Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen's wedding postponed


August 24, 1898


The Marquise de Fontenoy reports today that the wedding of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen, eldest great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, has been postponed. It is now expected that the marriage will take place near Easter. Princess Feodora's marriage with Prince Heinrich Reuss was scheduled for next month, "and all the preparations had been made for the ceremony." But due to the recent death of the bridegroom's father, "all of this has been seized upon as a pretext for the postponement of the match."

The "general impression seems to be that the delay is merely a quiet way of breaking off the match altogether." While Feodora has inherited "not only much of her mother's comeliness, but likewise her fickleness, and with a girl of her particular character and temperament a long engagement is, to say the least, a mistake."

The Princess's mother, Princess Charlotte, the eldest sister of the Kaiser, has for the past twenty years "enjoyed the just reputation in Berlin of being the most arrogant and heartless coquette at court." Her "flirtations have been of so extravagant a character as to on several occasions give rise to unpleasant stories."

Berlin is the "worst place for the dissemination of scandal in all Europe."

2 comments:

Bea said...

Marlene, I have never read that much on Feodora's mother Princess Charlotte's life but whenever I see something on her it isn't good. In the postings you have with something related to her she sounds like a very unpleasant women. I can't imagine what kind of mother she was to Feodora. Bea

Marlene Eilers Koenig said...

Bea, John Rohl's bio on Kaiser Wilhelm has some extensive detail about Charlotte - as does the several bios on Empress Frederick, including Pakula's.