No lament in Weimar for former Grand Duchess

May 20, 1904


Grand Duchess Pauline of Saxe-Weimar's recent death on board a train between Rome and Florence is unlikely to be mourned in Weimar, according to the Marquise de Fontenoy.


The Grand Duchess, mother of the present Grand Duke, bore the title by courtesy as her husband when he was still heir apparent.  In her son's "dominions, Pauline was the "reverse of popular."  She had lived for many years in Italy, having contracted a morganatic marriage with her chamberlain.


She created problems which "rendered the position of her daughter-in-law, the present Grand Duchess" to be extremely difficult, and she was also responsible her first husband's unhappiness. 


She was plain, "extraordinarily fat," and her "homeliness being of the crabbed and sour order."


Grand Duchess Pauline's second marriage was not included in the Almanach de Gotha nor did it "receive the sanction of her son."  The marriage was not officially recognized by Saxe-Weimar's government nor other "foreign courts."