Marguerite de Rothschild
Marguerite de Rothschild, duchesse de Gramont (19 September 1855, in Frankfurt – 25 July 1905, in Paris), was the daughter of Baron Mayer Carl von Rothschild (1820–1886) (Naples branch; son of Carl Mayer von Rothschild) and Louise Rothschild (1820–1894) (London branch; daughter of Nathan Mayer Rothschild).
Margaretha's father disapproved of her marrying a Catholic, the comte de Liedekerke, and her conversion to Catholicism and withdrew her from his will. Soon after her marriage, Count de Liedekerke died at a hunting party. She remarried with Agénor, 11th duc de Gramont (then duc de Guiche) in 1878 who was the son of Agénor de Gramont, an ex-ambassador of Emperor Napoleon III. Baron Carl Meyer von Rothschild refused to attend the wedding, because he had preferred his daughter to marry her cousin Edmond de Rothschild, and not a non-Jew.
The will of her father was revoked and she received her inheritance at her father's death, in 1886, which was enormous. The Duke and Duchess de Gramont lived in their hôtel particulier on the Champs Élysées where she would give parties for the cream of the aristocracy, and at their château de Vallière, near Paris.
They had three children:
- Antoine Agénor Armand (1879–1962), duc de Guiche, then 12th duc de Gramont, who was a close friend of Marcel Proust, and married Élaine Greffulhe, daughter of the famous comtesse Greffulhe;
- Antonia Corisande Emma Louise (1880–1977), who married Marquis Hélie de Noailles;
- Louis-René (1883–1963), Comte de Gramont, who married Antoinette de Rochechouart-Mortemart.