Royal inbreeding: how reliable is one of history's most popular stories?

The Hapsburg Emperor Leopold I by Jan Thomas van Leperen, c. 1667

Portraits of the slack-jawed and bug-eyed Hapsburgs, hair fair and stare glazed, are a staple part of any discussions on one of the most familiar accusations hurled at the European royal houses: namely, that they were habitually inbred. By the time pretty Marie-Antoinette was born into the family in 1755, along with her bevy of attractive sisters, something had evidently worked itself out, to say nothing of the statuesque handsome poise of a young Franz Josef in the next century. However, the charge that the entire aristocratic and royal houses of Europe were essentially mad, bad and dangerous to know because they only married their cousins is repeated so often that it is taken to be veritable fact. Reviews of the wildly inaccurate historical romp Anonymous suggested that the unhinged behaviour of an ageing Elizabeth I (Vanessa Redgrave) must have been caused in part being the offspring of too much royal inbreeding (Elizabeth I's parents, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, were by no means closely related, but that's apparently by the by.)

However, I argue in my book The Emperors that the story of royalty being in-bred is in fact hugely exaggerated and I began by looking at the story of the most famous of its casualties, the Spanish side of the Hapsburg clan, in a chapter called The Dual Monarchy, giving an overview of the Austrian monarchy.

The Spanish branch of the Hapsburg clan had died out in 1700 after generations of inbreeding. This was never as much of a problem with their less insular Austrian cousins, and it is almost entirely to the Spanish side of the family that we owe the popular stereotype of royalty as habitual inbreds. That point has been both overstated and misunderstood. It is worth noting that in the medieval and early modern period what we would now recognise as inbreeding or incest was not uncommon. In an age when very few people left the village, town or county where they had grown up, inbreeding across the course of several generations was inevitable, regardless of one's social class. Royalty could no more marry outside the sacred confines of their class than most of their subjects could marry outside the limits of their locality.

So, it did occur, but no more or less than within the vast majority of the early modern populations. As attitudes changed and our horizons expanded, royalty moved towards marrying people to whom they were related as faintly as anyone marrying today, in much the same way as nearly everyone in the British Isles with Anglo-Saxon ancestry is likely to be, in some faint way, a descendant of the medieval king Edward III with his numerous children. The marriages to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Diana Spencer and Catherine Middleton were part of a trend set by many factors in history, including changing attitudes to class, love and geography. 

Elena Maria Vidal reviews my new book "The Emperors"

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, whose reign ended with the February Revolution of 1917

Elena Maria Vidal, creator of the Tea at Trianon blog and author of the novels Trianon, Madame Royale, The Night's Dark Shade and The Paradise Tree (forthcoming), has very kindly reviewed my first non-fiction book, The Emperors: How Europe's Rulers were destroyed by the First World War (Amberley, 2014). In her review, Elena Maria writes: - 

The Emperors by Gareth Russell is a book I could not put down until the tragic finale. Gareth succinctly but with drama and power describes the apocalyptic fall of the leaders of Western Civilization in 1917. I finished reading it at night, which was a mistake, because then sleep was impossible, so poignantly is the overthrow of empires described.Written with pathos yet meticulously documented, the book destroys the stereotypes of the rulers, the war and the revolutions... The Emperors is not a long book but it contains more information and more astute analysis than many a tome. 

I am obviously very touched and flattered by Elena Maria's wonderful review, which you can read in full by clicking here. I also undertook a short interview with a local paper near my parents' home-town in Northern Ireland, which is available online here, with thanks to Joanne for the commentary.

I thought I'd also take the opportunity to give a brief outline of The Emperors for anyone interested in buying it or knowing a little bit more about what it covers. It was a wonderful book to write and a frightening but fascinating topic to research. With the Scottish secession referendum looming next week, I was struck by how much of what I read about attitudes in the Austro-Hungarian Empire were so applicable to events in the United Kingdom in 2014. Nationalism seemed to me to be the great bogeyman of the early twentieth century, a pernicious and often devastating force, and what I called "nationalism's inherent tendency towards xenophobia" seems to me to be as applicable to much of what is emanating from Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, and the "Yes" campaign.

Chapter 1: 'The Old World in its Sunset' - this chapter, the book's longest, sets the scene in the three empires covered by the book - Russia's, Germany's and Austria-Hungary's. It describes how each empire had reached the state they were in by 1914, focusing not just on the personalities of their rulers, Tsar Nicholas II, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the Emperor Franz Josef, but also who was advising them, the ruling family's private lives, the country's economy, diplomatic alliances and attitudes to their neighbours. The title comes from a quote by Winston Churchill.

Chapter 2: 'Terrible shock to the dear old Emperor' - here I focus on the life of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este, the Emperor's nephew who became heir to the throne after his cousin's suicide: his decision to marry for love rather than royal rank, his opposition to nationalism, anti-war views and the terrible conspiracies which resulted in his murder in 1914 and the countdown to war. The chapter title comes from a diary entry by King George V of the United Kingdom (below).

