Mélanie de Pourtalès
Mélanie de Pourtalès, Countess Edmond de Pourtalès ("née" Louise Sophie Mélanie Renouard de Bussière) (26 March 1836 – 5 May 1914) was a French "salonnière" and courtier. Early life. She was born on 26 March 1836 at the Château de Robertsau in Strasbourg, to the former Sophie Mélanie de Coehoorn (1802–1880), and Baron Alfred Renouard de Bussière (1804–1887), who was from a wealthy Strasbourg industrial family. He was director of the Royal Mint of Strasbourg from 1834 to 1860, before being appointed head of the Royal Mint of Paris. Her paternal grandparents were and the former Friederike Wilhelmine  von Franck. Her uncle was Léon Renouard de Bussierre. Her maternal grandparents were Louis Jacques, Baron de Coehoorn and the former Marie Margarethe Sophie von Beyer. Courtier. She was introduced to the French imperial court by the Austrian ambassador, Richard von Metternich, and appointed as lady-in-waiting to the empress, Eugénie de Montijo, the wife of Napoleon III. Pourtalès' salon was regarded as one of the most famed during the Second French Empire, when she was one of the leading figures in Parisian high society and imperial court life. In her letters, she writes about the pending marriage of  Antonin-Just-Léon-Marie de Noailles, Duc de Mouchy to the Princess Anne Murat, daughter of Prince Lucien Murat and granddaughter of the King of Naples Joachim Murat and Queen Caroline (younger sister of the Emperor Napoleon). According to French writer Alfred Mézières, "three people saw clearly what was coming before 1870, Lieutenant-Colonel Stoffel, General Ducrot, and Madame de Pourtalès." Personal life. On 30 June 1857, she married banker Count Edmond de Pourtalès (1828–1895), a son of Count James-Alexandre de Pourtalès of the Château de Gorgier, a prominent banker and art collector who had served as chamberlain the  King of Prussia Frederick William III. Count Edmond's elder sister, Élisa de Pourtalès was the wife of French diplomat Charles-Alexandre, Marquis de Ganay. Together, they were the parents of: The Count de Pourtalès died in 1895. The Countess died on 5 May 1914. After her death, her daughter Agnès inherited the Château de la Robertsau. Residences. From her father, she inherited the family's château, the Château de la Robertsau (which today is known as the Château de Pourtalès) in the département of Bas-Rhin, Alsace. At their château, they hosted Franz Liszt, Napoléon III, Empress Eugénie, the  Princes of Belgium and Russia, Ludwig I of Bavaria, the Grand Duke of Baden and the Princess Metternich. Her husband inherited the Pourtalès mansion, a hôtel particulier (essentially a grand townhouse) on Rue Tronchet in the 8th arrondissement of Paris that was built for his father between 1838 and 1839 by Félix Duban. Descendants. Through her youngest daughter Agnès, she was a grandmother of Edmée de Loys-Chandieu (1892–1945), who married Alexander, Count of Hoyos, son of Georg Anton, Count of Hoyos and the former Alice Whitehead (daughter of British engineer Robert Whitehead). Alexander's aunt, Marguerite, was married to  Herbert von Bismarck, the eldest son of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Edmée's daughter, Melanie Hoyos, also married a member of the Bismarck family, Count Gottfried von Bismarck-Schönhausen, and their descendants include Stephanie zu Guttenberg.