but the Este pictures were sold and many of them wound up in Dresden. Ercole III died in exile at Treviso, having refused Napoleonic offers of compensation when Modena was made part of the Napoleonic Cispadane Republic. His only daughter, Maria Beatrice d'Este, married Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria-Este, son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria; and in 1814 their eldest son, Francis IV, received back the estates of the Este. Quickly, in 1816, he dismantled the fortifications that might well have been used against him and began Modena's years under Austrian rule which, despite being just, constitutional and fair, nevertheless had to face another foreign-inspired rebellion in 1830, this time happily unsuccessful.
His son Francis V was also a just ruler and famously tended the victims of war and cholera with his own hands. However, he too had to face yet more foreign-inspired revolutions and was temporarily expelled from Modena in the European Revolutions of 1848. He was restored, amidst wide popular acclaim, by Austrian troops. Ten years later, on August 20, 1859, the revolutionaries again invaded (this time the Piedmontese), annexing Modena into the revolutionary Savoyard nation of Italy as a territorial part of the Kingdom of Italy