Chapter 3: 'Go to the churches, kneel down, and pray for help for our soldiers' - this section covers the countdown to the war in the weeks after the Archduke's assassination, focusing particularly on the moves in Vienna and Berlin between those who wanted war and those who preferred peace. The chapter title comes from a speech made by the Kaiser.

Chapter 4: 'A spectacle at once magnificent and terrible' - shifts focus to look at the first year of the Great War from the Russian perspective, when the armies were under the command of the Tsar's cousin, Grand Duke Nikolai. The quote comes from one of Nicholas II's cabinet ministers.

Chapter 5: 'His Majesty has no understanding of the seriousness of the situation' - centring around the sinking of the British luxury liner Lusitania (below) by a German submarine in 1915, this chapter looks at those in the German government and armed forces who wanted to accelerate the country's attacks on its neighbours to a state known later as "total war". The opening quote comes from one of the Kaiser's aide-de-camps.

Chapter 6: 'May God bless Your Majesty' - this chapter covers the accession of Emperor Karl I to the Austro-Hungarian thrones and the prominent role played by his wife, Zita of Bourbon-Parma, a member of the exiled French royal family. The chapter title is taken from the words of Prince Zdenko Lobkowitz to the new Emperor and Empress in 1916.

Chapter 7: 'I cannot and won't believe that he has been killed' - focuses on the personality and political impact of Nicholas II's wife, the Empress Alexandra, and her dependence on her spiritual confidante, Rasputin. The opening quote comes from one of the Empress's letters.

Chapter 8: 'May the Lord God help Russia' - the rapid implosion of the Romanov monarchy in February 1917 is covered here, how it happened and why, as well as looking at the last-minute attempts to save the institution by offering the crown to Nicholas II's youngest brother, the Grand Duke Mikhail. Nicholas II's return to his palace which had become his family's place of house arrest concludes the chapter, and his signing-off phrase from his abdication document inspired the chapter title.

Cecilia of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Crown Princess

Chapter 9 - 'The Military Dictatorship hardly veiled any more' - this chapter covers the rising prominence of General Paul von Hindenburg and his ultra-nationalist confidante, Erich Ludendorff, in the Second Reich, as well as discussing the birth of a princess with Down's Sydrome, Alexandrine, into the German Imperial Family. Her doting mother, Crown Princess Cecilia (above) had already been profiled, and by this stage her opposition to the war was a view increasingly shared by millions of the Kaiser's exhausted subjects.

Chapter 10 - 'It seems to me that we would gladly conclude peace with you' - my take on the Empress Zita's role in the fascinating Sixtus Affair, in which she and her royal relatives in the Allied armed forces played a pivotal role in attempting to thrash out a path towards peace.

Chapter 11 - 'Our souls are at peace' - this chapter discusses the Russian Imperial Family's life in captivity and their murder in Yekaterinburg in July 1917, including a discussion of whether or not Vladimir Lenin gave the order for the entire family to be slaughtered.

Chapter 12 - 'It was neck and neck to the very end' - this too has its title taken from a quote by Winston Churchill, who thought that up until the spring of 1918, the Great War had been too close to call. The realisation that Germany and her allies could not win the war caused widespread unrest throughout central Europe, resulting in the downfall of the German and Austrian monarchies, but as I discuss in this chapter, the similarities are potentially deceptive and both courts faced very different situations in the second week of November 1918.

Epilogue - 'She's too short to be Tatiana' - with all the fascinating and often tragic lives of the royals in the post-war world, it was difficult to scale everything down to one chapter, but hopefully I succeeded. The famous affair of the Grand Duchess Anastasia's alleged survival is discussed, as are the royals' attitudes towards Nazism and Communism, and how they are often viewed today.

Many thanks again to everyone who has been in touch!

The Eagle and the Maple Leaf: The Austrian Imperial Family in Canada

This is part of a series looking at vignettes in the life of figures who featured prominently in The Emperors, and what happened after the fall of the monarchy.

The death in office of Canada's esteemed Governor-General, Lord Tweedsmuir, during the open months of the Second World War presented the Canadian government with a dilemma, for although they had intended for Lord Tweedsmuir's successor to be a native-born Canadian, the war made the replacement of the Governor-General a top priority and there was not time to go through all the potential Canadian candidates. The Royal Family were hugely popular in Canada and the people's support for them had been attested to by the outpouring of affection and interest surrounding King George and Queen Elizabeth's visit in 1939. Inviting a member of the Royal house to assume the post for the duration of the war therefore seemed a sensible solution, satisfying both the urgency and tact required in making the new appointment; King George VI's uncle, Alexander, Earl of Athlone, who had previously served the Empire as Governor General of the Union of South Africa, accepted the post and crossed to Canada in the company of his wife Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (above.)

