The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) by Mme. la Marquise de Fontenoy
page 23 of 280 (08%)
page 23 of 280 (08%)
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her, whereupon she contracted a morganatic marriage with the gentleman
in question, and lived and died at an advanced age only about twelve years ago. Prince Albert, the elder, thereupon married morganatically a young girl of noble birth of the name of Baroness Rauch, whose family had for more than one hundred and fifty years occupied leading positions at the Court of Berlin. On the occasion of her marriage to the prince, she received from the Prussian Crown the title of Countess of Hohenau, and the children whom she bore to Prince Albert the elder are now known as Counts and Countesses of Hohenau. The elder of these Counts Hohenau bears the name of Fritz, and his wife, before their banishment from the capital, was one of the most dashing and brilliant figures in the ultra-aristocratic society of Berlin. No entertainment was regarded as complete without her presence, and in every social enterprise, no matter whether it was a flower corso, a charity fair, a hunt, a picnic, or amateur theatricals, she was always to the fore, besides being the leader in every new fashion, and in every new extravagance. Although eccentric--she was the first member of her sex to show herself astride on horseback in the Thiergarten--and in spite of her being famed as a thorough-paced coquette, and as a flirt, yet no one ventured to impugn her good name, until the disgraceful anonymous letter scandal; and both her husband and herself naturally resent most keenly that without any hearing or explanation they should have been banished from the court, and sent to live, first at Hanover, then at Dresden, but always away from Berlin and Potsdam, solely on account of an anonymous letter. The sympathy of society in the affair was all with the Hohenaus, who although absent from Berlin, may be said to have taken the leading |
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