It was 19th century Greece during King Otto of Bavaria’s reign. An elusive thief named Christos Davelis was ravaging the area of Mount Pentecliicus around north Athens. Word also had it that he was very handsome: so much so that he may well have seduced the Duchess of Plaisance. Sophie de Marbois was Lebrun’s widow,…
My aunt Bébelle, the Countess of Paris Isabelle d’Orléans Bragance, told me that when she was young she often visited one of her maternal aunts who owned a very beautiful villa on the banks of Lake Geneva. The aunt was especially proud of her garden, and of her roses in particular. One day, the aunt…
I saw this story in a very old black and white film. I read it in a collection of stories published by Benson, and had read before that it in a collection of true tales, of which I cannot recall the author. It took place in England in between 1905 and 1910. A man is…
Infant Alfonso of Orleans and his wife princess Beatrice of Great Britain, uncle Ali, aunt Bee. He belongs to the Spanish branch of the Orleans family; he was an exceptionally gifted pilot, original, always unexpected, adored by his nephews and nieces, including me. She was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, a famous beauty like her…
Marie Anne of Savoy, who was married to the short-lived emperor Ferdinand before the 1848 revolutions replaced him with his nephew, Franz Joseph. Elisabeth, Duchess of Bavaria, Empress of Austria, the famous Sissi. Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, heir to the throne, assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914. Zita, the last empress of…
At an evening hosted by the countess Zichy-Ferraris in Vienna, in 1808, was to be found, among several elegant women of the high society, the charming Princess Schwarzenburg, born to the House of Aremburg. Prince Louis de Rohan was playing with his deck of cards; he believed himself to possess a great talent for fortune…
The trial of Elizabeth Bathory took place during the reign of King Rodolph II of Hungary. The great lady was desperate about preserving her youth. Witchcraft provided her with a magic remedy, and an astonishing degree of perversion was involved in her attempts to apply it. She had a considerable number of young girls kidnapped…
The alarm had been sounded. The guards, torches in hand, combed all the paths of the park. They found Isabellita, still unconscious, her nightclothes stained in blood. With great care, they took her back to the castle and brought her to her chamber. A few seconds later she emerged out of her unconsciousness, and was…
Her father, the Duke, made his way into the studiolo and found his daughter at her desk, busily engaged in writing a treatise. Being of a brutal and insensitive nature, as is often the case with men of little intelligence, he displayed no great tact, announcing to his daughter straight away that she had been…
When, in 1759, the child Isabelle of Parma, known as Isabellita, reached the age of eighteen she was, without any doubt, one of the most accomplished princesses in Europe. Tall, with a beautiful figure, an oval face adorned with big, brown eyes and long black hair and snow–white skin. All the men were attracted to…