It is quite obvious that Eleonore's rank was not considered equal to the Grand Duke's.
Yes, he was a Royal Highness while she was a mere Serene Highness.
But a marriage can still be looked down upon as a social mésalliance, even if it's ebenbürtig in the eyes of law (i.e. the German Acts of Confederation of 1815). (Just like there is an enormous social difference in marrying a [insert member of a lower social class] as opposed to Kate Middleton's sister or brother, even if they all are mere commoners.)
I think no fuss was made if a junior dynast married a
médiatisé(e), e.g. Archduke Friedrich and Princess Isabella of Croÿ, but for a reigning sovereign to do the so was not "a great match", as QV would have said.
Interestingly, Eleonore's
seize quartiers have some of the same "stains" as Empress Auguste Victoria's: Eleonore's paternal grandmother was the daughter of a Prince of Collalto and San Salvatore (was he considered
reichsunmittelbar?) and a Hungarian countess. Her mother's paternal grandmother was a mere baroness of the lower nobility.
Sounds a lot like Auguste Victoria with her problematic comital Danneskiold-Samsøe grandmother. (Who again was the daughter of a mere noble. The family, Kaas (pronounced [ko:s] not [ka:s] like Dutch "cheese") is Danish
Uradel, but untitled. And this Kaas father himself, although an admiral and son of another admiral, had a bourgeois mother called Mette Mathisen, who although the widow of a major, was the daughter of a mere church deacon.
as well as her status as a princess from a mediatizated Dukedom whcih was considered unequal.
Interesting trivia: The
Standesherrschaft of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich was technically a principality, there were almost no mediatized duchies in Germany, only titular dukedoms. The only genuine one I can think of is the Duchy of Arenberg-Meppen in Hanover and Prussia. At times the short list of mediatized "real dukes" was greatly enhanced by the presence of the ducal families of Nassau and Augustenburg, even if the claims of the Augustenburgs, originally
abgeteilte Herren, of having been sovereign dukes, were challenged. Perhaps they are better classed as "sovereign ducal personalists" like the Leuchtenbergs.