This energetic and capable couple were not the only royal arrivals in war-time Canada. Having been overthrown at the end of the First World War, the Hapsburg dynasty found itself the focal point of Austrians opposed to their country's Anschluss with Germany in 1938. The last emperor, Karl, had died in exile but his widow, Zita of Bourbon-Parma (right), had been active in monarchist politics throughout the 1930s and their son, Crown Prince Otto, was a vocal opponent of Nazism. As the Wehrmacht moved through western Europe, Zita no longer felt safe and dreaded the prospect of any of her children falling into Nazi hands. She had every reason to be afraid, for as they hurtled towards their own ruin in the fire and horror of war, the Third Reich had no respect for human life, royal or otherwise. Two of the Hapsburgs had already been captured - Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg, eldest son of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination had helped start the First World War, had vanished behind the barbed wire fences of Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany, for daring to oppose the Anschluss, while the Archduke Albrecht emerged from Gestapo custody blind in one eye and partially paralysed as a result of the torture inflicted upon him. In time, the King of Italy's daughter, Princess Mafalda, was arrested for "subversive activities" and sent to her death at Buchenwald. 

The British Royal family had helped arrange the Austrian Imperial Family's evacuation from Austria in 1919, something I talk about in chapter 12 of The Emperors, and they came to their aid again by arranging safe transport for the Dowager Empress and her younger children to Canada. The family had fled Belgium after the Nazi invasion, making it through France, Spain and Portugal, and across the Atlantic to New Jersey, where they spent some time in New York and the Hamptons, but with the Germans having cut off all access to their bank accounts, funds were tighter than ever and Zita was reduced to making salad made from dandelion leaves. Eventually, the British once again came to her aid by facilitating her move to Quebec, a predominantly Catholic and French-speaking part of the Empire, which suited the Dowager Empress perfectly, since French was her first language and some of her children were still learning English. 

Zita (with her children, above), who always wore black in mourning for her late husband the Emperor, moved north, but her five sons chose to join the war effort. Otto, as the eldest, remained in America, making anti-Nazi propaganda films, raising money for Allied causes and coordinating Austrian exile groups; his younger brother, the Archduke Robert, went to London to work with other exiled representatives of countries which had fallen to the Wehrmacht; Karl-Ludwig and Felix both later signed up to join the US Army, and the youngest boy, Rudolf, smuggled himself back into Austria to join the Resistance.

Initially, it was Karl-Ludwig, Rudolf, Charlotte and the youngest daughter, the Archduchess Elisabeth, who accompanied their mother, along with their grandmother Maria Antonia of Portugal, Dowager Duchess of Parma, who had fled the Austrian revolution wearing nearly every piece of jewellery she owned. So much so that one British officer onboard the train thought she looked like an over-decorated Christmas tree. Felix went north to help find a house for them. In Montreal, they met with Princess Alice and her husband, the Governor-General, and I came across this account of their friendship in Princess Alice's hugely enjoyable memoirs, For My Grandchildren, which, as its name suggests, was constructed almost like a long letter, a reminiscence of an extraordinary life, for the Countess's grandchildren. 

We went to Montreal in October, where there was a reception for us and Granpa received a degree from the University of McGill and attended one of the luncheon-club dinners at which seven hundred people were present. These are only for men and all the big-shots attend them. Granpa had a long talk with Sir Edward Beatty, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, about Canadian affairs... We saw Archduke Felix of Austria and the Archduchess, who were taking a house in Montreal. The Empress Zita had not yet arrived with her mother ... [She arrived a few weeks later] The four children, Carl, Rudolf, Charlotte and Elisabeth were also there. The Emperor had died in 1922, after being married to Zita for about ten years, during which time they had eight children and Granpa remarked that had he lived he and Zita might have exceeded the record set up by her parents, who had twenty-one! These four children, whose ages ranged from nineteen to twenty-three, were all well brought up, with charming manners, and appeared young for their ages. 

The Countess was slightly mistaken about the number of Zita's siblings - while her father Roberto had fathered over twenty children, they had been between two wives. Zita's mother, Maria Antonia, was his second, married after the death of his first, Maria Pia.

After Felix and Karl-Ludwig returned to America to fight in the war, the Governor-General and Princess Alice invited the Empress and her two youngest daughters, Charlotte and Elisabeth, to visit them and stayed in regular contact whenever they visited Montreal.

The Empress Zita of Austria and her two charming daughters, Charlotte and Elisabeth, came to stay with us. The Empress led an austere and secluded existence, and as a consequence the girls, although they were old enough to attend university, had little experience of social life. I well remember their excitement when we took them out to dinner and a movie in Quebec! They are both happily married now [Author's Note: After the war, Charlotte married Georg, Duke of Mecklenburg, and Elisabeth married Prince Heinrich of Liechtenstein]. The Empress's lady-in-waiting, Countess Kerstenbruck, used to visit our aides-de-camp in the staff room in order to have a sherry and a cigarette, as such indulgences were not permitted in the ascetic apartments of the Empress! They lived in a dreary little house with no curtains, no pictures and floors covered with linoleum which had been a priests' convalescent retreat. I felt very sad for her [Zita] and her eight children, and I thought they seemed very poor. She was strict with the girls, so that they knew no one and were always chaperoned by the lady-in-waiting to and from the university. Zita still wore the same dress as she did when she became a widow - down to the ground, right to her hands and up to her ears and chin with no ear-rings or any bit of jewellery. In contrast she was very talkative, well informed and cultivated. She spoke English fluently, but we spoke French to the children (they lived in Quebec), but they were learning English. [Zita] had her old mother with her, who was much more worldly She was looked after by one of Zita's hideous brothers - she had twenty-one brothers and sisters of the Parma family. We sat down to a typical German tea of butterbrod and little square cakes and biscuits. Only [a friend] and I were allowed cups of tea - the others, tumblers of water. 

