Blanche of France, Duchess of Austria

Blanche of France (German: Blanca; c. 1278 – 1 March 1305), a member of the House of Capet, was Duchess of Austria and Styria as consort to the Habsburg Duke Rudolph III, eldest son of King Albert I of Germany.

[1] Blanche also had two older half-brothers from her father's first marriage: Philip, the future King of France, and Charles, Count of Valois.

Upon hearing reports of her extraordinary good looks, Edward I sent emissaries to her half-brother's court to negotiate a termination of the existing betrothal and the terms for marriage between Blanche and himself.

Many years later, Blanche's second fiancé would marry her half-brother king Philip's only daughter, Isabella of France, with disastrous consequences.

As King Albert I of Germany aimed at a dynastic relation with the French royal House of Capet, he had entered into negotiations with the Paris court about 1295.

[2] Blanche bore Rudolf a stillborn daughter in 1304 and a short-lived son who survived her, and was probably poisoned in March 1306, a year after her death.