Princess Louise Marie Amélie of Belgium (18 February 1858 – 1 March 1924) was the eldest child and daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie Henriette of Belgium. She was a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a branch of the House of Wettin which ruled in the Kingdom of Saxony. By her marriage to her first cousin once removed Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, she retained her birth titles of Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duchess in Saxony.
Louise was born during the reign of her paternal grandfather, Leopold I of Belgium, and was named after her paternal grandmother Queen Louise. She married in Brussels on 4 February 1875 her first cousin once removed Prince Philipp. Louise and Philipp settled in Vienna, where they had two children: Leopold Clement, born in 1878, and Dorothea, born in 1881.
Louise's marriage quickly fell apart. Endowed with a strong and whole personality, she refused to submit to a husband who did not suit her, who had been imposed for reasons of state. She reacted by leading a lavish and worldly life as a beauty in the court of Vienna. Louise was quickly preceded by a reputation for scandal to which she gave credit by engaging in several successive affairs before falling in love with Geza Mattachich, an officer and member of the Croatian nobility, whose mother Anna Kuchtich de Oskocz (b. 1847) was married secondly to Count Oskar Keglevich of Buzin (1839-1918), politician and MP of Croatian Sabor. Europe was scandalized when her husband had Louise declared insane and convinced the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria to intern her in a psychiatric hospital, while Mattachich was accused of forgery and imprisoned. Released four years later, Mattachich succeeded in helping the princess escape. Both then traveled across Europe. After succeeding in proving her mental balance, Louise divorced amicably in 1906.
Louise began the life of a stateless person. Together with her sister Stéphanie, she filed several lawsuits, which were ultimately unsuccessful, against the Belgian State to recover the inheritance of their father, who had died in 1909. However, in 1914, she managed to receive a part of King Leopold II's fortune. World War I and the German defeat further impoverished Louise, who decided to publish her memoirs under the title Autour des trônes que j'ai vu tomber (Around the thrones that I saw fall) which also constitute a testimony of the life of the European courts. Prince Philippe, her ex-husband, died in 1921. In 1924, at the age of 66, Louise died in poverty, a year after her lover Mattachich. Her only surviving offspring was her daughter Dorothea, whom she no longer saw. The major memory she leaves in Belgium is the Avenue Louise in Brussels, named after her.
Life Early years A long-awaited birth
Granddaughter of King Leopold I of Belgium, Princess Louise was the first child of the Duke (future King Leopold II) and Duchess of Brabant (born Archduchess Marie Henriette of Austria), an unhappy and mismatched couple. In 1853, their marriage had been decided with the purpose of cementing alliance with the Kingdom of Belgium by both King Leopold I and the Habsburgs, without consulting the groom and bride, whose interests were almost everything opposite: The Duke of Brabant was hardly attracted by family life and was passionate about the politics and economy of the Kingdom which he was about to reign, while Marie Henriette was a young woman versed in religion and interests limited to horseback riding, dogs and music.
It was only after four years that Marie Henriette became pregnant for the first time; a girl was born on 18 February 1858 at the Royal Palace of Brussels. The parents were disappointed as a daughter could not succeed to the throne, leaving the future of the dynasty not guaranteed.
The princess was baptised as Louise Marie Amélie on 28 March; her godparents were her great-uncle Archduke John of Austria and her great-grandmother, Maria Amalia, Dowager Queen consort of the French, who since the Revolution of 1848 lived in exile in Great Britain. Because she was too old to go to Belgium for the baptism, Maria Amalia expressed the wish that her goddaughter would receive the first name of the first Queen of the Belgians, her eldest and beloved daughter, who had died prematurely.
Louise was described by her father in this way: "[She] is very wise, her face is already white and pink like her mother's. King Leopold I find it very pretty, I hope it will one day, but for now, I note only that it has large dark eyes and alas! a huge nose, worthy of mine in every way". A brother, Leopold, was born on 12 June 1859 and titled Count of Hainaut as the eldest son of the Duke of Brabant, and whose birth seemed to ensure the sustainability of the recently established Belgian royal house. A younger sister, Stéphanie, was born on 21 May 1864.
Under the new reign
On 10 December 1865 King Leopold I, founder of the Belgian dynasty, died after a reign of 34 years. His son ascended to the throne under the name of Leopold II. For Louise and Leopold, aged 7 and 6 respectively, this new situation would bring about some changes in their daily life. The Count of Hainaut became the heir to the throne and was raised to the title of Duke of Brabant. Louise and her brother, until now under the direction of a governess, Miss Legrand, were now endowed with a governor: Count Ignace van der Straten-Ponthoz, major of artillery, assisted in his functions by Albert Donny, a young artilleryman. The two men entered the service of the King's children on 4 March 1866. Louise and her brother preferred Donny and nicknamed van der Straten-Ponthoz the "scolding count" (comte grondeur). Louise had a wilful character, even difficult.
