever, but of typhus.

The death of her firstborn child threw Empress Elisabeth into bouts of heavy depression, which would haunt her for the rest of her life.

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