The couple resided in Eferding, Upper Austria, where their eldest son Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg was born in 1899.

Franziska von Starhemberg became interested in politics herself, first as founder and head of the Upper Austrian Catholic Women's Organisation (Katholische Frauenorganisation), from 1919 also as a board member of the Christian Social Party (Christlichsoziale Partei) under Ignaz Seipel.

Upon the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the emergence of the First Austrian Republic, however, her ambitions to become a candidate for the National Council were denied.

During the rise of Austrofascism in the early 1930s, she alienated from both the Christian Social Party and her son Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg.

Upon the Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany in 1938, Franziska Starhemberg was temporarily arrested and afterwards retired from public life.