Mathilde died at the age of 18 in Schloss Hetzendorf, the Viennese home of Empress Elisabeth, on 6 June 1867.
 The archduchess had put on a gauze dress to go to the theatre.
 Before leaving for the theatre, she wanted to smoke a cigarette but shortly thereafter her father, who had forbidden smoking, approached her, and she hid the cigarette behind her dress, immediately setting light to its very flammable material and giving her second and third-degree burns.
 Her death was witnessed by her whole family.

Archduchess Mathilde was buried in the imperial vault in the Imperial Crypt beside her mother and her brother Karl Albrecht.
Mathilde died at the age of 18 in Schloss Hetzendorf, the Viennese home of Empress Elisabeth, on 6 June 1867.  The archduchess had put on a gauze dress to go to the theatre.  Before leaving for the theatre, she wanted to smoke a cigarette but shortly thereafter her father, who had forbidden smoking, approached her, and she hid the cigarette behind her dress, immediately setting light to its very flammable material and giving her second and third-degree burns.  Her death was witnessed by her whole family.
Archduchess Mathilde was buried in the imperial vault in the Imperial Crypt beside her mother and her brother Karl Albrecht.
Archduchess Mathilda of Austria