The royal marriage market of Europe

Front matter

THEHDYAL MARRIAGE MARKET OF ^ EUROPE ^»**^

PRINCESS CATHERINE RADZIWILL

CORNELL

Contents

1. The House of Habsburg .

2. The Hohenzollerns .

3. The Romanoffs

Chapter I The House Of Habsburg

THE Habsburgs, by reason of their ancient lineage, appropriately take their place as the first House whose alliances interest us. Its chief, Francis Joseph, was perhaps the first Austrian Sovereign wha..foilajEed neither the desBe&ef his parents nor the -traditions of his family in his choice of a brid^, l;>jit who jnarried for love. When he was yet a boy it had been understood between his mother, the proud and haughty Archduchess Sophy, and her sister, Duchess Louise in Bavaria, that he should wed the latter's eldest daughter, the beautiful Princess Hel^ne, who had been specially trained to fill in due time the exalted position they had destined she should occupy. It had been arranged that the young Emperor's first interview with Hdl6ne was to take place at Ischl, and when at last he met her there she did not appeal to his impulsive heart. As a matter of fact, he fell in love at first sight with Hel^ne's younger sister, Elisabeth. He had not seen her for more than a few minutes, but at once

B declared to his mother that the unformed girl, whose education was not even completed, and who, ever since her childhood's days, had been allowed to run wild in the parks and forests surrounding her parents' residence of Possenhofen in the Bavarian Alps, was the only woman he cared to marry. At first the Archduchess objected strongly, pointing out to her son that the child who had captivated his fancy was hardly likely to prove a dignified and stately Empress. She had, however, to yield to the wishes of Francis Joseph, and two days later the official papers in Vienna announced that the Austrian monarch had become engaged to the little cousin, whom everybody had snubbed and scolded, until, to the general surprise, she had been chosen by him to occupy the first place in his Empire.

Elisabeth, in those early days, was as much in love with her future husband as it was possible for a child of her age to be ; she was barely sixteen, and knew nothing of life, still less of the world and of the part she was about to play in it. Her position, though it did not dazzle her as it might have done one less earnest by nature, yet presented so many advantages and was so brilliant that she could not help being influenced by it. On the other hand, she fondly believed that life would always remain the delicious fairy-tale it had so far proved to be, and when she found that it contained also many sorrows, the discovery made her bitter and resentful.

In intellect the Princess EUsabeth was brilliant in the extreme, yet her character lacked the balance

A SHORT-LIVED PASSION

vitally necessary to enable her to fight victoriously the prejudices which her somewhat eccentric "behaviour created against her. She inherited a good deal of the unconventionality of the Wittelsbachs, and when she found herself neglected by the Emperor, and not allowed by her mother-in-law to exercise over him and overTieir3GII3xSrtirrinfluence she would have liked to acquire, she locked herself up in a kind of haughty reserve. I'his attitude was not devoid of grandeur, but was bound to excite criticism and even animosity against her person.

Francis Joseph's love for her was of short dtiration ; he very soon turned to other amusements, and not only neglected her openly, but left her entirely to herself, stipulating that their children should remain under the care of his own mother, of whom he stood in considerable fear. The Empress, whom all the family and entourage were doing their best to regard as a nonentity, became daily less and less interested in their sayings and doings. She began to lead an existence in accordance with her own ideas, in which sport constituted the principal pleasiu-e and the care of her beauty the principal occupation. She travelled all over the world, attended only by a very small retinue, and though she had got strong political opinions of her own, she seldom allowed herself to air them, or to attempt the exercise of influence in their furtherance. On rare occasions only she showed her preferences quite openly, as, for instance, when the Hungarian question came to be seriously discussed in Austria.