Eventually, one of the Empress's sheltered daughters, the Archduchess Charlotte, remarkably flew the nest to return to New York under the pseudonym of Charlotte de Bar and enrolled as a social worker in East Harlem, one of the city's most underprivileged areas. Zita returned to Europe after the war, where she died at the age of ninety-six in 1989. 

Marie-Astrid: the Queen who never was

The 1981 marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer was one of the most famous media events of the century. The splendour of the day and the drama of the marriage's breakdown in the next decade helped remove memories of the fact that for most of the 1970s, Prince Charles's position as the world's most eligible bachelor had helped occupy the tabloids.

Before the lithesome loveliness of Diana lit up the nation's screens, Prince Charles was linked to a whole host of women. Some eligible; many decidedly not. Certain members of the Royal Family looked on in horror at the pretty, wealthy but racy young women Charles was involved with in the decade before he met Diana. None of them seemed quite right to take on the enormous responsibility of being the next Princess of Wales. They either weren't virgins, weren't aristocrats or there was some defect in their personality that made royal insiders doubt they would adjust well to the "glamour in aspic" of marrying into the royal house. 

One woman that Charles was linked to for a time was, on paper, perfect in all respects bar one. She was Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg; she was the eldest child of Luxembourg's reigning Grand Duke Jean and his elegant Belgian wife, Josephine-Charlotte. She had trained as a nurse, despite her royal upbringing, and now served as President of the Red Cross in Luxembourg - the kind of humanitarian charity work that the British Royal Family love. She was five years younger than Prince Charles, pretty, poised and having been born into royalty herself, she knew what to expect. By 1977, British tabloids like the Daily Express were confidently reporting that Buckingham Palace would soon be announcing the Prince's engagement to the twenty-three year-old Princess of Luxembourg.

The only problem, of course, was her religion. Like all members of Luxembourg's reigning family, Marie-Astrid was a Roman Catholic. One of her father's godparents had been Pope Benedict XV and the family retained close ties with the Vatican. For years, it was assumed that it had been Pope Paul VI who ruined Marie-Astrid's chances of becoming Queen of England by invoking the Ne Temere decree, which required that, as a Catholic, she should be married in a Catholic church and promise to raise her children as Catholics, too. Given that Marie-Astrid was going to marry the future head of the Protestant Church of England, that naturally created some problems and the whole thing had to be called off.

In fact, whilst it's unlikely that the Pope would have been too enthused about seeing Marie-Astrid's children raised as Protestants, it was Britain that torpedoed the match. Not Rome.

In the first place, there were laws in place that made such a marriage impossible. If Charles and Marie-Astrid had married, it would have been the first time a British sovereign legally married a Roman Catholic since the future James II married Maria-Beatrice of Modena in 1673. Their reign had ended in revolution and when their enemies triumphed at the Battle of the Boyne, laws were introduced banning any future monarchs from marrying a Catholic. When the future George IV attempted to marry a gentle Catholic widow, Maria Fitzherbert, in 1785, he broke nearly every constitutional law applicable to his private life. The marriage was regarded as totally illegal and George was eventually forced to marry the far less appealing Princess Caroline of Brunswick - who may have been smelly and annoying, but at least she was Protestant and that was really all the British government cared about.

That the government considered it possible that Prince Charles might one day want to marry Princess Marie-Astrid is shown by the fact that there were several committees set-up to see if it was constitutionally possible to repeal the ban on British royals marrying Catholics. There was soft opposition, from the beginning, including from Charles's beloved grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who was not only a devout Protestant but was also naturally opposed to change. Concerns about how such a marriage would affect the already-volatile situation in Northern Ireland were also voiced. Early in 1980, the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, set up a small committee to discuss the issue. According to her future biographer, Hugo Young, the Prime Minister herself was strongly opposed to changing the law or to encouraging the Prince's marriage to Marie-Astrid. And her objections rested squarely on the idea that the princess's religion was problematic and undesirable. Some of the committees other members later told Young that they had been shocked by "the extreme anti-Catholicism" of the Prime Minister.

Eventually the rumours about Charles and Marie-Astrid faded away. Maybe that's all they ever were. Neither Charles, nor Marie-Astrid, ever went firmly on the record about how much truth there had been in the idea that they could quite married. Evidently, Mrs. Thatcher considered it a possibility, but we don't know how sold on the idea Charles himself ever was. Charles soon announced his forthcoming marriage to the beautiful Diana Spencer - young, virginal, British, aristocrat and Protestant. And Marie-Astrid married a member of the deposed Austrian royal family, Archduke Carl-Christian, in 1982 (above.)

