[3] The only horror moment of her youth came during a revolutionary attempt in 1831; together with her mother and siblings during a night they escaped in a small convoy of carriages to the Austrian-held fortress of Mantua, to return few months later.

As a teenager Maria Beatrix developed some hearing problems; they were possibly related to cold-water showers, recommended by a Viennese doctor.

[7] According to some sources Count of Chambord, the young legitimist pretender to the throne of France, proposed to her and was rejected;[8] eventually, he married her older sister.

The marriage of Maria Beatrix was pre-arranged by her father already in 1845;[9] in 1847 she married Juan de Borbón y Braganza (1822–1887), Count of Montizón, grandson of the Spanish King Charles IV and son of the Carlist claimant Infante Carlos María Isidro of Spain.

[10] Once re-established, and because Vienna was also undergoing a tumultuous revolutionary period, they decided to join Juan's brother in London; by train and carriages the couple made it across Europe.

Unlike his father, Juan de Borbón started to develop increasingly liberal views; this produced conflict between the spouses, as he objected to his sons having been educated "to become Jesuits".

Their education was extremely religious and reactionary; Maria Beatrix was assisted in this task by her stepmother-in-law, María Teresa de Braganza.

The ex-emperor Ferdinand I offered them hospitality at Prague Castle, which remained their key residence until 1864; she did not travel, except to peripheral locations at the outskirts of the city.

[20] Having turned 40 Maria Beatrix kept suffering from increasing health problems; to address them, in 1864 she and her children moved to Austrian controlled Venice, where she owned the Loredan palace.

Her younger son Alfonso married in 1871 Infanta Maria das Neves of Portugal, from the exiled House of Braganza.

With both her sons now married and commencing own family life, Maria Beatrix concluded that her duties as mother came to the end.

[21] As she was still legally married, she obtained written approval from her separated husband; Pope Pius IX issued a specific authorization in a personal, very cordial letter.

[28] In 1893, following death of her daughter-in-law, Maria Beatrix hinted that she was prepared to leave the Carmelites to take care of her grandchildren.

Afterwards, both sons Carlos and Alfonso suggested that she moves elsewhere;[31] having obtained her permission, accordingly they arranged for her the transfer to the monastery of Sisters of the Cross in Gorizia in 1898.

[33] It is in Gorizia that in 1904 she celebrated very modestly her 80. birthday, visited by both sons and their wives; she received also hundreds of letters and telegram messages from the Carlists, French legitimists, distant family members and the Pope.

[34] Also in Gorizia Maria Beatrix maintained epistolographic exchange with various correspondents, in particular with Manuel Polo y Peyrolón, who already at that time was preparing her biography.

[36] When in the Graz and Gorizia monasteries, as an educated person Maria Beatrix tried her hand in letters; her biographer arrived at the total of 87 of her works, written in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

[37] They included religious reflections, meditations, moral treaties, manuals, prayers, spiritual exercises, doctrinal studies, biographies of the saints, other historiographic pieces, anti-masonic essays, and other.

[41] As descendant to the Austria-Estes Maria Beatrix enjoyed considerable wealth, which she partially retained also having closed herself in the monastery.

She donated very substantial sums to Catholic missions around the world, including Japan, China, West Indies, Africa and Albania.

[45] Juan renounced his Carlist claim in 1868 in favor of their son, who posed as the Spanish king Carlos VII.

The last direct male descendant of the French Bourbons Count of Chambord died in 1883; since he had married her sister, he was Maria Beatrix’ brother-in-law.