Even in piirely private matters, such as the marriages of the numerous archdukes and archduchesses, she never troubled to make the weight of her own position felt in her own family, and hardly ever said a word by which one might have been able to guess what she thought about them. She used to say sometimes that the less she heard about the sayings and doings of the Imperial family the happier she felt ; and she carried this indifference so far that even when the future of her own children came to be discussed, she allowed the Emperor to have his own way, without seeking to leStn what chances of happiness for her offspring lay in the marriages to which they had to consent. Though she did not attempt to hide the fact that she disliked the Princess Stephanie of Belgium she did not offer any opposition to the desire of the Emperor to see her wedded to their only son ; and subsequently, when the union turned out so miserably unhappy, she made httle effort to bring about a better understanding. Her daughter-in-law did not appeal to her, and later on she asserted that through Stephanie's want of tact, and her peevish temper, had come about the terrible scene in which the heir to the Austrian throne perished together with the unfortunate and miserable girl who loved him well and to whom he had become attached.

Elisabeth of Austria was not credited with possessing a nature capable of feeling any strong attachment, partly perhaps because she did her best to stifle the exhibition of any such sentiment, and partly because she had acquired a morbid fear of

THE TRAGEDY OF STARNBERG

learning to care too much for anyone aiJsaLmsiiJmiS> since t]^eailigrdisappointineat& wbiehr had. cast js»ch dark shadows over her life..

In the later years of her life she exhibited a great affection for her cousin, King Louis II. of Bavaria, whose character offered so many points of resemblance to her own, and his cruel end was a most bitter blow to her. She never forgave the late Prince Regent Luitpold for the part he had played in the dark tragedy that had culminated so sadly in the blue waters of the lake of Starnberg, and it is related that she always refused to see him whenever she visited Munich after that event. Apart from friendship she refused to be drawn into intimacy with anyone, and preferred leading a solitary, wandering existence, which carried her from one place to another in search of a happiness the splendours of the Vienna Hofburg had faUed to bring.

Elisabeth's marriage cannot thus be put forward as an example of felicity attending a love match, though hers had rather been one of passion than of strong, deep affection. As happens so often in life, two characters most antagonistic to each other had been united by a freak of destiny, and had failed to get on together, perhaps because insufficient effort had been made to smooth down differences which were bound to become greater and greater as time had the effect of accentuating them. But, strange as it may appear, her personal experience of conjugal life had not inspired the Empress with the desire to save her children from the disillusions which she had endured. Even in regard to the Archduchess Valerie, who was her favourite, the Empress had more than once appeared to be entirely lacking in tenderness, and when the question of her youngest girl's marriage came to be discussed, she had accepted for her son-in-law the Archduke Francis Salvator without offering the slightest objection, and though she had never got on with him she had wisely refrained from saying anything to her daughter likely to shake the latter's attachment to the husband she had been told to accept, and whom she had married with that absolute submission which has ever been the characteristic of Austrian princesses. And though she cared in her way for her youngest child, Valerie, Elisabeth kept her upon a footing of ceremonial love which never reached a substantial degree of warmth.

Francis Joseph always showed himself to be the most selfish of fathers, and, though old, tottering, and unprincipled, he yet contrived to win the affection of his two daughters more fully than did his lovely, gifted, and virtuous consort. He never got on, however, with his son and heir. With all his faults, Rudolph was at heart a gentleman, and moreover an exceedingly clever and intelligent man. He was in his way also a great patriot, and chafed secretly at the weak grasp of politics which the Emperor had displayed on all the serious occasions when the fate of his dynasty had trembled in the balance. The Archduke had never cared for the German alliance which was to become so precious to his cousin, the ill-fated Francis Ferdinand, and it is likely that, had he lived, the

COUNTESS SOPHY GHOTEK

orientation of Austrian diplomacy might have been very different from what it has become. But Rudolph died, and the succession to the throne passed to a collateral line, of which the first representative was to be murdered in the days just before the opening of the Great War of 1914.

