Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, Duchess of Alba was the descendant of a bastard child of King James II of England, who had come to fight in Spain. It could have been said that she was the last of the line of Stuarts. She possessed innumerable duchies, marquisates and counties, which made her one of the most…
In the month of July 1808, panic reigned in Madrid. A French army of 100,000 men was marching towards the city, determined to prevail. For a year coups d’état, revolts and repression had wracked the city. Napoleon, after having dethroned the Bourbon dynasty, was determined to put one of his brothers on the throne of…
King Philippe V married the Princess of Savoy who made the mistake of dying. A terrible tragedy. They had indeed produced an heir, a son, but it was not therein that lay the problem: King Philippe V could not carry on without making love or he would fall ill. This uncompromising Christian would share his…
The guards on horseback in front of the Royal Palace of Madrid Built in the 18th century by King Charles III, in my opinion it is still the most beautiful royal dwelling in Europe: as much for its exterior architecture as for its interior décor and for the richness of its collections. It holds…
It was during the Spanish War of Succession that one of Saint Simon’s masterpieces unfolded: the story of Alberoni. France was then fighting against a coalesced Europe. A French army laid siege on the city of Parma: its Duke was an ally of Louis XIV’s enemies. The Duke was a direct descendant of Pope Paul…
Briskly, he walks through the French Quarters, crosses Jackson Square, turns around the Saint Louis Cathedral and reaches the gates of the cemetery bearing the same name. Now, he is no longer in a hurry. He takes his time to dawdle amongst the graves, looking for the one on which to lie. The moon, shining…
As luck would have it, Marie Laveau soon after met the love of her life, Christophe Duminy de Glapion. She would never marry him, for the simple reason that he was white and that the law of the time forbade such an union, but they had many children – fifteen according to legend! In any…
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…
After the death of Louis II, Elisabeth felt irresistibly drawn to the place where the tragedy had taken place, as if called by Louis II. She indeed believed in the survival of the soul, in communication with the afterlife. For her, her beloved cousin was not quite dead. And so, at the first opportunity, she…