Princess Louise-Marie of Belgium
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Louise-Marie Amélie, Princess of Belgium, later by marriage Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was born in Brussels on February 18, 1858 and died at Wiesbaden March 1, 1924. She was the eldest daughter of King Leopold II of Belgium and his wife Marie Henriette of Austria. Her aunt, Leopold's sister, was Carlota of Mexico, Belgium's first princess. She married Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, her second cousin, in Brussels on May 4, 1875 and had two children:
1. Leopold Clement Philipp August Maria (b. Szent-Antal, Hungary, July 19, 1878 - d. Vienna, April 27, 1916). He died when a prostitute flung acid in his face.
2. Dorothea Maria Henriette Auguste Louise (b. Vienna, April 30, 1881 - d. Taxis, Württemberg, January 21, 1967), married on August 2, 1898 to Ernst Günther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.
A renown flirt before her marriage, it is suspected that her lovers included her future husband's brother Prince Ferdninand, her sister Princess Stéphanie's future husband, Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, as well as Archduke Ludwig Viktor, the youngest brother of the Franz Joseph I of Austria. From 1895 at age 37, Louise was involved romantically with Géza Mattachich, stepson of Count Oskar Keglevich, and a lieutenant in a Croatian Regiment of the Austrian army ten years her junior whom she had first seen in the Prater in Vienna.
In January 1897 she scandalized Vienna by leaving the Prince permanently for the Lieutenant and taking her daughter with her.[1] They traveled first to Paris, then Cannes, living in other destinations in the south of France and the rest of Europe. Her son became estranged to her because he felt her scandalous actions had ruined his chance for inheritance. Her daughter soon left her mother at the advice of her fiancé, the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. In 1898, Prince Philipp and Mattachich fought a duel in Vienna, first with guns, then with swords, in which the Prince was injured.[2] She began divorce proceedings in 1898 and was divorced from Prince Philipp on January 15, 1906.
Estranged both from her father and her husband, Louise's extravagant expenses brought her deeper and deeper in debt. Despite being daughter of arguably the wealthiest King of the age, she was forced to claim bankruptcy after it became known that Mattachich had forged the signature of Louise's sister Princess Stéphanie on promissory notes for jewelry worth approximately $2,500,000.[3] As a result of this episode she was institutionalized in May of 1898 for six years. Mattachich was sentenced to 4 years in prison for forgery. Once his sentence was over, he helped Louise escape from the asylum she was in, and they were together until his death in Paris in 1923. After his death she was given a home by one of her relations, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium.
[edit] Books
- Aus den letzten Jahren: Memorien by Géza Keglavich-Mattachich (Leipzig 1904).
- Autour des trônes que j'ai vu tomber by Princesse Louise de Belgique (Paris 1921). Translated in English as My Own Affairs by M. C. Ffoulkes (London 1924).
- The Liason by Maria Matray & Answald Krüger, (translated from German by Richard Sharp) (London 1975).
- Louise von Sachsen-Coburg: Ihr Kampf um Liebe und Glück by Gerd Holler (Vienna and Munich 1991).
- Louise de Saxe-Cobourg. Amours, argent, procès. by Olivier Defrance & Joseph van Loon (Brussels 2001).
- All for Love by Dan Jacobson (London 2005).