Had the victim of the ghastly tragedy at Sarajevo been spared to become the ruler of the Austrian Empire, it is likely that the morganatic union, which he had contracted with the Countess Sophy Chotek, would have proved one of the most remarkable marriages that a reigning sovereign had ever entered into. The Countess was not only a brilliant, talented woman, she was also ambitious ; and she was moreover entirely under the influence of the Jesuits, who had protected her to a considerable extent when they had foiuid out that she had won the affections of the nephew and heir of Francis Joseph. She aspired, and others aspired for her, to become at least Queen of Hungary should fate prove strong enough to prevent her from becoming Empress of Austria. Her sway over the mind of her husband was unlimited, and, perhaps, even in excess of the love which he undoubtedly bore her. Moreover, she had contrived to win the good graces of the Archduke's stepmother, the pious but bigoted Archduchess Marie Ther^se, a Princess of Braganza by birth, whose virtues and high principles had given her quite an exceptional position at the Vienna Coiu-t ; she had presided at all state ceremonies and festivities ever since the death of the Archduke Rudolph had put an end to any attempt to do so on the part of the Empress, who after that terrible catastrophe had never again, save once, shown herself in public. That occasion was the visit paid to the Austrian sovereigns by the newly-married Emperor Nicholas II. of Russia, together with his lovely bride.

Marie Therese had been one of the most beautiful women of her time ; and though her marriage with Archduke Charles Louis, then old and stout, had been anything but a happy one, she had never allowed the world to guess the truth, and had gone about with a haughty demeanour, which repulsed every attempt on the part of her family or her friends to console her for the cruel disillusions which she had had to endure. When she became a widow her influence over the Emperor remained unshaken, and it is certain that had it not been for her intervention the aged monarch would never have granted his consent to the introduction into the family circle of the Habsburgs of such an outsider as the Countess Sophy Chotek undoubtedly was according to their ideas. But Marie Therese could when she liked enforce her opinions upon others, and she explained with such conviction to Francis Joseph that he dared not contradict her. Nevertheless, although the lady in question belonged to the highest aristocracy of Bohemia, he stipulated that the marriage must always be considered as a morganatic one, and that the children who might be born of it must never aspire to become anything else but Princes or Princesses of Hohenberg, taking the title which was granted to the Countess Chotek.

INTRIGUES THAT FAILED

When the union took place, Francis Ferdinand, whose father had died a few years before, was occupying the position of heir-presumptive to the Crown, and had already shown more than one sign of the energy of character he was to display so very soon, much to the surprise of all those who had prophesied that he would never be anything else but a nonentity. He was not an alertly intelligent man by any means, rather heavy in his appreciations, and certainly never brilliant ; but he had something of that obstinacy which narrow-minded persons so often possess, and which is considered by many as firmness of character, whilst in reality it is only a sjnnptom, if not of weakness, at least of lack of comprehension of other people's opinions. When he got an idea into his head nothing in the world could induce him to change it, and he hailed with joy any fact tending to confirm him in it. When, therefore, the Emperor William consented to receive as his equal the Princess of Hohenberg — ^the title of Duchess was only awarded her a short time before her untimely end — ^the Archduke became there and then the staunchest friend of the Prussian monarch, and entered warmly into all his schemes, which let it be said, by the way, were very much in accordance with his own plans, as they aimed at the destruction of Russian influence in the Balkans. This attachment of the German Emperor and the future ruler of Austria might have led to unexpected surprises had not the career of the latter been cut short, and all the consequences which his romantic marriage might have had perished with him.

His younger brother, the Archduke Otto, had died before him, the victim of an unprincipled and vicious mode of Hfe. He had been married to a woman of singular merit, the Princess Marie Josepha of Saxony, who had borne with an angel's patience the ill-treatment to which he had subjected her, but who was not possessed of sufficient strength of character and experience of the world to be able to guide her sons in their education and in their youthful days. She was proud and austere ; and, being very devout, had all her thoughts centred in the direction of good works, and pilgrimages to different churches and shrines.

