Princess de Monaco

Hybrid tea-rose.

Photographed this week in Sydney in a magical rose garden located along Pretoria Parade, Hornsby, in northern Sydney.

Wednesday, 2nd August, 2023.

This particular 'Princess' is looking a little extra pink than usual. Normally you see more of a pink & white variegation. So perhaps this is the Barbie edition, flowering here in the Hills District of Sydney, for the current mega Barbie movie!!

Princess de Monaco is a blended hybrid tea rose cultivar bred in France by Marie-Louise Meilland and introduced in 1981. It is dedicated to Princess Grace of Monaco (1929-1982).

Its parents were two hybrid tea cultivars, 'Ambassador' (Meilland, 1977) and the MEGA famous 'Peace' rose (Meilland, 1935).

Here is a short youtube video that shows Princess de Monaco roses:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXl-RXAWc2s

My Canon EOS 5D Mk IV with the Canon EF 100mm macro f/2.8L II USM lens.

Processed in Adobe Lightroom and PhotoPad Pro by NCH software.

A Smooth 'Lemon' filter (at 30%) from the Flickr Photo Editor.

Pauline Elisabeth Ottilie Luise zu Wied (29 December 1843 – 2 March 1916) was the Queen consort of Romania as the wife of King Carol I of Romania, widely known by her literary name of Carmen Sylva. Her brother William, 5th Prince of Wied married on 18 July 1871 in Wassenaar, Princess Marie of the Netherlands (1841–1910), younger daughter of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands (1792–1839), second son of William I of the Netherlands and his wife, Princess Louise of Prussia (1808–1870), daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia. Elisabeth was therefore the aunt of William of Albania.

- Abigail Brand

- Aleta (Aleta Ogord)

- Argent (Toni Monetti)

- Arrowette ( Suzanne "Cissie" King-Jones)

- Artemis of Bana-Mighdall

- Aurora (Jeanne-Marie Beaubier)

- Batgirl (Barbara Gordon)

- Batgirl (Cassandra Cain)

- Batwoman (Katherine Kane)

- Big Barda

- Black Canary (Dinah Lance)

- Black Cat (Felicia Hardy)

- Black Orchid (Susan Linden-Thorne)

- Black Widow (Natalia Romanova)

- Blackfire (Komand'r)

- Boom Boom (tabitha Smith)

- Bulleteer (Alix Harrower)

- Bumblebee (Karen Beecher-Duncan)

-Butterfly (Layla Miller)

- Captain U.K. (Linda McQuillan)

- Catwoman (Selina Kyle)

- Cheetah (Barbara Ann Minerva)

- Circe

- Clea

- Comet Queen (Grava)

- Crimson Fox (Vivian and Constance D'Aramis)

- Crystal (Crystal Amaquelin Maximoff)

- Cyclone (Maxine Hunkel)

- Dagger (Tandy Bowen)

- Danielle Moonstar

- Darkstar (Laynia Sergeievna Petrovna)

- Dazzler (Alison Blaire)

- Deathbird (Cal'syee Neramani Summers)

- Destiny (Irene Adler)

- Domino (Neena Thurman)

- Donna Troy

- Dove (Dawn Granger)

- Dr. Fate (Linda Strauss)

- Dr. Light (Kimiyo Hoshi)

- Dream Girl (Nura Nal)

- Elasti-Girl (Rita Farr)

- Elektra (Elektra Natchios)

- Enchantress (June Moone)

- Fire (Beatriz Da Costa)

- Firehawk (Lorraine Reily)

- Firestar (Angelica Jones)

- Gamora

- Giganta (Dr. Doris Zeul)

- Green Lantern (Arisia Rrab)

- Green Lantern (Boodikka)

- Green Lantern (Katma Tui)

- Gypsy (Cindy Reynolds)

- Halo (Violet Harper)

- Harbinger (Lyla Michaels)

- Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel)

- Hawk (Holly Granger)

- Hawkeye (Kate Bishop)

- Hawkgirl (Shiera Hall)

- Hawkwoman (Shayera Hol)

- Hellcat (Patsy Walker)

- Hepzibah

- Huntress (Helena Bertinelli)

- Husk (Paige Guthrie)

- Ice (Tora Olafsdotter)

- Ice Maiden (Sigrid Nansen)

- Indigo I

- Invisible Woman (Susan Storm)

- Jade (Jennifer-Lynn Hayden)

- Jesse Quick (Jesse Chambers)

- Jet ( Celia Windward)

- Jewel (Jessica Jones)

- Jocasta

- Jubilee (Jubilation Lee)

- Karma (Xi'an Coy Manh)

- Karolina Dean

- Killer Frost (Louise Lincoln)

- Kole (Kole Weathers)

- Lady Blackhawk (Zinda Blake)

- Lady Deathstrike (Yuriko Oyama)

- Lightspeed (Julie Power)

- Lilandra Neramani

- Lionheart (Kelsey Leigh Kirkland)

- Livewire (Leslie Willis)

- Lyssa Drak

- M (Monet St. Croix)

- Madame Hydra (Viper)

- Madelyne Pryor

- Magik (Amanda Sefton)

- Magik (Illyana Rasputin)

- Magma (Amara Aquilla)

- Marrina (Marrina Smallwood)

- Marvel Girl (Rachel Summers)

- Mary Marvel (Mary Batson)

- Maxima

- Medusa (Medusalith Amaquelin Boltagon)

- Meggan (Meggan Braddock)

- Mera

- Miss Martian (M'gann M'orzz)

- Mockingbird (Barbara Morse)

- Moonstone ( Karla Sofen)

- Mooondragon (Heather Douglas)

- Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers)

- Mystique (Raven Darkhölme)

- Namora (Aquaria Nautica Neptunia)

- Namorita (Namorita "Nita" Prentiss)

- Negative Woman (Valentina Vostok)

- Omen (Lilith Clay Jupiter)

- Penace

- Petra

- Phantom Girl (Tinya Wazzo)

- Phantom Lady (Dee Tyler)

- Phoenix (Jean Grey)

- Photon (Monica Rambeau)

- Pixie (Megan Gwynn)

- Poison Ivy (Pamela Isley)

- Polaris (Lorna Dane)

- Power Girl (Kara Zor-L)

- Princess Projecta (Wilimena Morgana Daergina Annaxandra Projectra Velorya Vauxhall)

- Psylocke (Elizabeth Braddock)

- Queen Bee

- Ravager (Rose Wilsom)

- Raven (Rachel Roth)

- Red Lantern (Bleez)

- Red She Hulk (Betty Ross)

- Rescue (Pepper Potts)

- Rogue (Anna Marie "Darkhölme")

- Saturn Girl (Imra Ardeen)

- Savage She-Hulk (Lyra)

- Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)

- Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde)

- Shanna The She-Devil (Shanna O'Hara Plunder)

- Sharon Carter

- Sharon Ventura

- She-Hulk (Jennifer Susan Walters)

- Sif

- Silver Banshee (Siobhan McDougal)

- Silver Sable (Silver Sablinova)

- Silver Swan (Helen Alexandros)

- Siryn (Theresa Cassidy)

- Snowbird (Nayra)

- Speedy (Mia Dearden)

- Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)

- Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter)

- Spiral (Rita Wayword)

- Spirfire (Lady Jacqueline Falsworth)

- Spoiler (Stephanie Brown)

- Star Saphire (Jill Pealman)

- Star Sapphire (Carol Ferris)

- Star Sapphire (Fatality)

- Starfire (Koriand'r)

- Stargirl (Courtney Whitmore)

- Stature (Cassie Lang)

- Steel (Natasha Irons)

- Storm (Ororo Iqadi T'Challa)

- Supergirl (Kara Zor-El)

- Supergirl (Linda Danvers)

- Superwoman (Kristen Wells)

- Superwoman (Lucy Lane)

- Talia Al Ghul

- Tarot (Marie-Ange Colbert)

- Terra (Tara Markov)

- Thor Girl (Tarene)

- Thundra

- Tigra (Greer Grant Nelson)

- Titania (Mary MacPherran)

- Tomorrow Woman (Clara Kendall)

- Triplicate Girl (Luornu Durgo)

- Typhoid Mary (Mary Walker)

- Valkyrie (Brunnhilde)

- Vindicator (Heather Hudson)

- Wasp (Janet van Dyne)

- White Queen (Emma Frost)

- White Tiger (Ava Ayala)

- Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair)

- Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark)

- Wonder Woman (Prince Dianna)

- X-23 (Laura Kinney)

- Yellow Jacket (Rita De Mara)

- Zatanna (Zatanna Zatara)

Ciergnon Castle, or the Royal Castle of Ciergnon (Château Royal de Ciergnon; Koninklijk kasteel van Ciergnon) is a residence and summer retreat of the Belgian Royal Family situated near the town of Ciergnon in the municipality of Houyet, province of Namur. The castle is a property of the Belgian Royal Trust.The domain with its woods, river and vast hunting grounds was acquired in 1840 by King Leopold I of Belgium at the request of his spouse Queen Louise-Marie. At first a hunting lodge was erected on a beautiful terrace overlooking a deep forested valley. The present château was erected later by King Leopold II of Belgium. The edifice was designed by his court architect Alphonse Balat. Since then it has always served as a holiday retreat to the Royal Family. In 1960 it was the venue for the press presentation of King Baudouin's fiancé Dona Fabiola de Mora y Aragon.

