May 30, 1908
Former Vice President Levi Morton has authorized the Associated to deny reports published in Paris and in the United States that his daughter, Helen, was engaged to Prince Augustus of Arenberg.
Helen was briefly married to the Duke of Valencay. The marriage was dissolved by divorce.
[Helen's sister, Alice Morton, married Winthrop Rutherfurd. After her death in 1917, he married Lucy Mercer. In 1914, Lucy was hired as the person and social secretary to Eleanor Roosevelt. Four years later, Eleanor discovered that her husband, Franklin, was having an affair with Lucy. Franklin was issued an ultimatum by his wife and his mother to give up Lucy. He said he did, and in 1920, Lucy married Rutherfurd, who was once secretly engaged to Consuelo Vanderbilt. However, Lucy remained in contact with Franklin, and was with him on the day he died in 1945.]
The Duke of Valencay, so styled until 1937, was Paul Louis Archambauld Boson de Talleyrand-Périgord, who became the 6. Duc de Talleyrand, 5. Herzog von Sagan, and 6. Duca di Dino. He married two more times, and was involved in some interesting maneuvering with regard to the succession of one of his (probably adopted, but possibly legitimated) sons to his titles.
ReplyDeleteAlice Morton's son Guy Gerard Rutherfurd's son, Guy Gerard Rutherfurd, Jr., married Marie Therese von Seilern und Aspang in 1973.
Rutherfurd was a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, of Lewis Morris (the judge who decided the Peter Zenger case that helped to establish freedom of the press in America), and of General Lewis Morris III, signer of the Declaration of Independence, as well as of various royally-descended American immigrants.