During this time, the young princess developed great compassion for underprivileged children and the infirm, to whom she donated food and clothing financed by her mother.

The stay was mostly interrupted for spa trips by her mother, who was suffering from asthma and a heart defect, or for visits to her father or relatives in Mannheim or Karlsruhe.

In the years that followed, her mother's health continued to deteriorate, which made it necessary for her and her daughter to have long visits to the spas in Merano, Venice, Bolzano and Baden.

He only gave his consent on the condition that his daughter separated from her mother for a long time in order to take religious instruction with his sister Sophie, Grand Duchess of Baden in Karlsruhe.

[11] In November 1852, in Moravec, Carola and her mother received an unexpected visit from Princes Albert and George of Saxony, who were on a hunting trip.

A little later, Albert's father, Prince John of Saxony (who wanted his heir to marry someone with the same religious denomination),[14][15] asked Carola's hand for his son in a letter to the princess' mother.

Prince John in particular was keen that his future daughter-in-law should demonstrate a high level of confidence in conversation and in the court environment, which Carola fulfilled without hesitation.

They arrived with a mounted and horse-drawn escort at Pillnitz Castle, where the Saxon court received the couple and invited them to the family dinner.

The procession then traveled on to Dresden, where the wedding took place around noon on 18 June in the Palace in the Great Garden (German: Palais im Großen Garten).

The following years were marked by extensive trips lasting several months at home and abroad for the couple, including to Switzerland, Italy and increasingly Austria.

[28] When in the spring of 1866 the war between Prussia and Austria to dissolve the German dualism began to emerge, the Saxon army mobilized its troops on 19 May under the supreme command of Prince Albert.

As Prussia's demands, e.g. concerning the core question of the future administration of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, had been rejected by the Frankfurt Bundestag, it declared that the German Confederation would resolve the conflict.

When Prague itself threatened to become a theater of war, the couple was brought to Regensburg and from there, when news of the defeat of the German Confederation after the Battle of Königgrätz on 3 July arrived, they took refuge in Vienna.

In June 1867, Carola and Albert incognito visited the Exposition Universelle in Paris, and were welcomed by Emperor Napoleon III and his wife Eugénie de Montijo.

[32] After her return, Carola, shaked by the experience of the war, increased her commitment to the care of the wounded in order to shape the Geneva Conventions that had been negotiated a few years earlier.

[34] In the summer of 1870, the dispute over the candidacy for the Spanish throne sparked the Franco-Prussian War between the North German Confederation (to which Saxony belonged from 1866) and the Second French Empire.

As in the German War, Carola took over the support of numerous wounded, including in the foreign military hospitals in Leipzig, Wurzen, Großenhain, Zittau, Bautzen and Chemnitz.

He died in Pillnitz on 29 October 1873, whereby the succession to the throne passed his eldest son, who now became King Albert and Carola, as his consort, became Queen of Saxony.

On 4 August 1877, Carola's father died at the Riverside Palace (German: Wasserpalais), one of the three main buildings of Pillnitz Castle complex in Dresden, and his residence during the last years of his life.

In the residential city of Dresden in particular, the proportion of the working population increased under the impression of growing industrialization and with it at the same time the social needs, which were alleviated by the creation of new welfare institutions.

Outside of Saxony, a hospital in Dobrodzień, the children's home in Słabowo, was under the Queen's patronage as well as the two Louise Houses (German: Louisenhäuser) in Moravec and Mannheim.

The systematic development of the social and foundation system in the Kingdom of Saxony and other imperial states opened up completely new public fields of activity for aristocratic and middle-class women.

In the case of Queen Carola, for example, her social commitment was effectively equated with the military duties of her husband Albert in order to generate female participation in the myth of the founding of the empire.

In April, the royal couple moved to their estate in Strehlen and from June to September to Pillnitz Castle, from where they went on nature and hunting trips to Moritzburg, Bad Schandau or the Tharandt Forest.

In the very hot summer months, the royal couple sometimes lived in Rehefeld or later at Sibyllenort Castle (which Albert had inherited from his relative William, Duke of Brunswick in 1884).

In October, the couple returned to their villa in Strehlen, where they hosted suppers for high-ranking civil servants, generals and foreign guests well into the winter.

[56] The now visibly aged Queen Dowager, who was considered undemanding by her servants and sometimes stingy, worked for several years on her will, which eventually ran to 140 pages.

In addition to the noticeable decrease in her strength, she had scattered a large number of framed photographs of deceased relatives on their deathbeds in her bedchamber, intended to remind her of her own impermanence.

Messages of condolence reached the Saxon court from all parts of Germany, and obituaries and tributes to the late queen appeared in the daily newspapers.

[64] Today, the figure of Carola, together with other historical personalities, regularly strolls through the baroque garden in the Franconian town of Bad Bocklet, where she stayed in the summer of 1857, as part of the Rondo historica.