Nevertheless, she aspired also to play a political rSle. Her marriage had been entirely one of convenience, and she saw no reason why her children should arrange otherwise. She hated the Duchess of Hohenberg, whom she suspected of intriguing to secure for her sons the rank of Archdukes, with the right to succeed to the throne ; and she used continually to talk to the Emperor about the necessity of marrying her own eldest boy as early as possible, so as to ensure the succession to the Crown in the direct line. The Archduke Charles Francis Joseph was a mild young man ; he was the perfect type of an Austrian " nobleman," fixU of vanity, with very little learning, of dashing manners, good-natured, but could hardly be called keen-witted. Nevertheless, he stood next to his uncle in the order of succession to the realm of the Habsburgs, and, as such, his marriage was bound to be a very serious affair. Marie Josepha understood this perfectly, and almost before he had left

SEEKING A BRIDE

school she started looking for a daughter-in-law after her own heart.

Bavaria boasted of several whose faith would not prove an impediment, a Protestant princess being, of course, out of the question. The Wittelsbachs, for instance, had always been devout Roman Catholics, but the Archduchess did not care for an alhance with that House ; its members had already far too often intermarried with the Austrian Royal line. She held that consanguinity was not conducive to happy consequences in the question of marriages. For that same reason she rejected the idea of allying her son to an Archduchess, though there were many who would have been but too willing to accept the prospect of becoming an Empress. She disliked the Orleans, because the example of her cousin, the Archduchess Dorothea, who was wedded to the French Pretender, had proved such a miserably unhappy affair. There remained, therefore, the Italian and Spanish Bourbons, whose blood was just as ancient as that of the Habsburgs, and whose opinions were entirely in accordance with her own. Among them the family of the Duke of Parma had captivated all her sympathies, owing to its strictly Catholic principles, and to the care with which the Duchess, a Princess of Braganza by birth, and the sister of the Archduchess Marie Th^r^se, her husband's stepmother, had brought up her numerous daughters. It was true that imbecility was supposed to be hereditary in that branch of the Bourbon family, and that out of the twenty children that his two wives had borne to the Duke of Parma, several were confirmed idiots ; but somehow this fact did not seem to strike Marie Josepha, and she advised her son to spend a few days at the castle to which the widowed Duchess had retired, and to become acquainted with the many young and, as she supposed, charming girls who were sharing her solitude there.

The Archduke obeyed his mother in this as in everything else, and he started for the Villa Pianore, in Tuscany, where the Parma family used to spend its summers. When there he quickly became captivated by the youthful charms of the Princess Zita, one of the youngest in this happy and numerous household, and after having solicited his mother's and his uncle's consent, he proposed to her, and, as may be easily imagined, was at once accepted.

Strangely enough, this marriage did not appeal to the Emperor Francis Joseph, who had been secretly hoping that his eventual successor might choose as a wife one of his uncle's own granddaughters ; either the child of the Archduke Rudolph, or one of the daughters of the Archduchess Valerie, whom he had grown to love very much, ever since she had at last, not however without a sharp struggle, consented to admit the intimacy that existed between him and the actress Frau Katrine Schratt. But he was hardly in a position to make objections to his nephew's choice, as it was everything that the Austrian protocol, so severe in all matters where birth is concerned, could have wished for.

When he saw her for the first time, the undoubted beauty of the Princess Zita appealed strongly to him ; she not only excited his admiration, but also won as

Photo : H. C, Kosel, Vienna

THE ARCHDUKE CHARLES FRANCIS JOSEPH,

ARCHDUCHESS ZITA, AND THEIR SON ARCH-

DUKE FRANCIS JOSEPH OTTO

•0-'

A RETIRED EXISTENCE

much of his old withered heart as he was able to give to anyone or to anything in the world. He even consented to grace the marriage ceremony with his presence when it was celebrated at the castle of Schwarzau, in Lower Austria, and loaded the bride with beautiful presents, some people say in order to prove to the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and to the Duchess of Hohenberg that there was a difference between the treatment which he awarded to a morganatic wife and that which he meted out to a Princess belonging by birth to one of the oldest dynasties in Europe. Upon this everything came to an end ; and so long as the Archduke Francis Ferdinand lived, his nephew, Charles Francis Joseph, together with his consort, were kept at a considerable distance from Vienna, nor were they allowed to come forward conspicuously in the public functions.

