Royalty. Born Maria Amélia Augusta Eugênia Josefina Luísa Teodolinda Heloísa Francisca Xavier de Paula Gabriela Rafaela Gonzaga de Bragança, she was the only daughter of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil and his second wife Amélie de Beauharnais, nicknamed "The Flower Princess" ("A Princesa Flor"). Maria Amélia was born in France after Pedro I abdicated the Brazilian throne in favor of his son Emperor Pedro II. Before Maria Amélia was a month old, Pedro I went to Portugal to restore the crown of the eldest daughter of his first marriage, Queen Maria II. He fought a successful war against his absolutist brother Miguel I, who had usurped Maria II's throne. Only a few months after his victory, Pedro I died from tuberculosis. Maria Amélia's mother took her to Portugal, where she remained for most of her life without ever visiting Brazil. A dedicated student, she was given classes that encompassed a broad array of subjects that included rhetoric, philosophy, history, geography, German literature, mathematics and physics. She learned to speak and write not only in Portuguese, but also in English, French and German. She became highly skilled in drawing, painting and playing the piano. An intelligent young woman with a fiery temper and shrewd mind, Maria Amélia was described by a teacher as having, "without knowing, an exceptional talent for dialectic, an ability that would make the fortune of a young law student." The Brazilian government refused to recognize Maria Amélia as a member of Brazil's Imperial House because she was foreign-born, but when her elder half-brother Pedro II was declared of age in 1841, he successfully intervened on her behalf. Maria Amélia became engaged to Archduke Maximilian of Austria in early 1852, but before the marriage could take place she contracted scarlet fever and then tuberculosis, and was taken to the city of Funchal on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Despite its reputedly healthy climate, her health continued to deteriorate, and she died there on February 4, 1853, at the age of 21, in the Quinta das Angústias (Angústias Estate). Her body was taken to mainland Portugal and interred in the Pantheon of the House of Braganza. In 1982, her remains and those of her mother were taken to Brazil. Maria Amélia was reinterred in the Convent of Saint Anthony, in Rio de Janeiro and her mother in the Monument to the Independence of Brazil, in São Paulo. In honor of her daughter, Maria Amélia's mother financed the construction of the Princesa D. Maria Amélia Hospital in Funchal. Archduke Maximilian was haunted by the memory of Maria Amélia, and after his marriage to Charlotte of Belgium he made a pilgrimage in 1859–60 to locations connected to his ex-fiancée. Upon reaching the island of Madeira, he wrote: "Here died, of tuberculosis, on 4 February 1853, the only daughter of the Empress of Brazil, an extraordinarily gifted creature. She left this flawed world, pure as an angel who returns to Heaven, her true native land."