But then, in another completely surprising twist, the Emperor Joseph I, after only a six-year reign, suddenly died of smallpox – and Charles jumped on a ship to make himself Emperor in the place of his sonless brother. Elisabeth Christine was left behind in Barcelona to rule Charles’s collapsing patrimony as now only the Catalans and a mixed bag of anti-French loyalists kept faith with his claim, and the rest of Spain was made to fall in line behind Philippe.