More recently the children of Philippe, King of the Belgians, Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant, Prince Gabriel, Prince Emmanuel and Princess Eléonore were baptised in the chapel of the château.

Het kasteeldomein met zijn bossen, rivieren en uitgestrekte jachtgebieden werd gekocht in mei 1840 door koning Leopold I van België op verzoek van zijn echtgenote koningin Louise Marie. Hij liet er eerst een jachtslot bouwen op een terras dat uitzicht bood over de diep beboste vallei van de Lesse. De bossen zijn bekend voor het everzwijn. Nadien liet Leopold II er een kasteel in neogotische stijl bouwen door zijn hofarchitect Alphonse Balat.

Hoofdzakelijk fungeert het kasteel als (zomer)residentie van het Belgische Hof. Het kasteel wordt door de koninklijke familie en hun gasten gebruikt tijdens weekends. Het doopsel van Koning Alberts kleinkinderen greep er ook plaats. Ook verkoos hij deze residentie voor herstel en verlof na enkele heelkundig ingrijpen. Koningin Paola liet er enkele kamers naar haar smaak inrichten en beoefent er het rijden met paard en koets. Het kasteel heeft ook een representatieve functie. In 1960 was het kasteeldomein het decor voor de voorstelling van koning Boudewijns verloofde, de latere koningin Fabiola. Op 22 en 23 november 2011 ontving koning Albert II er de verschillende partijvoorzitters naar aanleiding van de regeringsvorming na de federale verkiezingen van 13 juni 2010.

Het kasteel is eigendom van de Koninklijke Schenking en is niet toegankelijk voor het publiek. (Wikipedia)

Frederiksborg castle is a castle in Hillerød, Denmark. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV, and is now known as The Museum of National History. The current building replaced a previous castle erected by Frederick II, and is the largest Renaissance palace in Scandinavia. The palace is located on three small islands in the middle of Palace Lake, (Danish, Slotsø), and is adjoined by a large, baroque formal garden.

The oldest parts of the castle date back to 1560, and were built by King Frederick II, after whom the palace is named.

Most of the current palace, however, was built from 1602 to 1620 by Christian IV using Dutch architects, Hans and Lorents van Steenwinckel, and follows the Dutch style favoured by Christian IV for his new buildings in Copenhagen.

After Christian IV's death in 1648, the palace was used mainly for ceremonial events, primarily the anointing and crowning of the Absolute Monarchs in the palace church. The following Danish kings and queens were crowned here:

1671: Christian V and Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel

1700: Frederick IV and Louise of Mecklenburg-Güstrow

1721: Anna Sophia, consort of Frederick IV

1731: Christian VI and Sophia Magdalena of Brandenburg-Kulmbach

1747: Frederick V and Louise of Great Britain

1752: Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, consort of Frederick V

1815: Frederick VI and Marie of Hesse-Kassel

1840: Christian VIII and Caroline Amalie of Schleswig-Holstein

Since 1693 the church has also been used as Knight's Chapel for the Order of the Elephant and the Order of the Dannebrog.

The palace was also used to house the royal family's art collection; as a result, it came to be regarded as a national monument.

In 1720, the Treaty of Frederiksborg was signed here.

In 1850s, the palace was again used as a residence by King Frederick VII. During the night of December 16-17, 1859, while he was in residence, a fire destroyed a large part of the main palace's interior. Reconstruction was funded by public subscription, with large contributions from the King, state and the prominent philanthropist J. C. Jacobsen of Carlsberg Brewery, who also provided funds to establish the The Museum of National History [1] that now occupies Frederiksborg. A large collection of notable paintings by the Danish painter Carl Heinrich Bloch are in the palace. Commissioned for the palace, these paintings largely depict the life of Jesus Christ.

Prince Joachim and Princess Alexandra (now Countess of Frederiksborg) were married in the Palace Church.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederiksborg_Palace

Marie-Louise Léopoldine Françoise Thérèse Josèphe Lucie de Habsbourg-Lorraine, archiduchesse d'Autriche, princesse de Hongrie et de Bohême, née le 12 décembre 1791 à Vienne (Autriche) et morte le 17 décembre 1847 à Parme (Parme), est impératrice des Français de 1810 à 1814, puis duchesse de Parme, Plaisance et Guastalla jusqu'en 1847.

Quand Napoléon est vaincu par la Sixième Coalition, Marie-Louise décide de ne pas le suivre dans son exil à l'île d'Elbe, mais rentre avec son fils à la cour de Vienne. À l'issue des Cent-Jours et de la défaite décisive de Napoléon à Waterloo, l'impératrice, pour mieux défendre les intérêts de son fils, décide de rester fidèle à sa famille d’origine, les Habsbourg-Lorraine. Le congrès de Vienne lui accorde, en 1815, les duchés de Parme, Plaisance et Guastalla. Elle n'a alors que 24 ans.

Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, né le 20 mars 1811 au palais des Tuileries, à Paris, et mort le 22 juillet 1832 au palais de Schönbrunn, à Vienne, est le fils et l'héritier de Napoléon Ier, empereur des Français, et de sa seconde épouse, Marie-Louise d'Autriche. Prince impérial, il est titré roi de Rome à sa naissance.

Il porte ensuite le titre de prince de Parme, et enfin celui de duc de Reichstadt qui lui est donné par son grand-père l'empereur d'Autriche.

L'ex-Napoléon II passe le reste de sa vie en Autriche : jusqu'à sa mort à l'âge de 21 ans, il est reconnu par les bonapartistes comme l'héritier du trône impérial.

Son surnom de l'Aiglon lui a été attribué à titre posthume, et a été popularisé par la pièce de théâtre d'Edmond Rostand L'Aiglon, le rôle-titre étant créé le 15 mars 1900 par la tragédienne Sarah Bernhardt.

Marie-Louise Léopoldine Françoise Thérèse Josèphe Lucie de Habsbourg-Lorraine, Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Hungary and Bohemia, born on 12 December 1791 in Vienna (Austria) and died on 17 December 1847 in Parma (Parma), was Empress of the French from 1810 to 1814, then Duchess of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla until 1847.

When Napoleon was defeated by the Sixth Coalition, Marie-Louise decided not to follow him into exile on Elba, but returned with her son to the court in Vienna. At the end of the Hundred Days and Napoleon's decisive defeat at Waterloo, the empress, in order to better defend her son's interests, decided to remain loyal to her original family, the Habsburg-Lorraine. The Congress of Vienna granted her the duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla in 1815. She was then only 24 years old.

Napoleon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, born on 20 March 1811 at the Tuileries Palace in Paris and died on 22 July 1832 at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, was the son and heir of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, and his second wife, Marie-Louise of Austria. An imperial prince, he was titled King of Rome at birth.

He then bore the title of Prince of Parma, and finally that of Duke of Reichstadt, which was given to him by his grandfather the Emperor of Austria.

The former Napoleon II spent the rest of his life in Austria: until his death at the age of 21, he was recognised by the Bonapartists as the heir to the imperial throne.

His nickname L'Aiglon was given to him posthumously, and was popularised by Edmond Rostand's play L'Aiglon, the title role being created on 15 March 1900 by the tragic actress Sarah Bernhardt.

A view from the tender of LMS Stanier Class 7P 4-6-2 No 46206 Princess Marie Louise at Crewe South shed, she had been withdrawn from Camden on the 3rd November and was on her way to Crewe Works where she was scrapped later that month, in the line on the left are 42593 47269 which had both already been withdawn and were scrapped in December, 45393 80132 and 45236 lasted until 1966 and 1967.

The snow had come slightly earlier in the 1962/63 winter than this year but it was the beginning of a very cold period although one that didn't stop our train spotting trips as we managed to travel by rail far and wide with little disruption. If our November snow this year is the start of a 2021/22 similar winter then I doubt that will be possible as most TOC's will probably throw in the towel.

Ref No 1962 11 18 013 Copyright © Keith Long - All rights reserved.

LMS Stanier 4-6-2 Princess Royal Class 7P No 46206 Princess Marie Louise in the snow at Crewe South, she had been withdrawn two weeks earlier and was waiting entry into Crewe works where she was scrapped later in the month.

Ref No 1962 11 18 008 Copyright © Keith Long - All rights reserved.

Deutsche Evangelische Christuskirche

The church is an offshoot of a congregation, known as the German Chapel Royal, which met at the Savoy Chapel and St James's Palace in Westminster. An earlier German Lutheran congregation had met on the site of Holy Trinity the Less until the 1860s, and latterly at the Hamburg Lutheran Church, alongside the German Hospital in Dalston. From 1901, the Lord Chamberlain's department no longer supported German services at the Chapel Royal, and the congregation relocated to the Eccleston Hall in Victoria.

