Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1923-10-23
Crown Princess Alone and
In Want in Later Years

MontreuX, Switzerland, Oct. A.
"a. p. by Mai) The escapades of
some royal ladies of Europe in the
days before the war, romances in
some cases and in others just plain
scandals, have pursued their more
or less thorny paths of recent years
without attracting much attention
People have had more important
things to think about. But now
more lightsome topics find room for
discussion, or the end of some wo-
mans search for happiness will re-
vive memories of the beautiful
princess" who, score of years ago,
left the beaten tracks and went off
at a tangent looking for love in a
cottage.
Today the rate of exchange on
German marks Is showing up as
big factor in the final chapters of
the lives of more than one such wo-
man. So long as marks were good,
the allowances paid by generous
families anxious to preserve what
was left of the ancestral name, suf-
feed for comfortable and quiet liv-
ing at some Italian watering place.
But the income in marks. that
equalled $4,000 or $4,000 a year
a dozen years ago is now no more
than few francs q month. So
Louise of SaXe-Coburg-G otha, in a
Paris hotel. is considering the offer
OF a casual American acquaintance
10 give her the money to pay the
funeral expenses of her count. Geza
Mattltlch. and Louise of Saxony,
actually in perjury on a beggarly
stipend. is described as "a little old
woman. in great physical misery.
SDen0Inp plnCt hnr do ~,
in a bare chapel"
Two years ago an elderly woman.
calling herself Madame Toselli.
rented a little house near Montreux
NO one then remembered her as
Louise. Crown Princess of Saxony,
or as the Countess Montignoso. 1t
was only when she asked the Saxony
authorities to increase her allow
.ance, in marks, that her identity
became known. No increase was
granted, and the income that in
1917 gave this woman $4,000 a year,
now amounts to less than 20 cents a
day.
Her brother, at one time Arch
duke Leopold of Austria, is now
plain Leopold Woelfng, Swiss citi-
zen. He was compelled last year to
seek pauper's aid in Regensburg.
Louise of SaXony, whose husband
later became the Saxon King, found
court life dull in 1902, and ran away
with Andre Giron, the tutor of her
children, of whom she had six.
Ihey went to Geneva, where the
princess said the royal rank of the
crown prince. her husband, did not
make up for his royal stupidity.
Giron did not last. The princess
friends said hn
an end, liberty. Saxony gave her
an allowance, the title of Countess
Montignoso, and let her go. But for
years there was pickering over the
children. particularly the baby.
Princess Anna Pia Monica.
Louise lived in England. with fire.
quent visits to the winter resorts of
Italy. She met an Italian pianist
named Enrico Toselli. Music was a
bond between them, and she married
Toselli in London in 1907. She was
then 81 years old and he was "a.
Referring to her earlier life, Louise
then said: Now my future Is going
to be happy as plain Madame To-
selli."
But this Louise was not so fortu-
nate as Louise OF Saxe-Coburg-
Gotha, who could say the other day
in Paris, referring to her husband:
II have lost him who was the whole
world to me-" Five years after the
London marriage the Saxon Louise
was eStraaged from her musical hus-
band. and they were quarreling
about their only child, boy.
Louise displayed her musical abil-
ity by writing an opera, THE Bizarre
Princess" which failed. however. to
do what she most wanted, bring in
little money. Also she published
an autobiography in 1911 in which
she treated some Of her relatives
without gloves.
During the war Madame Toselli
was lost to the public view. Now
she has emerged again in this cot
tage at MontreaX, So years old. living
in sorrow and poverty, trying to
raise money, spending Most of her
time in prayer. thinking of the days
when her bold escapades created one
of the greatest scandals in the courts
of Europe.