Prince Charles is now the father of two sons and is married to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall - one of the women who was considered so unsuitable for him in the 1970s. Marie-Astrid, now an Archduchess of Austria and Princess of Hungary, is the mother of five children. Her eldest, Marie-Christine, is married to the Count of Limburg-Stirum, and is a mother herself. Her eldest son, the twenty-six year-old Archduke Imre, is engaged to the American Catholic journalist and pro-Life activist, Kathleen Walker; his 24 year-old brother, Archduke Christoph, is engaged to the French diplomat's daughter, Adelaide Drapé-Frisch. (Both engagement pictures are below.) Marie-Astrid's two youngest children are 21 year-old Archduke Alexander and 18 year-old Archduchess Gabriella. 

How history might have been different if the rumours were right and the Prime Minister had supported the idea. Perhaps though, given Marie-Astrid's own devotion to her Catholic faith and the quiet lifestyle she now enjoys, things worked out for the best. 

Not Marie-Antoinette?

Over on Tea at Trianon's new forum, created by Elena Maria Vidal, there has been an ongoing discussion about Marie-Antoinette in art. Although re-labelling and mis-labelling of portraits is a common enough occurrence in sixteenth century history, it's much rarer in the better documented 1700s. However, according to several researchers, one of the most famous portraits of Marie-Antoinette may actually be of someone else.

The portrait (above) hangs in the magnificent Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Marie-Antoinette's main childhood home. Traditionally held to be a portrait of Marie-Antoinette painted around the time of her marriage negotiations, the lovely portrait was so famous that it even graced the UK cover of Antonia Fraser's award-winning 2001 biography of her, Marie Antoinette: The Journey. However, since 2008 the Schönbrunn has re-labelled the portrait and claims that is in fact a painting of Marie-Antoinette's elder sister, the Archduchess Maria-Josefa, who died tragically during a smallpox epidemic in 1767 at the age of sixteen.

An article about which Hapsburg sister the portrait represents can be found here.

And the forum's discussion begins here.

Remembering Marie-Antoinette

Today is the two hundredth and eighteenth anniversary of the terrible execution of Marie-Antoinette. The thirty-seven year-old Queen was beheaded by guillotine in what is now the Place de la Concorde just after noon on 16th October 1793. 

The Death: Here is my post on her execution from last year.

Marie-Antoinette the Christian: Professor de Oliveira defends Marie-Antoinette and discusses the strength of her Catholic faith (via Tea at Trianon)

Marie-Antoinette and fashion: my post on the young Marie-Antoinette's fashion tastes

Defending Marie-Antoinette: novelist Elena Maria Vidal discusses why she never said "Let them eat cake"

A one-man woman: Elena Maria Vidal gives an excellent discussion of the rumours regarding Marie-Antoinette and count von Fersen, as dramatised in the 2006 movie Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst.

Birth: my post on Marie-Antoinette's birth in Vienna and her christening

The Pope's letter of condolence to the Austrian royal family

The Pope has written to Archduke Karl, head of the House of Hapsburg, to commiserate with members of the royal family on the recent death of the Archduke's father, Crown Prince Otto, whose sad death on July 4th of this year I commented upon here.

To His Royal Highness, Archduke Karl of Austria: 

With deepest sympathy have I learned about the passing of your father, His Royal Highness Archduke Otto of Austria. In this hour of sadness at your painful loss, I am united with you and all the royal family in prayer for the dead. During his long and full life, Archduke Otto has been a witness to the changing face of Europe. Trusting in God and aware of a significant heritage, he has been a committed European tirelessly working for freedom, for the unity of peoples and for a just order in this continent. May the Lord reward him for his diverse acts for the good of mankind and give him the fullness of life in his heavenly kingdom. Through the intercession of Mary, the mother of God, I offer an Apostolic Blessing to all family members and to all who mourn Archduke Otto, and who pray for his eternal salvation. 

Benedictus PP. XVI

Obituary: Otto von Hapsburg, Crown Prince of Austria (1912 - 2011)

I was saddened to hear today of the death of His Imperial and Royal Highness Crown Prince Otto of Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia. His Imperial Highness was the eldest son of the last Emperor of Austria, to date, Karl I, who ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire during its final traumatic years from 1916 to 1918. Despite Karl's heroic attempts to end the carnage of the First World War, the chaos and unrest which swept Europe in 1918, coupled with American hostility to the idea of negotiating with a semi-absolute monarchy, eventually swept the Hapsburgs off the throne they had held for nearly eight centuries and their vast empire disintegrated into eleven smaller nations and a generation of instability. Karl, his wife Zita and their children, including six year-old Otto, were banished and despite various attempts to restore the monarchy in Hungary, Emperor Karl died in exile on the Portuguese island of Madeira in 1922. His widow, now Dowager Empress, endured an extraordinarily long widowhood, dying in 1987. In recognition of the late emperor's devotion to the cause of peace, his abhorrence of violence and the strength of his devotion to the Christian faith, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004. 