A dedicated church was funded by Sir John Schroder, 1st Baronet in honour of his late wife, Evelina. In parallel a Deed of Trust was established on 20 December 1904 to ensure the maintenance and the uphold of the building .

The building was designed by the architects Edward Boehmer and Charles G. F. Rees. It was built by Dove Brothers from 1904 to 1905. The stained glass was designed by Franz Xaver Zettler, Ostermann & Hartwein, and Schneiders & Schmolz.

Its dedication on 27 November 1904 was attended by Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine.

In May 1946, the German Christian theologian Julius Rieger wrote in a report that this was the most significant German church in London. He added that its congregants were refugees from Nazi Germany for the most part.

Mary of Teck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary of Teck

Queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions; Empress consort of India

Tenure6 May 1910 – 20 January 1936

Coronation22 June 1911

SpouseGeorge V of the United Kingdom

Issue

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, later Duke of Windsor

George VI of the United Kingdom

Mary, Princess Royal, Countess of Harewood

Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester

Prince George, Duke of Kent

Prince John

Full name

Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes

HouseHouse of Windsor

House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

House of Württemberg

FatherFrancis, Duke of Teck

MotherPrincess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge

Born26 May 1867

Kensington Palace, London

Died24 March 1953 (aged 85)

Marlborough House, London

Burial31 March 1953

St George's Chapel, Windsor

Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 1867 – 24 March 1953) was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V. By birth, she was a princess of Teck, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, with the style Serene Highness. To her family, she was informally known as May, after her birth month.

Her father, who was of German extraction, married into the British Royal Family, and "May" was born and brought up in the United Kingdom. At the age of 24 she was betrothed to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the second in line to the British throne, but six weeks after the announcement of the engagement he unexpectedly died of pneumonia. The following year she became engaged to Albert Victor's next surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband's accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales. As his queen consort from 1910, she supported her husband through World War I, his ill-health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war and the rise of socialism and nationalism. After George's death in 1936, her eldest son Edward became King-Emperor, but to her dismay he abdicated the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Mrs. Wallis Simpson. She supported her second son, Albert, who succeeded to the throne as George VI, until his death in 1952. She died the following year, at the beginning of the reign of her granddaughter, Elizabeth II. Briefly, there were three queens in the country: Mary; her daughter-in-law, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother; and Elizabeth II.

Contents [hide]

1 Early life

2 Engagements

3 Duchess of York

4 Princess of Wales

5 Queen consort

6 Queen Mother

7 Legacy

8 Titles, styles, honours and arms

8.1 Titles and styles

8.2 Honours

8.3 Arms

9 Ancestry

10 Issue

11 See also

12 Notes and sources

13 References

14 External links

[edit]Early life

Princess Victoria Mary ("May") of Teck was born on 26 May 1867 at Kensington Palace, London. Her father was Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, the son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg by his morganatic wife, Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde. Her mother was Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, the third child and younger daughter of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, and Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel. She was baptised in the Chapel Royal of Kensington Palace on 27 July 1867 by Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury, and her three godparents were Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII and May's father-in-law), and Princess Augusta, the Duchess of Cambridge.[1]

May's upbringing was "merry but fairly strict".[2] She was the eldest of four children, the only girl, and "learned to exercise her native discretion, firmness and tact" by resolving her three younger brothers' petty boyhood squabbles.[3] They played with their cousins, the children of the Prince of Wales, who were similar in age.[4] May was educated at home by her mother and governess (as were her brothers until they were sent to boarding schools).[5] The Duchess of Teck spent an unusually long time with her children for a lady of her time and class,[2] and enlisted May in various charitable endeavours, which included visiting the tenements of the poor.[6]

Although her mother was a grandchild of King George III, May was only a minor member of the British Royal Family. Her father, the Duke of Teck, had no inheritance or wealth, and carried the lower royal style of Serene Highness because his parents' marriage was morganatic.[7] However, the Duchess of Teck was granted a Parliamentary Annuity of £5000, and received about £4000 a year from her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge.[8] Despite this, the family was deeply in debt and lived abroad from 1883, in order to economise.[9] The Tecks travelled throughout Europe, visiting their various relations. They stayed in Florence, Italy, for a time, where May enjoyed visiting the art galleries, churches and museums.[10]

In 1885, the Tecks returned to London, and took up residence at White Lodge, in Richmond Park. May was close to her mother, and acted as an unofficial secretary, helping to organise parties and social events. She was also close to her aunt, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (née Princess Augusta of Cambridge), and wrote to her every week. During World War I, the Crown Princess of Sweden helped pass letters from May to her aunt, who lived in enemy territory in Germany until her death in 1916.[11]

[edit]Engagements

Princess Victoria Mary shortly before her marriage to the Duke of York in 1893

In December 1891, May was engaged to her second cousin, once-removed, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales.[12] The choice of May as bride for the Duke owed much to Queen Victoria's fondness for her, as well as to her strong character and sense of duty. However, the Duke of Clarence and Avondale died six weeks later during the worldwide influenza pandemic that swept through Britain in the winter of 1891–2.[13]

Albert Victor's brother, Prince George, Duke of York, now second in line to the throne, evidently became close to May during their shared period of mourning, and Queen Victoria still favoured May as a suitable candidate to marry a future king.[14] In May 1893, George proposed, and May accepted. They were soon deeply in love, and their marriage was a success. George wrote to May every day they were apart and, unlike his father, never took a mistress.[15]

[edit]Duchess of York

See also: Wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck

May married Prince George, Duke of York, on 6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, in London.[16] The new Duke and Duchess of York lived in York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, and in apartments in St. James's Palace. York Cottage was a modest house for royalty, but it was a favourite of George, who liked a relatively simple life.[17] They had six children: Edward, Albert, Mary, Henry, George, and John.

Princess Victoria Mary, The Duchess of Cornwall and York. Ottawa, 1901

The Duchess loved her children, but she put them in the care of a nanny, as was usual in upper-class families at the time. The first nanny was dismissed for insolence and the second for abusing the children. This second woman, anxious to suggest that the children preferred her to anyone else, would pinch Edward and Albert whenever they were about to be presented to their parents, so that they would start crying and be speedily returned to her. On discovery, she was replaced by her effective and much-loved assistant, Mrs. Bill.[18]

Sometimes, Queen Mary appears to have been a distant mother. At first, she failed to notice the nanny's abuse of the young Princes Edward and Albert,[19] and her youngest son, Prince John, was housed in a private farm on the Sandringham Estate, in the care of Mrs. Bill, perhaps to hide his epilepsy from the public. However, despite her austere public image and her strait-laced private life, Mary was a caring mother in many respects, revealing a fun-loving and frivolous side to her children and teaching them history and music. Edward wrote fondly of his mother in his memoirs: "Her soft voice, her cultivated mind, the cosy room overflowing with personal treasures were all inseparable ingredients of the happiness associated with this last hour of a child's day ... Such was my mother's pride in her children that everything that happened to each one was of the utmost importance to her. With the birth of each new child, Mama started an album in which she painstakingly recorded each progressive stage of our childhood".[20] He expressed a less charitable view, however, in private letters to his wife after his mother's death: "My sadness was mixed with incredulity that any mother could have been so hard and cruel towards her eldest son for so many years and yet so demanding at the end without relenting a scrap. I'm afraid the fluids in her veins have always been as icy cold as they are now in death."[21]

As Duke and Duchess of York, George and May carried out a variety of public duties. In 1897, she became the Patron of the London Needlework Guild in succession to her mother. The Guild, initially established as The London Guild in 1882, was renamed several times, and was named after Mary between 1914 and 2010.[22]

On 22 January 1901, Queen Victoria died, and May's father-in-law, Albert Edward, ascended the throne as King Edward VII. For most of the rest of that year, George and May were styled TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York. For eight months they toured the British Empire, visiting Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, Ceylon, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, South Africa and Canada. No royal had undertaken such an ambitious tour before. She broke down in tears at the thought of leaving her children, who were to be left in the care of their grandparents, for such a lengthy period of time.[23]

[edit]Princess of Wales

The Princess of Wales at court, 1902

On 9 November 1901, nine days after arriving back in Britain and on the King's sixtieth birthday, George was created Prince of Wales. The family moved their London residence from St James's Palace to Marlborough House. As Princess of Wales, May accompanied her husband on trips to Austria-Hungary and Württemberg in 1904. The following year, she gave birth to her last child, John. It was a difficult labour, and although May recovered quickly, her newborn son suffered respiratory problems.[24]

From October 1905 the Prince and Princess of Wales undertook another eight month tour, this time of India, and the children were once again left in the care of their grandparents.[25] They passed through Egypt both ways and on the way back stopped in Greece. The tour was almost immediately followed by a trip to Spain for the wedding of King Alfonso XIII to Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, at which the bride and groom narrowly avoided assassination.[26] Only a week after returning to Britain, May and George went to Norway for the coronation of King Haakon VII and Queen Maud (George's sister).

