Carola of Vasa was a titular princess of Sweden, and the queen consort of Saxony.
Background
She was the daughter of the former Crown Prince Gustav of Sweden and Princess Louise Amelie of Baden, and a granddaughter of King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden who had been deposed in 1809. She was a cousin of the Emperor"s through her maternal grandmother Stéphanie de Beauharnais, also the adoptive daughter of Napoleon I and a Princess of the First French Empire. Her father was against the marriage due to the volatile political situation in France and his dynasty"s historical dispute with the Napoleonic monarchy.
Career
She was the last of Saxony. In the early 1850s, she was considered one of the most beautiful royal princesses of Europe. Suitors were not lacking, and there had been plans for her to marry Napoléon III, Emperor of the French.
20 years later, when Napoleon III fell from power, her father is quoted as saying, "I foresaw that correctly!"
On 18 June 1853, Carola married in Dresden, Crown Prince Albert of Saxony.
Their marriage was childless. Already as a crown princess, Carola began the activity within social issues which she would continue as a queen.
In 1867, she founded the Albert commission, which contributed to the medical care of the German army during the war of 1870-1871. Foreign her work, she was decorated with the Prussian Luisen-Orden and the Saxon Order of Sidonia.
In 1871, she accompanied Albert to Compiègne after the defeat of France, where she entertained the officers of the victorious armies as a popular hostess.
In 1873, her spouse succeeded his father as King Albert I, making Carola queen. In 1888, Carola and her spouse made an official visit to Sweden. Carola made an important contribution to the health care organisation in Saxony.
In 1867, as, she and Marie Simon founded the Albert-Verein.
She founded a wet nurse school at Leipziger Tor (1869), the hospital "Carola-Haus" (1878), the women employment agency Johannes-Verein (1876), a women"s school in Schwarzenberg (1884), the home "Gustavheim" for the old, sick and weak in Niederpoyritz (1887), the school Lehrertöchterheim Carola-Stift Klotzsche (1892) and the home for handicapped Amalie hus Löbtau, Friedrichstadt (1896). Carola was a popular queen.
She was widowed in 1902. She was the 499th Dame of the Royal Order of Maria Luisa.
A spring of mineral water is named after her in Tarasp.