In deference to the politics of the time, Otto, who was ten years old when his father died, chose not to adopt the title of "emperor" in exile and instead settled on being referred to as Crown Prince, showing that he very much considered himself to be an emperor-in-waiting. He relied very much on his close relationship with his mother and his large brood of siblings, all of whom showed characteristic Hapsburg determination in carving out new lives for themselves in the modern era. The Crown Prince's younger sister, Archduchess Charlotte, for instance, became a welfare worker in East Harlem.

"Juarez" (1939)

Novelist Elena Maria Vidal reviews the classic 1939 movie Juarez, about the downfall of the Mexican monarchy  and the establishment of a republic in that country. Although ostensibly about the life of Mexico's republican leader, Benito Juárez, as Elena Maria points out, the film is today best-known for the magnificent performances of Bette Davis as the Belgian-born Empress of Mexico, Carlota, and British actor Brian Aherne as the Emperor, Maximilian von Hapsburg. Elena Maria is particularly glowing in her review of Bette Davis's performance of the Empress's mental breakdown which, as she quite rightly says, was probably one of the acting highlights of Davis's career.

For the full review, click HERE. 

For my review of a book on Bette Davis's life, click HERE. 

December 9th, 1793: The Death of Gabrielle de Polignac

'Who is this? And what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;

And they crossed themselves for fear,

All the Knights at Camelot;

But Lancelot mused a little space

He said, "She has a lovely face;

God in His mercy lend her grace,

The Lady of Shalott."'

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson



Illustration above: An anonymous royalist pamphlet from 1793, showing the Angel of Death inscribing a monument to the Duchesse de Polignac

 

On December 9th, 1793, one of the last and the most exquisite of the ancien régime's socialites, Gabrielle, Duchesse de Polignac, died in exile in Vienna, less than two months after the execution of her friend and patroness, Queen Marie-Antoinette. She had been ailing for some time, although what precisely caused her death is still something of a mystery. In his 1974 biography Louis and Antoinette, Vincent Cronin wrote "Gabrielle de Polignac contracted a sudden illness in December 1793 and was dead within twelve hours". It may be that the duchess's death was hastened by a sudden infection caught in the depths of the Austrian winter, but it seems clear to me from my own research that for quite a few years prior to her death, Madame de Polignac had not been in good health. Her young and pretty daughter wrote in a letter to one of her mother's many English friends that since the news of the Queen's execution in October it had been possible to see Death written all over Gabrielle's face. The former court painter, Madame Le Brun, living nearby, wrote that in the final months of her life Gabrielle's "still lovely" face had been drained of its colour by the combined effects of sorrow and illness. Lady Antonia Fraser, author of Marie Antoinette: The Journey surmises that the cause of La Belle Gabrielle's death may therefore have been terminal cancer, exacerbated by suffering. At the time, others suggested it may have been consumption (tuberculosis.)

Having written Gabrielle in as one of the major characters in my play The Audacity of Ideas, set at Versailles on the eve of the Revolution of 1789, I have grappled with what killed her. I would like to quote from my author's note for that play and also show the scene in which Gabrielle is informed by the court physician, Dr. Lassonne, about her condition - four years prior to her death. No disclaimer is needed for the educated, but it is always worth bearing in mind that the scene between the duchess and the doctor is, of course, fictional.

At the time of her death, Gabrielle was survived by her husband, Jules, her daughter and her three sons - Jules (the future Prime Minister of France), Armand and Camille. Today, Gabrielle's descendants sit on the throne of Monaco.

November 2nd, 1755: The Birth of Marie-Antoinette

"Her Majesty has been very happily delivered of a small, but completely healthy, Archduchess."  

- Count Khevenhüller, Court Chamberlain to the Empress Maria-Teresa (1755)

On this day in 1755, the future Queen of France and Navarre, Marie-Antoinette of Austria (above), was born in the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg Palace, Vienna. She was the fifteenth child and eleventh daughter of the Empress Maria-Teresa, the hereditary ruler of the Hapsburg dominions which then included most of modern-day Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as parts of the former kingdom of Yugoslavia, Italy and Poland, and her husband, the Emperor Franz-Stefan, the elected leader of the Holy Roman Empire (comprising most of modern-day Germany.) 

Since this was her fifteenth time undergoing labour, the Empress saw no reason for it to disrupt her work schedule. Up until the last minute, Her Imperial Majesty kept herself busy - reading government documents and signing state papers. And then, the moment her eleventh daughter had entered the world, the Empress returned to the business of government, requesting that some recent policy proposals be brought to her for inspection. It was half-past eight in the evening and the birth had taken place in the Empress's luxurious apartments on the first floor of the palace. Her husband, waiting outside, was delighted that both wife and baby were in good health. Whatever his faults - namely a taste for fine-living and pretty women - the Emperor Franz-Stefan was a wonderful father. Once he knew that everything had gone as expected, he dutifully made his way to the imperial chapel for a Te Deum service of thanksgiving for the safe delivery of the Empress and the new Archduchess. There, he was joined by the various members of the Court aristocracy who had been waiting in the palace's Mirror Room, as etiquette now required. 