[edit]Queen consort

King George V and Queen Mary

Queen Mary with her daughter Princess Mary during World War I.

On 6 May 1910, Edward VII died. The Prince of Wales ascended the throne as George V, and Mary became queen consort. When her husband asked her to drop one of her two official names, Victoria Mary, she chose to be called Mary, preferring not to take the name of her husband's grandmother, Queen Victoria.[27] Queen Mary was crowned with the King on 22 June 1911 at Westminster Abbey. Later in the year, the new King and Queen travelled to India for the Delhi Durbar held on 12 December 1911, and toured the sub-continent as Emperor and Empress of India, returning to Britain in February.[28] The beginning of Mary's period as consort brought her into conflict with the Dowager Queen Alexandra. Although the two were on friendly terms, Alexandra could be stubborn; she demanded precedence over Mary at the funeral of Edward VII, was slow in leaving Buckingham Palace, and kept some of the royal jewels that should have been passed to the new queen.[29]

During World War I, Queen Mary instituted an austerity drive at the palace, where she rationed food, and visited wounded and dying servicemen in hospital, which she found a great emotional strain.[30] After three years of war against Germany, and with anti-German feeling in Britain running high, the Russian Imperial Family, which had been deposed by a revolutionary government, was refused asylum, possibly in part because the Tsar's wife was German-born.[31] News of the Tsar's abdication provided a boost to those in Britain who wished to replace the monarchy with a republic.[32] After republicans used the couple's German heritage as an argument for reform, George abandoned his German titles and renamed the Royal House from the German "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" to the English "Windsor". Other royals anglicised their names; the Battenbergs became the Mountbattens, for example. The Queen's relatives also abandoned their German titles, and adopted the British surname of Cambridge (derived from the Dukedom held by Queen Mary's British grandfather). The war ended in 1918 with the defeat of Germany and the abdication and exile of the Kaiser.

Teck-Cambridge Family

Francis, Duke of Teck[show]

Adolphus, Marquess of Cambridge[show]

Alexander, Earl of Athlone[show]

Two months after the end of the war, Queen Mary's youngest son, John, died at the age of thirteen. She described her shock and sorrow in her diary and letters, extracts of which were published after her death: "our poor darling little Johnnie had passed away suddenly ... The first break in the family circle is hard to bear but people have been so kind & sympathetic & this has helped us [the King and me] much."[33] Her staunch support of her husband continued during the latter half of his reign. She advised him on speeches, and used her extensive knowledge of history and royalty to advise him on certain matters affecting his position. He appreciated her discretion, intelligence and judgement.[34] She maintained an air of self-assured calm throughout all her public engagements in the years after the war, a period marked by civil unrest over social conditions, Irish independence and Indian nationalism.[35]

In the late 1920s, George V became increasingly ill with lung problems, exacerbated by his heavy smoking. Queen Mary paid particular attention to his care. During his illness in 1928, one of his doctors, Sir Farquhar Buzzard, was asked who had saved the King's life. He replied, "The Queen".[36] In 1935, King George V and Queen Mary celebrated their silver jubilee, with celebrations taking place throughout the British Empire. In his jubilee speech, George paid public tribute to his wife, having told his speechwriter, "Put that paragraph at the very end. I cannot trust myself to speak of the Queen when I think of all I owe her."[37]

[edit]Queen Mother

George V died on 20 January 1936, after his physician, Lord Dawson of Penn, gave him an injection of morphine and cocaine which may have hastened his death.[38] Queen Mary's eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales, ascended the throne as Edward VIII. She was now officially Queen Mother, though she did not use that title and was instead known as Her Majesty Queen Mary.

Within the year, Edward caused a constitutional crisis by announcing his desire to marry his twice-divorced American mistress, Mrs. Wallis Simpson. Queen Mary disapproved of divorce, which was against the teaching of the Anglican Church, and thought Mrs. Simpson wholly unsuitable to be the wife of a king. After receiving advice from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Stanley Baldwin, as well as the Dominion governments, that he could not remain king and marry Mrs. Simpson, Edward abdicated. Though loyal and supportive of her son, Queen Mary could not comprehend why Edward would neglect his royal duties in favour of his personal feelings.[39] Mrs. Simpson had been presented formally to both King George V and Queen Mary at court,[40] but Queen Mary later refused to meet her either in public or privately.[41] Queen Mary saw it as her duty to provide moral support for her second son, the reserved and stammering Prince Albert, Duke of York, who ascended the throne upon Edward's abdication, taking the name George VI. When Mary attended the coronation, she became the first British dowager queen ever to do so.[42] Edward's abdication did not lessen her love for him, but she never wavered in her disapproval of the damage she believed had been done to the Crown.[15][43]

Queen Mary with her granddaughters, Princesses Margaret (front) and Elizabeth

Queen Mary took an interest in the upbringing of her granddaughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and took them on various excursions in London, to art galleries and museums. (The Princesses' own parents thought it unnecessary for them to be taxed with any demanding educational regime.)[44]

During World War II, George VI wished his mother to be evacuated from London. Although she was reluctant, she decided to live at Badminton House, Gloucestershire, with her niece, Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort, the daughter of her brother, Lord Cambridge.[45] Her personal belongings were transported from London in seventy pieces of luggage. Her household, which comprised fifty-five servants, occupied most of the house, except for the Duke and Duchess's private suites, until after the war. The only people to complain about the arrangements were the royal servants, who found the house too small,[46] though Queen Mary annoyed her niece by having the ancient ivy torn from the walls as she considered it unattractive and a hazard. From Badminton, in support of the war effort, she visited troops and factories, and directed the gathering of scrap materials. She was known to offer lifts to soldiers she spotted on the roads.[47] In 1942, her youngest surviving son, Prince George, Duke of Kent, was killed in an air crash while on active service. Queen Mary finally returned to Marlborough House in June 1945, after the war in Europe had resulted in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Queen Mary was an eager collector of objects and pictures with a royal connection.[48] She paid above-market estimates when purchasing jewels from the estate of Dowager Empress Marie of Russia[49] and paid almost three times the estimate when buying the family's Cambridge Emeralds from Lady Kilmorey, the mistress of her late brother Prince Francis.[50] In 1924, the famous architect Sir Edwin Lutyens created Queen Mary's Dolls' House for her collection of miniature pieces.[51] Indeed, she has sometimes been criticised for her aggressive acquisition of objets d'art for the Royal Collection. On several occasions, she would express to hosts, or others, that she admired something they had in their possession, in the expectation that the owner would be willing to donate it.[52] Her extensive knowledge of, and research into, the Royal Collection helped in identifying artefacts and artwork that had gone astray over the years.[53] The Royal Family had lent out many objects over previous generations. Once she had identified unreturned items through old inventories, she would write to the holders, requesting that they be returned.[54]

In 1952, King George VI died, the third of Queen Mary's children to predecease her; her eldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth, ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Mary died the next year of lung cancer (referred to publicly as "gastric problems"[55]) at the age of 85, only ten weeks before Elizabeth's coronation. Queen Mary let it be known that, in the event of her death, the coronation was not to be postponed. Her remains lay in state at Westminster Hall, where large numbers of mourners filed past her coffin. She is buried beside her husband in the nave of St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.[56]

Lillian Russell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the biographical film, see Lillian Russell (film).

Lillian Russell

Lillian Russell, 1897

BornHelen Louise Leonard

December 4, 1861

Clinton, Iowa, U.S.

DiedJune 6, 1922 (aged 60)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.

OccupationActress/Singer

Years active1879–1919

Lillian Russell (December 4, 1861 – June 6, 1922) was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.

Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago. Her parents separated when she was eighteen, and she moved to New York with her mother. She quickly began to perform professionally, singing for Tony Pastor and playing roles in comic opera, including Gilbert and Sullivan works. She married composer Edward Solomon in 1884 and created roles in several of his operas in London, but in 1886 he was arrested for bigamy. Russell was married four times, but her longest relationship was with Diamond Jim Brady, who supported her extravagant lifestyle for four decades.

In 1885, Russell returned to New York and continued to star in operetta and musical theatre. For many years, she was the foremost singer of operettas in America, performing continuously through the end of the nineteenth century. In 1899, she joined the Weber and Fields's Music Hall, where she starred for five years. After 1904, she began to have vocal difficulties and switched to dramatic roles. She later returned to musical roles in vaudeville, however, finally retiring from performing around 1919. In later years, Russell wrote a newspaper column, advocated women's suffrage and was a popular lecturer.

