Author Topic: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3  (Read 225150 times)

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Offline Carolath Habsburg

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #315 on: December 31, 2012, 11:59:32 AM »
Actually the guy behind Crownprincess Marie is  her brother in law, Karl Anton von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen ;)

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Eric_Lowe

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #316 on: January 01, 2013, 01:40:46 AM »
Yes. The one who married one of the Belgian Princesses.

Offline grandduchessella

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #317 on: January 01, 2013, 12:18:03 PM »
Josephine, sister of King Albert I. Marie's reminiscences of Karl Anton weren't too flattering.
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Eric_Lowe

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #318 on: January 01, 2013, 12:34:37 PM »
Missy did not like that family too much.

Offline Carolath Habsburg

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #319 on: January 01, 2013, 02:50:54 PM »
Really? Can you tell us more, please? Thanks in advanced!

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"...Пусть он землю бережет родную, А любовь Катюша сбережет....". Grand Duchess Ekaterina Fyodorovna to Grand Duke Georgiy Alexandrovich. 1914

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Offline grandduchessella

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #320 on: January 01, 2013, 04:15:35 PM »
I don't have the memoirs in front of me but here's what I recall:

She found Karl Anton rather vain and superficial--very impressed with his looks, slender build and uniform.

She wasn't overly impressed with any of her sisters-in-law.

She didn't like her mother-in-law, finding her narrow-minded, overly religious and too serious.

She DID really like her father-in-law, Leopold. She had nothing but good things to say for his character, looks, behavior and her relationship with him.

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Offline grandduchessella

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #321 on: January 01, 2013, 04:30:22 PM »
I found some online excerpts of the memoirs:

Wilhelm (her BIL): "William, though a dear, kindhearted fellow, had none of Ferdinand's good looks; he was inclined to stoutness, had snub features, and the characteristically eagle nose of the Hohenzollerns was conspicuously absent from his rotund and jovial face. He was full of the milk of human kindness, though none too happily married to a niece of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. This not very united couple had a two-year-old daughter and two wee twin sons. "

Karl (her BIL): "Charles, who was Ferdinand's youngest brother, had no lack of good looks. He had a beautifully slim figure of which he was inordinately proud. In fact, he was inclined to be too pleased with himself and stalked about with something of a peacock's strut. He considered himself as clever as he was handsome, and I was often astounded at the way he managed to lord it over Ferdinand, who was not only his elder but his superior in every way. A year or two later, Charles, whom the family called Carlo, married his first cousin, Josephine, Princess of Belgium—sister of Albert, the King of the Belgians. Accustomed to admire him as a child, she continued to do so all through their married life; though she, too, was by far his superior. She may have had moments when she realized this, but she never showed it, so his vanity increased with the years in a way most provoking to his family. A greater contrast than the two brothers, Ferdinand and Charles, can hardly be imagined. Ferdinand was almost painfully modest and unassuming, whilst his milk-fair, wasp-waisted brother was just the contrary, and, into the bargain, Ferdinand was inexplicably humble before his brother's assumed perfections."

Leopold (her FIL): "as one of the most charming princes of his day. Clever, cultivated, good-looking, he had something of Ferdinand's modesty, though he was much less shy and the most perfect homme du monde. I have never met a more unselfish man. He lived entirely for others, spending his life and energies rushing backward and forward between the different members of his family, wearing himself to pieces over the care he took of his delicate wife and of his adorable, old and very deaf mother, whom he dearly loved....he was so exceedingly amiable and thoughtful and had such perfect manners; besides, he was highly cultivated, well read and a very expert art connoisseur. All these qualities my mother appreciated to the full. Altogether mama was enchanted with everything, and this aristocratic and yet kindly German family was entirely to her taste."

Josephine (her husband's grandmother): "Small and frail, she had exquisite features framed in veils and laces which heightened their delicacy. Her gowns and cloaks were just as they should be. She always wore gloves much too long in the fingers, which she had not had the strength to pull on properly. Being stone-deaf she had expressive little gestures indicating when she had understood your pantomimic conversation; she liked a good joke and had a sweet way of lifting her hand and covering her mouth when amused or pleasantly shocked. Dear old Grand-mama Josephine had the most lovely nose I have ever seen; it was one of God's perfections."