Louise befriended some of the cousins of her age who made a few stays at the Laeken estate: Blanche of Orléans (daughter of the Duke of Nemours), Maria Christina of Austria (future Queen of Spain), and even Beatrice of Great Britain (youngest daughter of Queen Victoria). When they were separated, Louise wrote short letters to them, pretexts for her calligraphy exercises.
From the time she was 6 years old, Louise had benefited from home schooling from teachers who provided her with various courses: French, English, German and Italian languages, and lessons in mathematics, horse riding, history, religion and music. However, the level of education of the princesses was not very high: "The programs lacked scope. In the severe decor of the study room, it was usually too rudimentary that we applied ourselves to history, geography, literature, mathematics; a preponderant place being left to the decorative arts: painting, drawing, music, as well as needlework".
If the school programs were incomplete, discipline was held in high esteem, as Louise relates: "Our mother raised us, my sisters and I, in the English way. Our rooms looked more like convent cells than princely apartments [...] The Queen taught me, from a young age, to be able to do without servants". As for Leopold II, she wrote: "The man I see again when I think of the King is always the one whose silence frightened my childhood [...] The King hardly took care of my sisters and me. His caresses were rare and brief. We were, in front of him, always impressed. He seemed to us much more a King than a father".
A family and dynastic tragedy
In the spring of 1868, the almost 9-years-old Leopold, Duke of Brabant, suffered from a chill following a fall in the pond in the Park of Laeken. His condition deteriorated rapidly: the doctor diagnosed acute pericarditis. In summer, he seemed to recover, but his cough persisted. The doctor recommended the removal of the uvula and performed this surgery, then his young patient went to Ostend to recover. Queen Marie Henriette isolated herself in Spa to rest, while King Leopold II, held back by affairs of state, and his two daughters remained in Laeken. In August, Leopold, suffering from dropsy, was brought back to Laeken. The Queen thenceforth never left her son's bedside. After having received the last sacraments in September, the little patient looked better, but his condition worsened again until he died on 22 January 1869. During the illness of the Duke of Brabant, Louise was fully aware of the seriousness of her brother's condition, for which she prayed before bidding him farewell.
This first drama in the life of the young princess and of the entire Belgian royal family deeply affected Louise, who wrote in her memoirs: "It was a tear in my being [...]. I dared, I remember, to curse God, to deny him [...]. I could no longer conceive an existence without him". Louise's paternal uncle Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, became the new heir to the throne, and five months later, on 3 June the same year, the Countess of Flanders gave birth to a boy who received the old national first name of Baudouin. King Leopold II nourished the hope of having a second son and therefore resumed an intimate life with the Queen; but, after a miscarriage in March 1871, a third daughter was born on 30 July 1872: Clémentine, the last child of the royal couple.
Wedding in Brussels A coveted princess
Louise had just celebrated her 14th birthday when she was actively sought after by several European princes because she had a pleasant exterior and her father was reputed to be wealthy. King Leopold II had long feared having to give her in marriage to the Prince Imperial, son and heir of Napoleon III, because he considered the Bonapartes to be upstarts. After the fall of the Second French Empire and the proclamation of the French Third Republic, this "threat" faded and, very quickly, two candidates asked for the hand of the still-teenaged princess: Prince Frederick of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen – brother of the Countess of Flanders (sister-in-law of Leopold II) – and a first cousin once removed of King Leopold II, Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (member of the Koháry branch of the family).
Philipp presented his request for Louise's hand in 1872 and repeated it in the summer of 1873 when, after having toured the world, he went to Ostend accompanied by his mother, Princess Clémentine of Orléans, to make a formal visit to the Belgian sovereigns. Philipp was doubly-related to the Belgian royal family by both his paternal and maternal sides, being a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha through his father, Prince August, and also a grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of the French (whose middle name he bore) through his mother, Princess Clémentine, who was the sister of Queen Louise of Belgium thus making Philipp a first cousin of Leopold II through their mothers. This made Philipp and Louise paternal second cousins and maternal first cousins once removed. Residing in Vienna and called to inherit the paternal fortune in the form of a sumptuous Majorat in Hungary, the prince, who was already enjoying the favor of Queen Marie Henriette (nostalgic about her birthplace), ended up also establishing himself as a privileged candidate in the eyes of King Leopold II, who did not want a rapprochement with Prussia so soon after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.