Contents [hide]

1 Life and career

1.1 Early career

1.2 Later years

2 Legacy

3 See also

4 Notes

5 References

6 External links

[edit]Life and career

Russell was born Helen Louise Leonard in Clinton, Iowa. Her father was newspaper publisher Charles E. Leonard, and her mother was the feminist Cynthia Leonard, the first woman to run for mayor of New York City. Her family moved to Chicago by 1865, where she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart (from age 7 to 15) and the Park Institute. Her father became a partner in the printing firm of Knight & Leonard, and her mother became active in the women's rights movement. Russell, called "Nellie" as a child, excelled at school theatricals. In her teens, she studied music privately and sang in choirs. In December 1877, she performed in an amateur production of Time Tries All at Chickering Hall in Chicago.[1]

[edit]Early career

When Russell was eighteen, her parents separated, and she and her mother moved to New York City. She soon became engaged to Walter Sinn, but broke off the engagement when she immediately found some success in the chorus of the Brooklyn Park Theatre.[1] She studied singing under Leopold Damrosch. In November 1879, she made her first appearance on Broadway at Tony Pastor's Casino Theater, billed as "an English Ballad Singer." Pastor, known as the father of vaudeville, was responsible for introducing many well-known performers.[2]

in Patience, 1882

She joined the chorus of a touring production of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore in 1879 and two weeks later married the orchestra leader Harry Braham after she found she was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, also named Harry, but the baby died after being stuck with a diaper pin by his nanny; the pin penetrated his stomach.[3] In 1881, she played the leading soprano role of Mabel in a burlesque of The Pirates of Penzance at Pastor's theatre. She next played at the Bijou Theatre on Broadway as Djenna in The Great Mogul and with the McCaull Opera Company played Bathilda in Olivette.[1] She also played the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience and Aline in The Sorcerer. Returning to Pastor's Casino Theatre in 1883, she played Phoebe in Billee Taylor, composed by Edward Solomon, who was serving as music director for Pastor.

Russell married Solomon in 1884, a year after their daughter, Dorothy Lillian Russell,[4] was born and travelled with him to England. There, she first played Virginia at the Gaiety Theatre in Solomon and Stephens's Paul and Virginia, followed by the title characters in Solomon's Polly and Grundy and Solomon's Pocahontas. While in London, she was engaged to create the title role of Gilbert and Sullivan's Princess Ida, but she clashed with W. S. Gilbert and was dismissed during rehearsals.[5] She then returned to America, touring for Pastor in Solomon's comic operas and playing in New York theatres or on tour in Gilbert and Sullivan and in operettas.[1] In 1886, Solomon was arrested for bigamy, since his previous marriage had not been dissolved. Russell obtained a divorce from Solomon in 1893.[6]

During these years, Russell continued to star in comic operas and other musical theatre. In 1887, she starred as Carlotta in Gasparone by Karl Millöcker in New York City at the Standard Theatre, together with Eugene Oudin and J. H. Ryley."[7] Later the same year, she was back at the Casino Theatre in the title role of Dorothy and over the next several years, she continued to star in operettas and musical theatre in Broadway theatres. At this time, she appeared in the title role in The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, as Fiorella in The Brigands (in a translation by W. S. Gilbert), as Teresa in The Mountebanks, as Marion in La Cigale and as Rosa in Princess Nicotine, among others.[1]

Russell in Lady Teazle (1904)

For many years, Russell was the foremost singer of operettas in America. Her voice, stage presence and beauty were the subject of a great deal of fanfare in the news media, and she was extremely popular with audiences. Actress Marie Dressler observed, "I can still recall the rush of pure awe that marked her entrance on the stage. And then the thunderous applause that swept from orchestra to gallery, to the very roof." When Alexander Graham Bell introduced long distance telephone service on May 8, 1890, Russell's voice was the first carried over the line. From New York City, Russell sang "Sabre Song" to audiences in Boston and Washington, D.C..

Russell filed for divorce from Solomon in 1893 and joined the J. C. Duff Opera Company, with which she toured. She married tenor John Haley Augustin Chatterton (known professionally as Signor Giovanni Perugini) in 1894, but they soon separated and were divorced in 1898. In the spring of 1894, she returned to London to play Betta in The Queen of Brilliants by Jacques Offenbach and then played the same role in the New York production at Abbey's Theatre. She remained at Abbey's, playing several roles, but when that theatre shut down in 1896, she played in other Broadway houses in more operettas by Offenbach (such as The Princess of Trebizonde and many others), Victor Herbert and others, such as the Erminie (at the Casino Theatre) in 1899.[1]

For forty years, Russell was also the companion of businessman "Diamond Jim" Brady, who showered her with extravagant gifts of diamonds and gemstones and supported her extravagant lifestyle.

[edit]Later years

In 1899, Russell joined the Weber and Fields's Music Hall, where she starred in their burlesques and other entertainments until 1904. Her first production there was Fiddle-dee-dee in 1899 which also featured De Wolf Hopper, Fay Templeton and David Warfield. Other favorites were Whoop-de-doo and The Big Little Princess. Before the 1902 production of Twirly-Whirly, John Stromberg, who had composed several hit songs for her, delayed giving Lillian Russell her solo for several days, saying that it was not ready. When he committed suicide a few days before the first rehearsal, sheet music for "Come Down Ma Evenin' Star" was discovered in his coat pocket. It became Russell's signature song and is the only one she is known to have recorded.[8]

Come Down Ma Evenin' Star

Lillian Russell's only known recording, from 1912

Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Leaving Weber and Fields, she next played the title role of Lady Teazle in 1904 at the Casino Theatre and then began to play in vaudeville. After 1904, Russell began to have vocal difficulties, but she did not retire from the stage. Instead, she switched to non-musical comedies, touring under the management of James Brooks. In 1906, she played the title role in Barbara's Millions, and in 1908 she was Henrietta Barrington in Wildfire. The next year she was Laura Curtis in The Widow's Might. In 1911, she toured in In Search of a Sinner. Russell then returned to singing, appearing in burlesque, variety and other entertainments.[1]

In 1912, she married her fourth husband, Alexander Pollock Moore, owner of the Pittsburgh Leader, and mostly retired from the stage. The wedding was held in Pittsburgh at the grand Schenley Hotel, which is, today, a national historic landmark and the University of Pittsburgh's student union building. Russell lived, for a time, in suite 437 of the hotel, now located in the offices of the student newspaper, The Pitt News.[9] The same year, she made her last appearance on Broadway in Weber & Fields' Hokey Pokey. In 1915, Russell appeared with Lionel Barrymore in the motion picture Wildfire, which was based on the 1908 play of the same name in which she appeared. This was one of her few motion picture appearances. She sang in vaudeville until 1919, when ill health forced her to retire from the stage after a four-decade long career.

In later years, Russell wrote a newspaper column, advocated women's suffrage (as her mother had), and was a popular lecturer, advocating an optimistic philosophy of self-help and drawing large crowds. During World War I, she recruited for the U.S. Marine Corps and raised money for the war effort. Russell became a wealthy woman, and during the Actors' Equity strike of 1919, she made a major donation of money to sponsor the formation of the Chorus Equity Association by the chorus girls at the Ziegfeld Follies. According to the March 17, 1922 edition of The New York Times, Russell traveled aboard the R.M.S. Aquitania from Southampton, England, to the Port of New York on the March 11 to March 17 crossing. "[She] established a precedent by acting as Chairman of the ship's concert, the first woman, so far as the records show, to preside at an entertainment on shipboard."

Russell died at her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 6, 1922, shortly after a completing a fact-finding mission to Europe on behalf of President Warren Harding. The mission was to investigate the increase in immigration. She recommended a five-year moratorium on immigration, and her findings were instrumental in a 1924 immigration reform law.[3] She suffered apparently minor injuries on the return trip, which led to complications, and she died after ten days of illness.[1] She was buried with full military honors. She is interred in a private mausoleum in the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[edit]Legacy

A full-length portrait of Russell was painted in 1902 by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947) who also painted another oval half-length, but both portraits are missing.

A 1940 film was made about Russell, although it presents a sanitized version of her life. It was directed by Irving Cummings who, as a teenager starting his career, had acted with Russell in the play Wildfire in 1908. It stars Alice Faye, Henry Fonda, Don Ameche and Edward Arnold.

The Lillian Russell Theatre aboard the City of Clinton Showboat is a summer stock theater named after Russell in her hometown of Clinton, Iowa.[10] The University of Pittsburgh's student activities building, the William Pitt Union, has a Lillian Russell Room on its fourth floor, in the offices of The Pitt News, in the same location where Russell lived when the building was the Schenley Hotel. The room contains a portrait of Russell.[9][1

HRH Princess Margarita de Romania is the daughter of HM King Mihai de Romania and of HM Queen Anne, princess of Bourbon-Parme

--------------------------------------------

www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

Prin linia materna, Printesa Margarta fiica Reginei Ana de Romania se trage din Movilesti, iar prin acestia din urma din Stefan Cel Mare si Sfant si prin el din Dragos, Descalecatorul Moldovei.

Iata cateva detalii despre ascendenta materna a ASR Printesa Margareta din voivozii Moldovei:

Regina Ana, Printesa de Danemarca si de Bourbon-Parma se trage, asa cum spune numele din Bourboni,

Mai precis din ramura spaniola a Bourbonilor care erau si Duci de Parma.

