Caroline Pichler and Archduke Charles – of Para-social Relationships in the Early-modern Era

By Nebiha Guiga Archduke Charles (1771-1847), the younger brother of Emperor Francis II/I was epileptic. In the early months of 1801, the Viennese writer Caroline Pichler recalls in her memoirs, he suffered a particularly dangerous attack that had people fear for his life. Pichler recounts, decades later, the crowd of people waiting for news near the Archduke’s palace, and though she did not go herself, she confesses that she was amongst those worrying for Charles’s life, writing “auch ich g...