There was a slightly superstitious frisson at the fact that the baby princess had been born on the second day of November - the Feast of All Souls in the liturgical calendar - or, put crudely, the Day of the Dead. Every church, chapel and cathedral in Vienna was hung in black to remind people to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory - even in terms of a visual aesthetic, it was hardly an encouraging welcome into the world of the living for the Empress's latest child. These poor omens were only added to when news later arrived that on the very day of the birth, Lisbon, capital city of Portugal, had been hit by a devastating earthquake - one of the worst in European history - resulting in the deaths of 30,000 people. The King and Queen of Portugal, José the Reformer and his wife, Mariana-Victoria of Spain, were some of the new Hapsburg princess's godparents, which was again interpreted by some superstitious souls as a sign of bad luck. They had been fleeing their collapsing palace at the moment their Austrian god-daughter had been born.

October 19th, 1851: The Death of Marie-Thérèse of France

"I thank all the FRENCHMEN who have remained attached to my family and to me for the proofs of devotion that they have given us, for the sufferings and pains they suffered because of us.

I pray God to pour out His blessings on France, which I have always loved, even in the midst of my bitterest afflictions."

- The Will of the Princess (1851)

The Cross of Laeken marks the anniversary of the death of Princess Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France, the only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, who died in Austria at the age of seventy-two, three days after observing the 58th anniversary of her mother's execution.

Next week, I will be reviewing Elena Maria Vidal's wonderful novel Madame Royale, based on Marie-Thérèse's later life. For a review of its prequel, based on the marriage of her parents, click here.

October 16th, 1793: The Execution of Marie-Antoinette

"I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long."

Lancelot de Carles and the Portuguese author of the Alcobaca account said that when Death came for Anne Boleyn in 1536, she was still at the height of her beauty. The glossy brunette tresses were immaculately coiffed; the glistening dark eyes, the long, elegant fingers, the trim waist and the smooth skin were all still intact in the waif-like 28 year-old. Her jailers had treated her with respect – bowing as they entered her presence; the Constable of the Tower even stammered over his words in informing the Queen that the time had now come to die. It was left to Anne to offer soothing words of polite comfort to her gaoler, rather than the other way round. On the scaffold, thousands had knelt before a woman who was still young, still glamorous and still beautiful.

When they came for Catherine Howard in 1542, the teenage Queen still radiated that potent mixture of vulnerability and sexuality which had made her so lethally attractive to men. When they came for Jane Grey in 1554, she was dressed demurely in black – still the perfect, prim, Protestant porcelain doll, her eyes aglow with quiet ecstasy at the prospect of being martyred for her faith. When they came for the Romanov Grand Duchesses in 1918, they were all young, all pretty; their ages ranged from twenty-two to seventeen. Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia were still recognisably the iconic princesses who had stared out from hundreds of photographs celebrating the domestic bliss of Russia’s last Imperial Family.

But when they came for Marie-Antoinette in 1793, France’s most iconic queen was no longer beautiful or even pretty. Rather, she was in every way – apart from the curious beauty endowed by dignity – positively and undeniably ugly. The sufferings she had endured over the last four years and especially in the last thirteen months had destroyed what remained of her good-looks. As the poor woman sat writing her last letter between the two fat wax candles in the grim, cold and dank prison cell at the Conciergerie in the pre-dawn darkness of October 16th 1793, anyone hoping to see the one-time goddess of ancien régime sophistication would have been cruelly disappointed. The trim waist which had once been encased in Rose Bertin’s legendary creations of haute couture had thickened and coarsened; the beautiful fair hair which the celebrity coiffeur, Monsieur Léonard, had once styled into everything from towering poufs decorated with diamonds, jewels, powder and feathers, to simple chignons inspired by country-maids, was long gone. The Queen’s hair had turned entirely grey over the last year and it had even begun to fall out. That skin – the ivory-white smoothness of which had once caused her aristocratic contemporaries to fall into raptures of both praise and jealousy – was no longer alabaster, but rather emaciated, almost ghostly. The skin had begun to sag as well, around her chin, neck, cheeks and eyes, in particular. The sparkling blue eyes, shared by so many of the Queen’s Hapsburg relatives, had dimmed and clouded over, as the days and weeks spent in a darkened prison cell ruined her eyesight. She was thirty-seven years-old.

In the last forty-eight hours, the Queen had eaten almost nothing and her body was now rapidly beginning to fall apart, as if it too sensed that the end was near and that there was no point in holding itself together any longer. The Queen’s monthly period had started a few days earlier, but it had quickly degenerated into a frightening case of vaginal hemorrhaging. She had to constantly change her menstrual linens and trying to find the time to do so discreetly, when she was apt to be interrupted by the revolutionary guards at any given moment, was difficult. For a woman who was always so protective over her privacy and mortified by nudity, it was particularly humiliating set of circumstances.

Fit for a Queen

The blog Marie Antoinette's Gossip Guide to the 18th Century is hosting a rather fun video, celebrating the legendary wardrobe of the last Queen of France and her contemporaries.