Pornind pe linie directa ascendenta a familiei de Bourbon-Parma, deci pe linie barbateasca, ajungem la Ferdinand I de Bourbon, Duce de Parma (1751-1802) nepotul Lui Filip V regele Spaniei si Duce de Anjou (1683, Versailles - 1746 Madrid).

Acest Ferdinand I Infante de Spania (1751-1802),care preceda cu sase generatii pe Ana de Bourbon-Parma a noastra [sper si a domniei tale] ) era casatorit cu printesa Louise Elisabeth de France (1727-1759), fiica lui Ludovic al XV regele Frantei si a sotiei lui Maria Leczynska ( 1703-1768) regina Frantei, care la randul ei era fiica lui Stanislas Lesczynski regele Poloniei si Duce de Lorena (1677-1766).

Acum, ca sa ajungem la Movilesti trebuie sa trecem pe ramurile femeiesti:

Bunica materna a lui Stanislas Lesczinski (socrul lui Ludovic XV) era Maria Ana Printesa Jabolonowska (1643-1687) nascuta contesa Kasanowska, iar bunica materna a acesteia din urma era Domnita Maria Movila ( 1591-1638) (fata lui Ieremia Voda), domnita moldoveanca al carui sot era Contele Stefan Potocki, Palatin de Wroclaw si prin care casatorie era cunoscuta in Polonia drept Marya Mohylanka.

Aceasta inseamna, bine inteles, ca prin stramosii ei Movilesti, Regina Ana de Romania se trage, prin Iermia Voda Movila, chiar din Petru Rares si din Stefan cel Mare si Sfant, iar prin acesta din urma din Dragos Voda primul descalecator al Moldovei.

Despre domnita Maria Movila contesa Potocka ne vorbeste istoricul Constantin GANE (1885-1962) in celebra lui lucrare "Trecute Vieti de Doamne si Domnite".

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"Blouse Roumaine - the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women"

Presented and Selected by Constantin ROMAN

Anthology E-BOOK (11BM)

DISTRIBUTION: Online with credit card

COST: $ 54.99, £34.99 (ca Euros 35.50)

LINK: www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

CONTENTS:

2,250,000 words,

over 1,000 pages,

ca 160 illustrations in text

160 critical biographies,

58 social categories/professions,

600 quotations (mostly translated into English for the first time),

circa 3,000 bibliographical references (including URLs and credits)

6 Indexes (alphabetical, by profession, timeline, quotation Index, place

index and name index)

AUTHOR: Constantin Roman is a Scholar with a Doctorate from Cambridge and a Member of the Society of Authors (London). He is an International Adviser, Guest Speaker, Professor Honoris Causa and Commander of the Order of Merit.

INDEX BY PROSFESSION: 58 CATEGORIES by Call, Profession or Social Status

Academics (22), Actresses (9), Anti-Communist Fighters (14), Architects/Interior Designers (2), Art Critics (9), Artist Book Binders (1), Ballerinas (6), Charity Workers/Benefactors (20), Communist Public Figures (2), Courtesans (3), Designers (2), Diplomats (4), Essayists (11), Ethnographers (6), Exiles & First-generation Romanians born abroad (87), Explorers (1), Feminists (12), Folk Singers (1), Gymnasts, Dressage Riders (2), Historians (5), Honorary Romanian Women (15), Illustrators (3), Journalists (13), Lawyers (4), Librarians (3), Linguists (2), Literary Critics (1), Media (15), Medical Doctors/Nurses (5), Memoir Writers (16), Missionaries and Nuns (4), Mountainéers (2), Museographers (1), Musical Instruments Makers (1), Novelists (24), Opera Singers (16), Painters (14), Peasant Farmers (6), Philosophers and Philosophy Graduates (4), Pianists (6), Pilots (4), Playwrights (5), Poets (29), Political Prisoners (30), Politicians (5), Revolutionaries (2), Royals and Aristocrats (34), Scientists (8), Sculptors (4), Slave (1), Socialites/Hostesses (20), Spouses/Relations of Public Figures (51), Spies (2), Tapestry Weavers (4), Translators (25), Unknown Illustrious (6), Violinists (4), Workers (3)

NOTE:

Most of the above 160 Romanian women, in the best tradition of versatility, are true polymaths and therefore nearly each one of them falls in more than just one category, often three or more. This explains why adding the numbers of the 57 individual categories bears no relation to the actual total of the above 160 women included in Blouse Roumaine.

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LIST OF 160 CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES (each supported by Quotations and Bibliography)

AA *Gabriela Adamesteanu *Florenta Albu *Nina Arbore *Elena Arnàutoiu *Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnàutoiu, *Laurentia Arnàutoiu *Mariea Plop - Arnàutoiu *Ana Aslan *Lady Elizabeth Asquith Bibescu

BB *Lauren Bacall *Lady Florence Baker *Zoe Bàlàceanu *Ecaterina Bàlàcioiu-Lovinescu *Victorine de Bellio *Pss. Marta Bibescu *Adriana Bittel *Maria Prodan Bjørnson *Ana Blandiana *Yvonne Blondel *Lola Bobescu *Smaranda Bràescu *Elena Bràtianu *Élise Bràtianu *Ioana Bràtianu *Elena Bràtianu- Racottà *Letitzia Bucur

CC *Anne-Marie Callimachi *Georgeta Cancicov *Madeleine Cancicov *Pss. Alexandra Cantacuzino *Pss.Maria Cantacuzino (Madame Puvis de Chavannes) *Pss. Maruca Cantacuzino-Enesco* Pss. Catherine Caradja *Elena Caragiani-Stoenescu *Marta Caraion-Blanc, *Nina Cassian, *Otilia Cazimir *Elena Ceausescu *Maria Cebotari *Ioana Celibidache *Hélène Chrissoveloni (Mme Paul Morand)*Alice Cocea *Irina Codreanu *Lizica Codreanu *Alina Cojocaru *Nadia Comàneci *Denisa Comànescu *Lena Constante *Silvia Constantinescu *Doina Cornea *Hortense Cornu *Viorica Cortez*Otilia Cosmutzà *Sandra Cotovu *Ileana Cotrubas *Carmen-Daniela Cràsnaru *Mioara Cremene *Florica Cristoforeanu *Pss. Elena Cuza

DD *Hariclea Darclée *Cella Delavrancea *Alina Diaconú *Varinca Diaconú *Anca Diamandy *Marie Ana Dràgescu *Rodica Dràghincescu *Bucura Dumbravà *Natalia Dumitrescu

EE *Micaela Eleutheriade *Queen Elisabeth of Romania (‘Carmen Sylva’) *Alexandra Enescu *Mica Ertegün

FF *Lizi Florescu, *Maria Forescu *Nicoleta Franck *Aurora Fúlgida

GG *Angela Gheorghiu *Pss Grigore Ghica *Pss. Georges Ghika (Liane de Pougy) *Veturia Goga *Maria Golescu *Nadia Gray *Olga Greceanu *Pss. Helen of Greece *Nicole Valéry-Grossu *Carmen Groza

HH *Virginia Andreescu Haret *Clara Haskil *Lucia Hossu-Longin

II *Pss. Ileana of Romania *Ana Ipàtescu *Marie-France Ionesco *Dora d’Istria *Rodica Iulian

JJ *Doina Jela *Lucretia Jurj

KK *Mite Kremnitz

LL *Marie-Jeanne Lecca *Madeleine Lipatti *Monica Lovinescu *Elena Lupescu

MM *Maria Mailat *Ileana Màlàncioiu *Ionela Manolesco *Lilly Marcou *Silvia Marcovici *Queen Marie of Romania *Ioana A. Marin *Ioana Meitani *Gabriela Melinescu *Veronica Micle *Nelly Miricioiu *Herta Müller *Alina Mungiu-Pippidi *Agnes Kelly Murgoci

NN *Mabel Nandris *Anita Nandris-Cudla *Lucia Negoità *Mariana Nicolesco *Countess Anna de Noailles *Ana Novac

OO *Helen O’Brien *Oana Orlea

PP *Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu *Milita Pàtrascu *Ana Pauker *Marta Petreu *Cornelia Pillat *Magdalena Popa *Elvira Popescu

RR *Ruxandra Racovitzà *Elisabeta Rizea *Eugenia Roman *Stella Roman *Queen Ana de România, *Pss. Margarita de România *Maria Rosetti *Elisabeth Roudinesco

SS *Annie Samuelli *Sylvia Sidney *Henriette-Yvonne Stahl *Countess Leopold Starszensky *Elena Stefoi *Pss. Marina Stirbey *Sanda Stolojan *Cecilia Cutzescu-Storck

TT *Maria Tànase *Aretia Tàtàrescu *Monica Theodorescu *Elena Theodorini

UU *Viorica Ursuleac

VV *Elena Vàcàrescu *Leontina Vàduva *Ana Velescu *Marioara Ventura *Anca Visdei *Wanda Sachelarie Vladimirescu *Alice Steriade Voinescu

WW *Sabina Wurmbrand

ZZ *Virginia Zeani

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

Today however we are a short distance away from Cavendish Mews, skirting Hyde Park, travelling southwest through the refined Regency era houses of Belgravia to the well-heeled borough of Knightsbridge. There, within a stone’s throw of Harrods, in a fine red brick five storey Victorian terrace house in Edgerton Gardens, Lettice is attending the wedding breakfast* of her friend and debutante of the 1922 London Season, Priscilla Kitson-Fahey to American Georgie Carter. The Carters are a good Philadelphian society family, although they do come from money made through the uniquely American invention of the department store. However, this has been graciously overlooked by Priscilla’s widowed mother, Cynthia, in light of the fortune Georgie stands to inherit and the lavish allowance he is willing to spend on she and her daughter. Hired at great expense from a brewer’s family who own several properties throughout Knightsbridge, the furbished terrace house has been decked out with a profusion of gay flower arrangements as befits the celebration, whilst Gunter and Company** who are catering the breakfast, have erected a red and white striped marquee over the front entrance.

