May 21, 1864: The Birth of Princess Stéphanie

Today is the birthday of Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, the second daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie-Henriette, and an often forgotten victim of the Mayerling tragedy. (Above is a photograph of Princess Stéphanie with her husband, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary). I have discussed the Princess in more detail in the past, HERE and HERE. Finally, HERE are some beautiful paintings of Stéphanie.

Princess Clementine of Belgium

Princess Clementine was the youngest, steadiest, and happiest daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie-Henriette. Her birth on July 30, 1872, was a bitter disappointment to her parents, especially her father. Following the death of their son, in 1869, they had eagerly hoped for another male heir. Nonetheless, over time, Clementine became her father's favorite. As the Queen, in her later years, increasingly withdrew from public life, Clementine assumed many of her official duties, becoming the King's valued helpmate. Despite her privileged position, however, she must have suffered severely from her father's cruelty and infidelity to her mother, and must have felt deeply humiliated by the scandal arising from his conduct.

As a young girl, Clementine fell in love with her cousin, Prince Baudouin, heir-presumptive to the Belgian crown. Her choice showed good taste, as Baudouin was not only handsome, intelligent and accomplished, but also pious and virtuous. The King and Queen favored the match. Presumably, they were pleased by the idea of uniting the two branches of the royal family, and, through their daughter, enabling their own line to continue on the throne. Nonetheless, Baudouin did not return Clementine's affection, and his mother, the Countess of Flanders, firmly opposed the projected marriage. Furthermore, in 1891, the promising young prince died tragically of pneumonia, shattering the family's hopes.

Henceforth, despite the King's partiality for his youngest daughter, he frustrated her heart's inclinations on political grounds. She fell in love with Prince Victor Napoleon, the Bonapartist claimant to the French throne, living in exile in Brussels. Her father, however, afraid of arousing the ire of republican France, forbad the match. Leopold II was not a man whose will could be crossed with impunity, and Clementine, prudent and respectful, yielded to his wishes. Nonetheless, relations between father and daughter became considerably more strained. According to Charles d'Ydewalle, the King even instructed the police to keep a strict guard on Clementine to prevent her eloping with Victor-Napoleon. Yet, she waited patiently for years to marry her beloved. I always admire her forbearance and perseverance during this period. While firmly refusing any other match, she still remained loyal to her family, eschewing (in striking contrast to her sisters!) open rebellion and scandal.

After Leopold's death in 1909, Clementine asked her cousin, the new King, Albert I, for permission to marry her Prince. Albert gladly gave his consent, and the couple were married in 1910, at Moncalieri, near Turin. Clementine was 38 years old! It had certainly been a long wait, but the bride was overjoyed. Victor-Napoleon and Clementine settled in Brussels, and had two children: Marie-Clotilde (1912-1996) and Louis (1914-1997). Always prudent, Clementine wished to maintain a good relationship with the Belgian government, and avoided involvement in her sisters' lawsuit against the state over Leopold's inheritance.

In 1914, when Germany invaded Belgium, Clementine and her husband took refuge in England, with the former French Empress, Eugénie. The Princess entered the service of the Red Cross, assisting Belgian refugees. After the war, she continued to participate in charitable public works. In 1926, she lost her husband, and henceforth devoted herself mainly to the care of her children. During this period, she lived mostly in France. Her last years were spent alternately in Maillen, Belgium (where she owned property), Savoy and Nice. Unlike her sisters, she never wrote memoirs. In 1952, she was awarded the Legion of Honor for her charity work. Three years later, on March 8, 1955, she passed away.

References:

Gubin, Eliane, Dupont-Bouchat, Marie-Sylvie. Dictionnaire des femmes belges. 2006.

Weber, Patrick. Amours royales et princières. 2006.

D'Ydewalle, Charles. Albert and the Belgians: Portrait of a King. 2005.

Princess Stephanie of Belgium

Princess Stephanie was the second daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie-Henriette. Born May 21, 1864, she spent a sad childhood at Laeken Castle. Like her sisters, she suffered severely from her parents' marital unhappiness and harsh educational methods. The later Princess Marie-José of Belgium recalled reading, as a little girl, Stephanie's youthful diaries. "She was a melancholy person....from childhood, she dreamed of a great love," Marie-José remembered (Regolo p. 21). Like her sisters (all in their different ways), Stephanie, starved of tenderness as a child, would, as an adult, stubbornly pursue love. Yet she did not win it before many vicissitudes and sorrows.

