In 1795, upon the death of her uncle, her father Maximilian became the reigning duke of Zweibrücken, but the troops of the young First French Republic occupied his States.

Augusta lost her mother to tuberculosis in 1796; a year later, her father married the young Caroline of Baden, who imposed a seriousness on her husband's court that some considered beneficial.

[6] In 1817, Augusta's father named his son-in-law Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince of Eichstädt, with the style Royal Highness.

A Catholic, Bavarian princess, the Dowager Duchess of Leuchtenberg opposed in vain the marriage of her younger son, Maximilian, to the eldest daughter of the Tsar of Russia.

At that time, France's president was her nephew Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the son of Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland, the sister of Prince Eugène.