Duke Peter of Oldenburg: Creole blood?

April 5, 1901

Duke Peter of Oldenburg, who will shortly marry Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, is a descendant of Empress Josephine of France, and, according to the Marquise de Fontenoy, "is said to have Creole blood in his veins.   His mother was born Princess Eugenie Romanowsky, a granddaughter of Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, son of Empress Josephine and her first husband,  Vicomte Alexander de Beauharnais, who "was guillotined as an aristocrat during the days of terror at the time of great revolution."  Josephine was born in Martinique to parents who were white Creoles.

Emperor Napoleon was very fond of his stepson, and named him as Viceroy of Italy.  He also arranged for Eugene to marry the daughter of the King of Bavaria, who created him Duke of Leuchtenberg.    Eugene's son,  Prince Maximilian, "inherited much of his father's comeliness and charm."  He visited St. Petersburg where "he won the heart and the hand of Grand Duchess Marie," daughter of Nicholas I.   At the time of their marriage, Prince Maximilian, received the predicate of Imperial Highness and the title Prince Romanowsky, in addition to his ducal title. 
The couple had seven children,  but the marriage was "not altogether a happy one."

In 1868,  Maximilian's younger daughter, Eugenie, married Duke Alexander of Oldenburg, a member of the Russian branch of the ducal family.   Their son, Duke Peter, is said to be "tall, fair-haired, and not particularly good looking."   He is 32 years old, and he will "eventually inherit all the enormous wealth of his parents," and may one day "be called upon to ascend the German throne of his cousin, the reigning Grand Duke of Oldenburg."  The Grand Duke has a four-year-old son, and should anything happen to the little boy,  Peter's father, Alexander, "will be come heir presumptive to the throne."

Peter and his father are both Russian by birth "and by inclination.  This branch of the Oldenburg family settled in Russia when Peter's great-grandfather, Duke Georg, married Emperor Alexander I's sister, at the beginning "of the last century."

Grand Duchess Olga is "to be congratulated that her future husband belongs to the Muscovite rather than the German branch of the Oldenburg family.   Duke Alexander is "celebrated as a man of much character and intellect," but the German Oldenburgs "appear to have a screw loose in their upper story."

Olga is "not very pretty, but has a pleasant face with the somewhat thick features that distinguished her elder sister, Xenia."   She appears to have outgrown the "delicacy of her childhood and looks so healthy" that it is difficult to believe that at one time her health was a "source of anxiety" to her parents.  Since the death of her father, Alexander III, and her older sister's marriage to Grand Duke Alexander, Olga has been her mother's "constant companion and associate."  No doubt, the Dowager Empress Marie "will feel cruelly the parting from her when the marriage takes place."