Archduke Charles Joseph of Austria

Charles Joseph was born on 1 February 1745, the second son among the many children of Maria Theresa, the Habsburg empress who held together a sprawling European empire, and her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. He grew up in the gilded sprawl of the imperial court, one prince among many in a family engineered for dynastic marriages and political utility. He died on 18 January 1761, sixteen years old, his life a footnote in the long ledger of Habsburg offspring who never reached the throne or the battlefield or the altar that might have made their names stick.