They did not mind it ; they were entirely indifferent as to their own future, perhaps because they did not realise the importance which it was bound to acquire. They remained quite content to lead a retired existence, to play with their dogs first and with their children afterwards ; to ride and to shoot ; to skate and to take long walks together, whenever they found the time and the opportunity to do so. The young husband never gave a thought to the possibility of his conaing into the immediate line of succession to Francis Joseph, and rather dreaded the advent to power of an uncle by whom he knew himself to be disliked. His wife, too, feared the snubs which she guessed she would have to submit to from the Duchess of Hohenberg ; snubs for which she revenged herself beforehand, by doing her best to make the former feel that she was but an outsider in a family circle who had put up with her, but who would never accept her as one of its own, no matter what efforts she might make to persuade it to do so.

In one respect the marriage of the present heir-presumptive to what will be left of the realm of the Habsburgs after the war was a success. It gave him a consort who will never aspire to play any political r61e in the history of her country, and who will remain content with her position as an Empress, with its attendant advantages, without wishing to influence her husband or to mix herself up in matters of State.

Zita of Parma had been brought up as a nonentity, in an atmosphere of petty interests, religious fanaticism, and more or less worldly frivolity. She is a fond mother, an affectionate wife, and a lovely little woman, who cares only for her household duties, and to whom a serious book affords no pleasure to read whilst the English novels published in the Tauchnitz edition are a source of unfailing amusement. She goes regularly to church, fasts on prescribed days, is fond of dancing, and as excited over a ball as any debutante in her first season. When the war broke out, she shed a few conventional tears, but did not come forward, as she might have been expected to do in her position as wife of the future sovereign, with any attempt to head a humanitarian movement to help the wounded or disabled. She is timid by nature, and perhaps, after all, between her mother-

ZITA OF PARMA

in-law, the Archduchess Marie Josepha, and the Archduchesses Marie Ther^se and Isabella, who started numerous schemes of reUef, she felt crushed so far as any desire she might have for personal activity.

All Princess Zita's family did its best to persuade her that she was but a child, too young to have any opinions of her own, and who, having no experience of the world, ought to listen to what her elders told her, and never venture to act independently under any circumstances whatever. This was entirely in accord with the traditions of the Habsburgs, and far more likely to appeal to them than the eccentricities of the Empress Elisabeth, who from the very first hours of her marriage had refused to bow down before the strictness of the etiquette which prevailed at the Hofburg. The Archduchess Zita, on the contrary, was always most careful to observe all the prescriptions of this etiquette, and never forgot herself for a single moment, keeping always before her eyes the necessity of being the good child her mother had told her she ought to be when she married the future Emperor of Austria.

What she will do and what her husband will do when they find themselves seated upon the throne it is difiicult to say. It is not likely, however, that either of them will show the least originality in their actions or in their behaviour. Charles Francis Joseph will be entirely in the hands of such of his ministers as he will find in power when he ascends the throne. Ignorant of politics as he is, he will content himself with smiling, and will still look at things around him without seeing

IS them. He will, perhaps, shoot a little less and hold a few more military reviews than does his great-uncle, the present Monarch ; and he will receive the ambassadors accredited to his Court with the courtesy of a man whose experience of the world is very limited. He will eschew talk about politics, and it can be prophesied with perfect safety that he will never indulge in the exuberance of language which distinguishes his ally, the Emperor William II, of Germany. He will be an excellent wooden figure on whose shoulders it wiU be always possible to throw the weight of many responsibilities, and he will accept them without in the very least understanding in what they consist or what they represent.

