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Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Bavarian couple returning to Europe via USA

May 8, 1903 (Dispatch was dated April 27)

Prince and Princess Rupprecht of Bavaria are now on board a ship from Japan bound for the United States.  Prince Rupprecht will one day, perhaps, sit on the throne of Bavaria.  His wife, Marie Gabriele, is the daughter of Duke Karl Theodor in Bavaria, the noted oculist.  Her sister, Elisabeth, is the wife of the Count of Flanders, heir to the Belgian throne.

Prince and Princess Rupprecht have been on a "scientific tour to the Orient," reports the New York Times, traveling with Professor Heinrich Mayr of Munich, a noted expert on India.

Their tour began last December when they sailed from Genoa, Italy, for India, where they were "royally entertained by Lord Curzon and a number of Indian Princes."  They traveled to Java where they "explored three volcanoes," and then sailed to Taku and Peking, where they met the Dowager Empress of China.

The final stop on their tour was Japan.

Princess Marie Gabrielle has sent letters home, writing "enthusiastically about her Eastern trip."  She is a "great lover of nature," music and poetry.   The princess is a "great favorite of the Bavarian people."  The news of her engagement to Prince Rupprecht, grandson of the Prince Regent, was received with the "greatest enthusiasm and public joy," which was extended to their wedding day in July 1900.

Prince Rupprecht is also very popular.  After their wedding, the couple settled in Bamberg, where their two children were born.  Their eldest child, a son, Luitpold, was named for his grandfather.

[News traveled slowly in 1903.  This dispatch was sent on April 27, six days after the death of Prince and Princess Rupprecht's infant daughter, Irmingard.  The couple had to abandon plans to travel to the United States, and returned to Germany as fast as they could.  Less than a week before this dispatch was published, the Marquise de Fontenoy wrote about the death of the infant, and the parents trying to get home. http://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2013/05/tragedy-for-bavarians.html ]

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