As time went on he did more than treat Josepha with perfect frigidity. Maria Josepha's sister-in-law, Archduchess Maria Christina, once wrote: "I believe if I were his [Joseph's] wife and so maltreated I would run away and hang myself on a tree in Schonbrunn." Despite Joseph's cold behaviour towards her, Maria Josepha had loved her husband with much ardour and was deeply affected by his unkindness towards her. Being of a meek and timid disposition, and conscious of her own inferiority, she trembled and turned pale whenever she came in her husband's presence. The only member of the imperial family who took the poor young queen under his wing was her father-in-law, Emperor Francis I; and when Francis died shortly after her marriage, she had no real support in the court. Upon Francis I's death on 18 August 1765, Maria Josepha became Empress of the Holy Roman Empire following her husband's accession to the throne. Her mother-in-law, however, remained the most powerful and important power figure in the Empire and at court in Vienna.
