Meet the last — and probably greatest — love of Talleyrand’s life
Princess Dorothea of Courland was born in 1793, daughter of the last Duchess of Courland. Her father is a matter of dispute — a running theme in this story. Ostensibly it was Peter Biron, the senile 69-year-old Duke of Courland. But it could just as easily have been Count Alexander Batowski, her mother’s lover.
Despite being born a princess of Courland, Dorothea didn’t grow up there. When her father sold Courland to Catherine the Great for two million rubles, he established a lavish court at his Prussian estate, Sagan.¹ There, Dorothea watched her older sisters make less-than-stellar marriages, each desperate…
A missing painting, a refugee princess, and a boy from Oklahoma — all the ingredients for a wartime love story
In 1940, one of the most valuable paintings in private possession was Hans Holbein’s Darmstadt Madonna, worth at least $1,000,000.¹ It belonged to a German prince, Ludwig of Hesse and by the Rhine.
When World War II broke out, Ludwig sent the painting to one of his estates in Silesia (modern-day Poland) for safekeeping. But when the Soviet Army marched on Berlin, they occupied Silesia along the way.
To keep the painting out of Soviet hands, a loyal retainer rescued it and drove west, narrowly escaping the bombing of Dresden along the way. After being shot at en route, he…
What happens when a conqueror’s granddaughter falls for the heir to the kingdom her family stole?
The problem started with Prussia. In 1866, Prussia picked a fight with Austria to take over as shot-caller among Europe’s German-speaking territories. Those territories now had to pick a side in the war that followed.
King George of Hanover chose Austria. Turns out, he chose poorly.
Prussia trounced Austria and her allies in a matter of weeks. Then Prussia annexed Hanover and seized George’s property and assets, leaving the royal family jobless and homeless. But George refused to abdicate — he’d been crowned and anointed, chosen by God to rule his kingdom. No Prussian could change that.
So he moved…
How to win friends, influence empires, and prevent cavities
In 1870, Emperor Napoleon III of France did something really stupid: he declared war on Prussia. The Prussians — better armed, better trained — made short work of the French army. After trying and failing to get himself killed at Sedan, Napoleon III surrendered.
Back in Paris, his wife and regent, Empress Eugénie, scrambled to save the monarchy. Barely sleeping, existing on coffee and chloral hydrate, Eugénie broke down when she heard what her husband had done.
Then the news got worse — the Prussians were on their way to Paris. Eugénie sent the Louvre’s valuable art away for safekeeping…
Deception is your friend when the world’s most notorious prisoner interrupts your travel plans
Future First Lady Louisa Adams spent six years in St. Petersburg while her husband, John Quincy, was the U.S. minister (read about their Russian adventures in my previous story). John left Russia in 1814 to help negotiate a truce with the British. Finally, in February of 1815, he asked Louisa to join him in Paris as he awaited his next post.
Louisa, fed up with Russia, was more than happy to oblige.
There was just one problem.
She now had to get herself, her 8-year-old son, and her son’s nurse across a continent ravaged by the Napoleonic wars. …
History
Come for the protocol, stay for the accusation of pimping and prostitution
If you’re ever on Jeopardy!, here’s what you need to know about Louisa Adams: until Melania Trump, she was the only First Lady born outside the United States.
Her father, a merchant from Maryland, had moved to London for business, where he married and started a family.
In 1795, his 20-year-old daughter Louisa met John Quincy Adams, the son of future president John Adams. The couple married in London two years later but weren’t destined to live a quiet life at home.
History
Her marriage ended with a scandal so embarrassing Queen Victoria had to do damage control. It also left her free to become a model for today’s working royals
Marie Louise was born in 1872, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her dad — clearly a history buff — named her after Napoleon’s second wife, but the family called her “Louie.”
Her parents, Princess Helena and Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, lived at Victoria’s beck and call. Once, when Victoria was watching the kids, she sent Helena a reassuring telegram:
“Children very well, but poor little Louise very ugly.” ¹
Louise inherited her grandmother’s blunt honesty and deep family loyalty.
She was close with her only sister, Thora, and her cousin, Alix. That cousin would grow up to be the last…
Find out how much it cost Hollywood to blur the line between fiction and reality
When I was little, I never understood why movies about real people featured the following disclaimer: “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.”
It was a blatant lie.
Of course, Elliott Ness in The Untouchables wasn’t made up. Neither was Mozart in Amadeus.
So why does that disclaimer exist? Because of a series of bad decisions that can be traced back to Rasputin and the fall of the Russian empire.
Lights, Camera, Action
In 1932, MGM Studios released the film Rasputin and the Empress. The only movie to star all three Barrymore siblings (Lionel, Ethel, and…
History, Feminism
Was Louise of Belgium a victim, as she claimed, or her own worst enemy?
Born in 1858, Princess Louise of Belgium was the eldest daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie Henriette. As parents, these two were not stellar examples, albeit for different reasons.
Leopold, far more concerned with his cash than his kids, was uninvolved at best. Marie Henriette loved her children dearly, but love didn’t mean telling her teenage daughter about the birds and the bees.
Two weeks shy of her seventeenth birthday, Louise was married to her 31-year-old second cousin, Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
The morning after, Louise slipped away to cry in one of her father’s greenhouses…
It helps when everyone involved actually knows it’s a date.
In 1838, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna Romanov found herself on a blind date with a boy she later described as “the nightmare of my life.” At the time, she was just sixteen years old, the middle daughter of Tsar Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Although she was smart and pretty, Olga felt invisible next to her seductive older sister and angelic younger sister.
But she wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
In fact, she had no idea just how visible she was to a few members of her extended…