At 15, Stephanie was courted by Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary. The Belgian Sovereigns were determined on this prestigious match, and urged their daughter to accept Rudolf's hand. In 1881, the couple were married in Vienna. Their marriage initially seemed happy, and, in 1883, they had a daughter, Elisabeth ("Erszi"). Stephanie was a conscientious Crown Princess, often fulfilling official duties for the (frequently absent) Empress Elisabeth.
Sadly, however, Rudolf and Stephanie drifted apart. The Princess' deep piety and conservative opinions placed her in opposition to the Prince's liberal notions. Rudolf also led a dissolute life; as a result of his infidelities, Stephanie is believed to have contracted venereal disease. In any case, she became infertile. Meanwhile, she also suffered from a difficult relationship with her hostile mother-in-law, Empress Elisabeth. In 1889, her marriage ended in the infamous Mayerling tragedy. According to the official version, Rudolf and his young mistress, Marie Vetsera, committed suicide in a doomed lovers' pact at the Mayerling hunting lodge; the later Empress Zita, however, asserted they were murdered by French or Austrian agents as a result of a political plot.

The scandal arising from the tragedy was deeply humiliating to Princess Stephanie, and isolated her further from the Austrian court. To escape the situation, she undertook extensive travels through Europe. She also worked on her memoirs and oversaw the compilation of a history of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy ( a project begun by Rudolf). The final volume was published in 1902.

In 1900, Stephanie re-married. The choice of her heart was a Hungarian nobleman, Count Elemér Lonyay. Her parents were furious. King Leopold refused to recognize a mere count as his son-in-law, and disinherited Stephanie, stripping her of her Belgian royal titles. After Queen Marie-Henriette's death in 1902, Stephanie and her older sister, Louise (also disgraced and disinherited), tried to sue their father in court, demanding a share of their mother's wealth, but in vain. Later, after King Leopold's death in 1909, the princesses would sue the Belgian state, unsuccesfully attempting to obtain part of their father's fortune.

During World War I, Stephanie entered the service of the Red Cross. After the return of peace, she lived an extravagant life. As a result of gambling debts and disastrous business ventures, she lost most of her money during the 1920's. More vicissitudes would follow; during World War II, Soviet troops invaded her property in Hungary. She and her husband took refuge in the Benedictine abbey of Pannonhalma. Here, on August 23, 1945, Stephanie died. Estranged from her daughter, she willed much of her remaining wealth, as well as her personal archives, to the abbey. Her memoirs were eventually published under the title I Should Have Been Empress.

A sad life, but apparently her second marriage was happy, I certainly hope so!

References:

Gubin, Eliane, and Dupont-Bouchat, Marie-Sylvie. Dictionnaire des femmes belges. 2006

Regolo, Luciano. La regina incompresa, tutto il racconto della vita di Maria José di Savoia. 2002.

Princess Louise-Marie of Belgium

The most tragic Belgian princess was undoubtedly Louise-Marie, eldest daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie-Henriette. She was born February 18, 1858, and named after her venerated grandmother, the first Queen of the Belgians, Louise-Marie of Orléans. Unfortunately, however, she did not inherit her grandmother's steady good character. A flighty and willful temperament, combined with grief and frustration, drove her to a debauched and unstable lifestyle that brought her misery, disgrace and ruin.

Like her sisters, Stephanie and Clementine, Louise suffered from an unhappy childhood, marked by her parents' matrimonial discord. The girls' upbringing was cold and harsh. Their father was a glacial, autocratic, distant figure; bitterly disappointed by the loss of his son and heir, he had little love to spare for his daughters. Their mother was naturally blithe and charming, but, suffering deeply from her husband's coldness and flagrant infidelity, became a much grimmer character. She imposed an iron discipline on her daughters, insisting on impeccable conduct and severely punishing any transgression. (Stephanie, in her memoirs, later recalled being forced to kneel for protracted periods of time on dried peas with bare knees, and being locked up in a dark room for hours or even days). The girls received an "English upbringing," sleeping on hard beds, taking cold baths and living in spartan rooms.

Queen Marie-Henriette, however, was, at least, a more loving parent than King Leopold. Sincerely concerned for her children's spiritual welfare, she tried (with varying success) to inculcate her profound (even if stern and rigid) piety in the young princesses. She told them stories of her happy youth in Hungary, and entertained them by playing Hungarian gypsy music. She gave them a glimpse of her glamorous official life- before leaving for a state occasion, she would sometimes visit the girls, clad in her finery, a fairy-tale vision of regal splendor that moved little Louise to tears.