It is in the Edgerton Gardens terrace’s first floor reception room overlooking the garden square, where the wedding gifts to the new Mr. and Mrs. Carter are being displayed, that we find Lettice with her old childhood chum Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Lettice was supposed to have been escorted to the wedding by Selwyn Spencely, the eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford, whom she has been discreetly seeing socially since having met him at her parent’s Hunt Ball in February. Unfortunately, Selwyn was called away on family business at the last moment, so Gerald has gallantly stepped in to accompany his best friend as he too has been invited to the wedding.

“I say,” whispers Gerald quietly to Lettice. “I shall never get used to a room full of Americans.” He looks about him. “They all speak so loudly.”

Lettice notes the voluble chatter washing about them, mostly voiced in strident midwestern American accents. Pricking up her ears momentarily, she catches snippets of conversations, for the most part about the wedding at the Brompton Oratory***, the bride’s wedding gown and what hats ladies were wearing, but also a man’s voice talking about buying Captain Cuttle**** from his owner, and one woman loudly and indiscreetly regaling some of her fellow Americans with stories about her presentation to the Prince of Wales***** in the Mayfair drawing room of a well-connected British friend.

“What is it they are saying now?” Lettice ponders quietly in reply to her friend. “Obtain a young heiress, or sell an old master.”

“Something like that.” Gerald muses. “Although in this case it’s a young heir.”

“So, we shall just have to get used to it as the Americans infiltrate our best, yet most penniless families.” Lettice pokes her friend in the ribs jovially. “Perhaps we’ll find you a wealthy heiress today.”

“Heaven help me!” Gerald throws up his hands in melodramatic mime.

“At least they are saying nice things about Cilla’s frock,” Lettice whispers with a smile as she catches her friend’s eye. “You’ll have a new flurry of women cloying for a frock or two from the House of Bruton when they see the going away outfit you designed for her.”

“Lord save me from Americans and their dry good store money.” Gerald mutters.

“I know you don’t mean that, Gerald.” Lettice scoffs, slapping his hand lightly with her own white glove clad hand. “Any money is good money for you, dry goods store or otherwise. At least this way you can enjoy American money without having to make a sham marriage to gain benefit from it. That will please your young musician friend, Cyril.”

“I think you are fast becoming a capitalist, my darling.” Gerald deflects, blushing at Lettice’s comment about his new companion whom she recently met in passing at his friend Harriet’s house in Putney on the south side of the Thames.

“Oh?” Lettice queries. “I thought you said I was a Communist.”

“Either way, they are both terrible, darling!” Gerald laughs.

Lettice titters along with him. She pauses for a moment and contemplates. “Gerald, what is a dry goods store, anyway?”

“No idea, darling.” He shrugs his shoulders. “However, whatever it is, it is strictly American, and they seem to make a great deal of money over there.”

“Thinking of money, I see old Lady Marchmont has given away another of her pieces of family silver.” Lettice discreetly indicates to a silver salver gleaming at the rear of a sideboard cluttered with wedding gifts and cards.

“Well, if she can’t afford to buy new pieces as gifts.”

“Yes, I suppose the death duties that had to be paid ate up most of the estate.”

“And with her husband, and all three of her sons killed in the war,” Gerald adds pragmatically. “Who is she going to leave what little she still has of the family silver to?”

“God bless Harrold, Morris and Vincent.” Lettice says.

“We need a drink if we’re going to toast our war dead.” Gerald says with a sigh. “I’ll go find us some champagne.”

Leaving Lettice’s side, Gerald wends his way through the beautifully dressed wedding guests, quickly disappearing from view amid the mixture of morning suits, feather decorated hats and matching frocks.

Lettice sighs and wanders over to the sideboard bearing Lady Marchmont’s silver salver and admires some of the other wedding gifts in front of it. Silver candelabras jostle for space with crystal vases and wine decanters. A very sleek and stylish coffee set she recognises from Asprey’s****** has been generously given by the Wannamaker family of Society Hill******* she discovers as she picks up the wedding card featuring a bride in an oval frame holding a bouquet in her hands. A Royal Doulton dinner service garlanded with boiseries of apricot roses and leaves is stacked up alongside Lady Marchmont’s salver and a pair of Meissen figurines also in shades of apricot and beautifully gilded hold court amidst all the other gifts.

“No Spencely today, Miss Chetwynd?” a well enunciated voice observes behind Lettice.

Gasping, she spins around to find the tall and elegant figure of Sir John Nettleford-Hughes standing before her.

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a time when such men are a rare commodity, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her Hunt Ball earlier in the year, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Luckily Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Now, as he stands before Lettice, Sir John oozes the confidence of male privilege that his sex, class and enormous wealth bestows, and he wears it every bit as well as the smart and well-cut morning suit he is dressed in. The rather leering smile he gives her fills her with repugnance and Lettice shudders as Sir John takes up her glove clad right hand in his and draws it to his lips where he kisses it.

“Sir John,” Lettice says uncomfortably acknowledging him, a shudder rippling through her figure at his touch. “I didn’t see you at the church service.”

“Oh, I wasn’t there, Miss Chetwynd.” he replies flippantly, releasing Lettice’s hand, which she quickly withdraws. “I’m not much of a church goer myself,” Surprised by his blatant confession of not being particularly religious, Lettice falters, but Sir John saves her having to say anything by adding, “Especially since the war. Like Arthur Conan Doyle, I’m more into spiritualism these days than God********.”

“Indeed.” Lettice acknowledges. Changing the subject she continues rather stiffly, “I… I didn’t know you were acquainted with Priscilla, or is it Georgie you know.”

“Oh no, not the American. No.” he replies seriously. “I’m distantly related to Priscilla’s mother. We’re third cousins or some such,” Sir John sighs in boredom as he gesticulates languidly with his hand in which he holds a half empty champagne flute. “Which I suppose entitles me to an invitation to this rather vulgar show.” He looks with a critical scowl around the room full of rather beautiful, yet at the same time ostentatious, flower arrangements and all the guests milling about with glasses of champagne or wine in their hands chattering around them. He looks at the sideboard weighed down with expensive wedding gifts that Lettice had been inspecting. “Not that I’d imagine Cynthia paid for any of this, even if it is the bride’s family’s duty to host the wedding breakfast. I suppose the abrogation of such duties is one’s prerogative when as a virtually bankrupt widow, you have an American department store millionaire heir as a new son-in-law.” He cocks a well manicured eyebrow at Lettice to gauge her reaction, allowing it to sink with disappointment when she fails to respond. “Americans don’t tend to hold with tradition like we British do.” He nods and smiles at a passing acquaintance who catches his eye over Lettice’s left shoulder, raising his glass in acknowledgement. “No, I have no doubt that the Carters of Philadelphia have footed the bill not only for the wedding breakfast, but the European sojourn honeymoon for the young couple too. No doubt Cynthia, as my poor relation, wishes to show off her new found good fortune which isn’t even hers by rights. Why on earth should the couple go to Paris, when Edinburgh would have done equally as well. They do love splashing their rather grubby parvenu money about so, don’t they?”

“Who?”

“Why Americans of course, my dear Miss Chetwynd. Those from the New World are always so showy. I’m sure you agree.” Lettice is saved from having to give an answer when Sir John adds, “The Carters probably even paid for Priscilla’s wedding dress. It’s not one of your friend Bruton’s, is it?”

“No, Sir John. It’s a Lanvin********, I believe.” Lettice answers laconically, trying to avoid the scrutinising, sparkling blue eyed gaze of Sir John, which as at the Hunt Ball, runs up and down her figure appraisingly, making her feel as though he were undressing her before the entire company walking about them.

“Pity. He could have done rather well for himself grabbing at some of those shiny American dollars of Georgie’s.”

Lettice chooses not to mention the fact that Gerald has made the bride’s going away outfit as well as several evening frocks. “Well, Sir John,” she begins, smiling awkwardly. “It has been delightful to…”

“You know,” Sir John cuts her off, his eyes widening as his gaze intensifies. “You never did show me that portrait of Marie Antoinette that your father owns, like your mother promised at the Hunt Ball.”