The Archduchess will spend her time in washing, dressing, and educating her children, of whom it is probable she will have a large number. She will have long interviews with her dressmaker, and insist upon the latter making for her high-necked or most modestlycut evening gowns, selecting simple materials in unpretending colomrs, such as pale blue or pink with a sprinkling of white here and there to reUeve it. She will put on with pleasure the Crown jewels whenever circumstances may require her to do so, and she will be very pleased whenever etiquette may demand her to give a reception at the Hofburg, and at the same time not insist on her entertaining her guests otherwise than by bowing to them or smiling upon them. She will be the conventional Empress, such as the Habsburgs have always tried to secure for their sons, and she will be far too afraid of doing anything likely to

i6

AUSTRIAN IMPERIAL HOUSE

compromise her dignity, or of being original in anything save in the cut of her clothes ; and even this will proceed more from the bad taste in dress of Austrian ladies than from her personal initiative. Zita of Bourbon Parma is quite d la hauteur of the husband to whom she is united, and following the example of very happy people, they will never have a history of their own, or interest themselves in that of others. Their marriage was a success from the very first ; and in the Habsburg family such have been all too few.

The Austrian Imperial House has seldom been lucky in the choice of its brides, and the public or private scandals which have arisen from time to time have been far too numerous for it to be possible to keep count. In spite of the Emperor's severity, one Archduke after another tried to emancipate himself from the thraldom in which the exigencies of a merciless etiquette kept them confined. To begin with the youngest brother of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, he renounced all his titles and privileges as a member of the Habsburg family to marry the daughter of a professor of a German university ; while at the other end of the line the ex-Crown Princess of Saxony and her brother succeeded in shaping out for themselves a rather strange existence. There have been stories without number about the love affairs of the numerous nephews and cousins of the reigning Austrian sovereign. Nearly all of them seem to have conceived a perfect horror for all the conventions of their exalted estate. The eldest granddaughter of Francis Joseph, the Princess Elisabeth in Bavaria, c 17 the child of the Archduchess Gisela, ran away with a simple gentleman, the Baron von Seefried, who was later on created Count, and given the key which the Imperial chamberlains wear upon their backs at the Austrian Coiu-t, Her brother, Prince George, was the hero of an even greater scandal, when his wife of a few days, the pretty and merry little Archduchess Isabella, fifth daughter of the Archduke Frederick, ran away from him and succeeded in getting her union with him annulled by the Pope, notwithstanding the fact that divorce is not admitted in the Roman Catholic church. She was a nice girl, who did not deserve the unhappy fate which became her portion. After she had regained her freedom. Princess Isabella gave herself up entirely to good works, and at the beginning of the Great War became a sister of the Red Cross, working with the utmost devotion in the cause of charity, and tending the sick and wounded with an unfailing solicitude. She is credited with having declared that under no circumstances whatever would she be induced to marry again, and that her remembrances of her married life were such that she would never run the risk a second time.

The marriage of her parents had also been a romance in its way. Archduke Frederick was considered the best match in the Habsburg family, being the sole heir of his uncle. Archduke Albert, whose wealth could be counted by millions. All the marriageable Archduchesses threw their caps at him, and wondered whether they would be able to appeal to

i8

PRIDE OF THE DUKE OF CROY

his tastes and to his affections. But to the general surprise the young man — he was barely twenty-two at the time — ^fell in love with the Princess Isabella of Croy, whose father, the Duke of Croy, though belonging to the higher order of the German aristocracy, was still looked upon as a simple gentleman, in possession of large means and an old title. He proposed to her a few days after he had met her for the first time. She was a clever, ambitious woman, who at once understood the inmiense advantages of such an unhoped-for marriage, and she did not even attempt to dissimulate the great satisfaction that she derived from the offer made by the young Archduke. Their marriage, however, met with violent opposition on the part of the Imperial family, who tried to suggest that it ought to be considered morganatic. This proposition stung to the quick the pride of the Duke of Croy, and he forthwith produced a sheaf of ancient documents establishing beyond doubt the fact that from time immemorial his family had been considered the equal by birth of reigning houses, and claimed for his daughter the right to be recognised as an Archduchess of Austria after her marriage with Archduke Frederick.