The dress above is one of the cumbersome but magnificent gowns required by Versailles etiquette to be worn by the great ladies of the Court on formal occasions of State. Marie-Antoinette was not a fan of this particular style of dress, but she made the best of it by employing the talents of her famed dress-maker, stylist and so-called "Minister of Fashion," Madame Rose Bertin, who American Vogue credited with inventing the entire concept of haute couture in their September 2006 issue.

The personal style of Marie-Antoinette and her confidantes is something often misrepresented. Like earlier queens, such as Anne Boleyn and Henrietta-Maria, Marie-Antoinette was genuinely interested in fashion for fashion's sake - she enjoyed the touch and sight of gorgeous fabrics and daring, fashion-forward gowns. Unlike other sovereigns, such as Elizabeth I or Louis XIV, the Queen did not enjoy dressing for the sake of grandeur or political display. Her decision, in the 1780s, to patronise the movement for simpler, elegant lawn dresses was one of her more controversial, but is also indicates that the Queen preferred style to splendour and innovation to tradition when it came to fashion.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given her own obsession with fashion and her appreciation of the power of aesthetics, Marie-Antoinette's set was known for being a fairly fashionable one. Her brother-in-law, the Comte d'Artois, was generally considered to be the best-dressed man in France, while several of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting were praised for their sense of style - the imperious but entertaining Princesse d'Hénin, a friend of the Comte d'Artois', had a preference for sophisticated and generally fairly conservative cuts in clothing; the pretty Thérèse-Lucy de Dillon, married to the Governor of Tobago and chatelaine of a beautiful townhouse on the rue du Bac, generally followed where the Queen led, but her love of the latest fashion and complimentary, highly-feminine styles were commented upon with approval by many of the courtiers at Versailles.

Amongst the Queen's extended circle, perhaps the most adventurous dresser was Victoire, the Princesse de Guéménée, wife of one of the highest-ranking aristocrats in the kingdom and related by blood to another of the nation's "first families." Victoire was noted for the general fabulousness of her lifestyle, her extravagant parties, her sophisticated manners, her luxurious homes, her gambling addiction, her financial recklessness, her love for her pet dogs and her dazzlingly decadent dress-sense. Madame de Guéménée dressed in the most lavish and ostentatious style, which so many of us associate in our heads with the last days of the ancien régime in France. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Madame and her husband were the only French aristocrats in the entire century who actually faced bankruptcy - a financial scandal which rocked the nobility and titillated the gossips of Paris and Versailles for months to come. The Queen, who was not particularly close to Madame but enjoyed her parties, arranged for a loan to be given to the couple to spare them the humiliation of debtors' prison, but the Guéménées were still forced to quit the capital for awhile, in order to live-down the disgrace of their bankruptcy.

Perhaps the keenest of the Versailles fashionistas, after the Queen herself, was her friend and Superintendent of her Household, the Princesse de Lamballe. A pretty society widow, the Princesse was not only one of the highest-ranking women in France as a Princess of the Blood, but also one of its wealthiest, thanks to the enormous fortune she had inherited when her young but immoral husband died at the age of twenty from advanced syphilis, leaving her everything but an infection. Mercifully, Madame de Lamballe had avoided contracting venereal disease, since her husband had quit his wife's bed for that of a dancer, Mademoiselle Chassaign, shortly after the wedding. That the Lamballe marriage had been abusive had long been whispered in the corridors of Versailles and with the inheritance received from her husband, it was cruelly (but accurately) reported that the prince had given his wife far greater pleasure in death than he ever had in life. Deeply religious, morally upstanding, highly sentimental, emotional and lady-like, Madame de Lamballe showed no wish to re-marry and instead used her vast fortune to give generously to her favourite charities and to maintain an extravagant yet elegant life as one of the French aristocracy's premier socialites. She kept two large homes - her town-house of the Hôtel de Toulouse (where the recent film Marie-Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst was partially filmed; Madame's home was used to film the scenes of Marie-Antoinette's youth in Vienna) and her beautiful country house of the Château de Rambouillet (above left.)

"A gift of the Grace of God": Reflections on Mozart's Requiem

The Introit to Mozart's Requiem Mass is perhaps my single favourite piece of music and so I was pleased to hear the current Pope, Benedict XVI, praise it so highly.

Despite being routinely present as either an enthusiastic Freemason or an equally enthusiastic agnostic, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Mozart did not remain a sincere Catholic for all of his conscious life. In one of his final letters, he wrote that his faith had given him the ability to no longer fear death - "And I thank my God for having given me the good fortune of having the opportunity of recognizing in it the key to our happiness. I never lie down without thinking that perhaps the next day I might not be. And yet anyone who knows me will not be able to say that in their company I am sad or in a bad mood."

Via Tea at Trianon comes the current Pope's reflections on Mozart's Requiem, to quote: -

"Everything is in perfect harmony in Mozart, every note, every musical phrase is as it is and could not be otherwise; even those opposed are reconciled; it is called "mozart’sche Heiterkeit" (Mozart's serenity), which envelops everything, every moment. It is a gift of the Grace of God, but it is also the fruit of Mozart's lively faith that, especially in sacred music, is able to reflect the luminous response of divine love, which gives hope, even when human life is lacerated by suffering and death..."