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Offline grandduchessella

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #322 on: January 01, 2013, 04:30:32 PM »
Antonia (her MIL): "My future mother-in-law's looks were a great disappointment to me. Having heard that she had been a great beauty, I was all eagerness to see her, but I could not reconcile myself to this pale-faced, pale-lipped, Grecian-nosed woman with the too-small bust and too-long legs. These proportions can occasionally be beautiful, but in her case, the hips being enormous, there was something about her figure which made you feel positively uncomfortable. Had I been older, I would no doubt have understood how handsome her features still were. She was most loving and charmingly kind to me, which I later realized must have been somewhat of an effort, because, being an ardent Catholic, it was a great distress to her to have a Protestant daughter-in-law...MY MOTHER-IN-LAW was an interesting, if not altogether a lovable, personality. She was profoundly artistic, an excellent painter, and deeply learned on certain subjects, such as botany, biology and natural history. But in other ways she had remained very narrow and her religion cramped instead of widening her heart, mind and sympathies. She was one of those people who knew no forgiveness of sinners unless it was imposed upon her in the confessional. She was a curious mixture of dignity and childish futility, vain, self-centered, small in her judgment of others; she had no wider sympathies. Life, with its broader human understanding, lay outside her field of comprehension. She lived in a small circle of rules, prejudices and conventions which she considered perfection. It was her love of beauty in general and of flowers in particular that made her congenial to me. But I never dared touch upon general subjects; human conflicts she was unable to grasp; she lived so protected, so out of the world, hedged in by her church, nursing her delicate health, everybody serving her, caring for her, spoiling her, that she was more like an old and very exigent child than a woman who had lived a real woman's life, with its temptations, conflicts, doubts, joys, passions and pain. This I learned little by little as the years went by, for our natures were made to clash, but at that first meeting she was merely an unexpectedly impressive, middle-aged lady who showered upon me every kindness and attention. I really think she liked me then, but there was also something else in this; I was to be shown off as favorite so as to spite Mädi, her eldest daughter-in-law. Of course, then I had no idea of this or I would have been less flattered by her manifestations of affection; but little by little I was to learn that Fürstin Antonia was a woman who could hate and resent in a way little in keeping with her religious principles, and the unfortunate Mädi was one of those who had known how to awaken her most lasting dislike."

Madi (her SIL): "Maria Theresa, born Princess Trani, was of the race of the Bavarian Wittelsbachs, and had some of their eccentricity; though exceedingly blue-blooded and occasionally even fascinating, there was something a bit odd and not quite to be reckoned with about Mädi. Life threw us little together; she showed me neither affection nor dislike. If I had known that I was being used to emphasize the disfavor in which she was held, I should have done everything to make friends, for my whole soul would have revolted against being unfairly played off against her. Ever so many years later, in the only heart-to-heart talk we ever had together, she confessed to me that she had imagined that I had been conscious of the way I was being used to humiliate her. This was a horrible revelation to me; and by the pain I felt, I think she was convinced that I had been utterly unaware of my mother-in-law's tactics. But the harm had been done....Somehow, Mädi could not fit in with the Hohenzollern family; she seemed actually to take pleasure in shocking them whenever she could. To all outward appearances her husband was patient and long-suffering; but they drifted apart, as their characters were fundamentally different. Mädi, without being good-looking, had what the French call "beaucoup de race." She was exceedingly thin, with pale blue eyes and a pathetic voice. Her health was not robust and she was quite an invalid, wheeled about in a chair, before she died at the age of forty-two. In those days she hardly ever came to Sigmaringen, and the saddest of all was that she saw very little of her children, to whom she was mother in name more than in fact, which made them rather sad and lonely little creatures. Mädi's one great love was her mother, Countess Trani, sister of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, of the Queen of Naples and of the Duchess of Alençon. Countess Trani had the same wonderful figure as the Empress, tall, upright and incredibly slim; she was, however, much less beautiful. She, too, was a lover of solitude, somewhat of a hermit, living far away from her kind, proud, original, aristocratic, but difficult to get on with—a specialty her daughter had inherited. Poor Madi, she was a pathetic figure that but seldom crossed my path. We lived too far apart."
They also serve who only stand and wait--John Milton
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Maria_Pavlovna

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #323 on: January 01, 2013, 04:46:31 PM »
very interesting! thanks GD Ella for the info!

Clelia

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #324 on: January 01, 2013, 05:22:25 PM »
Yes, very interesting, especially the excerpt on Mädi. Thanks GD Ella!

Eric_Lowe

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #325 on: January 01, 2013, 06:17:47 PM »
Indeed. But Missy wasn't too critical of her own family. At least not in her memoirs. She found her sister Sandra sometimes hard to get along with and she did blame Sitta for her inability to hold on to Carol , but they were not found in her memoirs.

Offline Carolath Habsburg

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #326 on: January 01, 2013, 06:23:05 PM »
Great!! thanks so much GdElla!

 

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"...Пусть он землю бережет родную, А любовь Катюша сбережет....". Grand Duchess Ekaterina Fyodorovna to Grand Duke Georgiy Alexandrovich. 1914

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Eric_Lowe

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #327 on: January 01, 2013, 08:56:55 PM »
I guess not getting along with her German in-laws make her push for the Allies much easier for Missy than Nando.

Maria_Pavlovna

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #328 on: January 01, 2013, 09:12:51 PM »
Missy always had anti-German feeling since her childhood, though of herself as an "English Princess" and while her father became Duke of Coburg, her new and German Governess try to make Missy and her sisters into "German Princesses" which both Missy and her sister Ducky fought back. Don't know much of Sandra, and as for Beatrice, she was too young. However for her brother Affie Jr as a sensitive soul didn't take the "German discipline" very well.

Eric_Lowe

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Re: Queen Maria of Romania, Part 3
« Reply #329 on: January 01, 2013, 10:59:00 PM »
I think Sandra was the most German of the 4 sisters.