At 17, Louise married her second cousin, Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It was, typically for the period, a purely political match, traumatic from the start. Even the wedding night was a fiasco, as nobody had instructed the poor girl in her marital duties. Traumatized, she fled the bridal chamber, escaping to the Laeken greenhouses. Philip tried to make his bride relax with alcohol and erotic art and literature. Under his tutelage, the timid and naïve young girl was transformed into a glamorous and sophisticated woman of the world. The couple settled at the Viennese court and had two children, Leopold and Dorothea. Sadly, repeating her parents' mistakes, Louise was a cold and distant mother. Her marriage also proved deeply unhappy. Like her mother, Louise found herself married to an autocratic and promiscuous man. Lively and spirited (and, apparently, quite oblivious to morality and propriety), she rebelled by flirting with abandon and taking lovers.

In 1895, Louise became romantically involved with a Croatian officer, Count Geza Mattachich, ten years her junior. They began a passionate affair. Louise wanted to divorce Philip and live freely with Geza. Her parents were horrified by the public scandal. The cynical King Leopold advised her to keep her affairs discreet, while the pious Queen Marie-Henriette desperately tried to remind her of her duties to God and family. It was all in vain. Louise was determined to live openly with her lover, and eloped with him to Nice. Prince Philip pursued the pair and challenged Mattachich to a duel, but was wounded and returned home in disgrace.

Meanwhile, Louise's extravagant expenses had landed her hopelessly in debt. Her estranged family refused to help. Desperate for money, she was forced to publicly sell all her belongings. Even so, she was short of funds and resorted to buying jewelry on credit and then selling it immediately at half price for cash. She even forged her sister Stephanie's signature on promissory notes when the shops refused to accept her own. Nevertheless, she could not satisfy her creditors, who finally burst into her home and seized everything they could find.

The lovers decided to return to Austria in secret. They took refuge in Mattachich's step-father's castle in the Croatian mountains. The authorities, however, discovered their whereabouts and plotted to arrest the pair. Mattachich was ordered to Zagreb for a medical check-up, apprehended upon his arrival, and, without any evidence, sentenced to six years' imprisonment for embezzlement. To halt her escapades, Louise was forced into a lunatic asylum. During her confinement, she was largely ignored by her family. Stephanie maintained secret communication with her sister, and her aunt, the Countess of Flanders (mother of King Albert I) tried to help her, but her other relatives abandoned Louise to her fate.

After four years in jail, Mattachich was rehabilitated and released. He traveled to Linderhof, Saxony, where Louise was confined, and engineered her escape. Together, the lovers fled to Paris. Utterly destitute, they lived in an attic. Emperor Franz Josef tried to persuade King Leopold to pay his daughter's debts, but he coldly replied: "My daughter is dead." After Queen Marie-Henriette's death, in 1902, the miserly King denied his daughters their share of their mother's inheritance. Louise and Stephanie sued their father in court, demanding half his capital, but lost the case. The princesses, however, had gained popular sympathy, and, to appease the violent criticism of his financial dealings, Leopold offered Louise a country estate and an annuity of 50,000 francs if she would leave her lover. She obstinately refused.

In 1907, a court in Gotha finally granted Philip and Louise a divorce. The lovers continued to struggle with financial problems. When King Leopold died in 1909, he left most of his fortune to his last mistress (whom he had, eventually, married morganatically), Madame Vaughan, and to Belgium (via a new foundation, the "Royal Trust.") The princesses were denied their share, and Louise and Stephanie tried to contest the settlement by suing the Belgian state. Again, they lost in court, but, in 1913, the government assigned them a sum of 6 million francs. The outbreak of World War I, however, delayed the payment of the money. During the war, Louise and Geza suffered many vicissitudes, living first in Germany and later in Hungary.

After the return of peace, the pair moved back to Paris. Louise wrote her memoirs, attempting to clear her name. In 1923, Geza died. On March 1, 1924, Louise passed away. Defiant to the end, she clasped a picture of Geza to her heart as she lay dying. Shortly before, she had written: "I knew much misery, humiliation, and physical pain, but I also knew love, and whatever adversities I faced, when you had real love in your life you can say you truly lived."

May God have mercy on her. Louise's wild life reminds us that truth is stranger than fiction!

References:

Princess Louise of Belgium: "Eve after the Fall of Man," published at The Royal Articles.

Louise, Princess of Belgium, My Own Affairs, translated by Maude M.C. Ffoulkes: 1921

Gubin, Eliane, Dupont-Bouchat, Marie-Sylvie. Dictionnaire des femmes belges. 2006.