“I’m quite sure that my mother would be only too glad to…”

“I was rather disappointed by your behaviour the night of the ball, Miss Chetwynd.” he interrupts abruptly.

“My behaviour, Sir John?”

“Your deliberate avoidance of me.” he elucidates.

“Sir John!” Lettice blushes at being so easily caught out. “I… I…”

“I think it is high time you made amends by you,” He adds emphasis to the last word. “Showing me that painting.”

“Well, I’m very sorry to disappoint you Sir John, but I am frightfully busy with a new commission here in London. I very much doubt I shall be back down at Glynes before November. Even then, it will be for my brother Leslie’s wedding. And then of course it is Christmas.”

“And you’ve had your head turned by young Spencely.” he utters, stunning Lettice with his knowledge of her and Selwyn’s recent involvement with one another. “Oh yes, I know.”

“Sir John!” Lettice gasps, blushing again at his flagrant statement.

“But as I noted when I saw you just now, he isn’t here today, is he?” His eyebrows knit as he speaks. Once again, he doesn’t wait for a reply. “And I know for a fact that up until a few days ago, his name was on the list of wedding guests, as your escort.”

“How can you know that, Sir John?” Lettice gasps in surprise. “We have been very discreet.”

“Because Cynthia isn’t my dear Miss Chetwynd. She has been trying, rather unsuccessfully I might add, to rub my nose in her new-found turn of fortunes by telling me about all the great and good of London society who will be attending her daughter’s wedding to the American. It’s quite a coup considering that were this not such a grand occasion thanks to her son-in-law’s family new money, none of those she was crowing about to me would have even considered accepting her invitation. Not that she could have afforded to invite them without the Carter’s money. As the widow of a rather insignificant man of an obscure and penurious parochial family, she was rather chuffed to have the eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford on her invitation list thanks to an advantageous connection with one of her daughter’s nightclub acquaintances – you, Miss Chetwynd. An invitation made at your request, Miss Chetwynd. Yet he isn’t here today, and you came on your own.”

Lettice’s cheeks flush bright red at Sir John’s insinuation. “I’ll have you know I came with Gera…” she begins hotly.

“Bruton was already on the list of invited guests, Miss Chetwynd.” Sir John interrupts her protestations. “I believe that like you, he is part of a coterie of Bright Young Things********* who attend the Embassy Club on Bond Street with Priscilla. That’s how you all come to be connected. Isn’t that so?”

Lettice nods like a chided child, with a lowered glance.

“And do you know why Spencely didn’t come today, Miss Chetwnd?”

“Yes I do,” she answers in a deflated fashion, Sir John’s question having knocked the bluster out of her. “He’s entertaining his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers at Clendon**********.”

“And do you know why that is?”

“Yes, because his mother, Lady Zinnia, organised it, so that Selwyn might reacquaint himself with his cousin after many years of separation. He is to be a chaperone to her when she debuts next year.”

Sir John chuckles to himself as he catches Lettice’s stare with his own and holds it for an unnerving few moments. “If you say so, Miss Chetwynd.”

“What are you laughing at? It’s true, Sir John. Selwyn told me himself.”

“Oh I’m sure he did, my dear. However, it was no coincidence that Pamela’s arrival at Clendon coincided with Priscilla’s wedding.”

“What do mean, Sir John?” Lettice asks warily. She thinks back through their conversation for a moment, her temperature rising as she whispers angrily, “Did you tell Lady Zinnia about Selwyn escorting me here today?”

“Now, now, Miss Chetwynd. Temper, temper.” He smiles lasciviously, the sudden spark in Lettice seeming to attract him even more to her.

“Did you?”

“You young people are rather tiresome with your intrigues.” he sighs. “No, I did not Miss Chetwynd. It would have done me no favours to put a wedge between you and Spencely.” He eyes her again before continuing, “Now look, I know you don’t like me, Miss Chetwynd. You’ve made that quite clear.”

“Sir John!” Lettice tries weakly to protest but is silenced by his raised hands.

“Don’t pretend my dear Miss Chetwynd. You loathe me, so therefore, I owe you no favours. Yet nevertheless, I feel you need to hear this. Perhaps it will be better received from me, someone you detest who has no vested interest in your happiness, rather than a friend whose kindness may be perceived as unwelcome interference.” He pauses for a moment, his mouth a tight line beneath his silver grey moustache. “Don’t tip your cap at young Spencely. You’re wasting your time. He isn’t free to make a marriage of his own choosing.”

Lettice utters a scornful laugh as she rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me that you believe that marriages are made by mothers, too, Sir John?” She folds her arms akimbo defiantly across her chest, suddenly filled with a sense of determination to stand up to this man who is obviously and ridiculously jealous that her head has been turned by a handsome young man, rather than by his wealth. “I’ve heard that enough from my own mother.”

“In this case it is true, although Lady Sadie has no more say in who Spencely marries than either he or you do. Lady Zinnia is the one who pulls the strings. Not even the Duke would dare go against her when it comes to matters of marriage. It was decided long ago whom he should marry.”

Lettice laughs again. “And who might that be?”

“Well, I should have thought that would have been obvious to a young lady of some intelligence like you.”

“Pamela Fox-Chavers?”

“Exactly!” Sir John sighs satisfactorily. “You’re finally catching on. You may not be quite as bright as I first assumed you to be, but you aren’t a complete dullard like so many other addle headed young flappers.” He indicates with a discreet motion to a young girl in lemon yellow giggling girlishly with another flapper in pale pink as they whisper behind their hands at the passing parade of young American men.

“But Pamela is Selwyn’s cousin!” Lettice retorts, her eyes growing wide.

“True, but she’s only a distant one, and you must confess that it isn’t unusual for cousins to marry cousins. Look at the Royal Family. It’s been happening for hundreds of years to help preserve blood lines and seal the lines of succession.”

“But he barely knows her.”

“Be that as it may, the decision has been made, my dear Miss Chetwynd.”

“You make it sound like a fait accompli, Sir John.”

“And so it is.”

“But you seem to forget, Sir John, although you are the one who is privy to the knowledge of it, that I am currently pursuing a romantic relationship with Selwyn Spencely, and he with me. I have no intention of giving way so easily, especially for a person whom he barely knows and whom he has no affection for.”

“And I just told you to forget about marrying him.” Sir John retorts loftily in a lowered voice. “He is not at liberty to marry you, whatever you and he may think or try to convince yourselves to the contrary.” He affixes her again, his blue eyes piercing her. “If you pursue young Spencely as you so gallantly claim you will, then best you sharpen your lance, Miss Chetwynd. Lady Zinnia is no-one to trifle with. You think you and Spencely have been discreet up until now, but I can assure you, discreet or not, Zinnia will already know all about you and her son, and she will put a stop to your budding romance,” The last two words are spat out in a derisive tone which makes Lettice shudder. “Sooner or later, when it suits her intentions best. And when she does, it will be a spectacular and painful fall from the lofty battlements of love’s tower, my dear Miss Chetwynd. Zinnia is a hard woman who enjoys inflicting hurt onto others. It, along with collecting porcelain, is one of her greatest pleasures in life.” He points his empty champagne flute at her. “Just don’t come crawling to me cap in hand after it happens.” He arches his elegant eyebrows over his cold blue eyes. “You have been warned.”

“Thank you for your warning, Sir John.” Lettice replies in a steely and cold manner, squaring her jaw and tilting her head haughtily.

“I wish I could say it was my pleasure.” he replies resignedly. “Goodbye, Miss Chetwynd.” He turns his back on her and walks away without another word.

As Lettice watches his slender figure glide between the milling groups, quickly disappearing amidst the sea of bobbing heads and hats, Gerald returns with two flutes of champagne.

“What did that old letch want?” Gerald asks, following Lettice’s gaze, noticing Sir John’s retreating figure.

“Oh nothing,” Lettice says with a shrug of her shoulders and a shuddering breath. “He was just spitting sour grapes and venomous lies at me because I spurned his affections at the Hunt Ball.”

“Really?” Gerald’s eyes grow wide. “How disgusting!”

As she sips her effervescent champagne and listens absently to Gerald chat, she quietly tries to dismiss all Sir John just told her from her mind, but she can’t quite manage it. A knot forms in her stomach and the thoughts running through her head sours the taste of champagne on her lips.

*A wedding breakfast is a feast given to the newlyweds and guests after the wedding, making it equivalent to a wedding reception that serves a meal. The phrase is still used in British English, as opposed to the description of reception, which is American in derivation. Before the beginning of the Twentieth Century they were traditionally held in the morning, but this fashion began to change after the Great War when they became a luncheon. Regardless of when it was, a wedding breakfast in no way looked like a typical breakfast, with fine savoury food and sweet cakes being served. Wedding breakfasts were at their most lavish in the Edwardian era through to the Second World War

**Gunter and Company were London caterers and ball furnishers with shops in Berkley Square, Sloane Street, Lowndes Street and New Bond Street. They began as Gunter’s Tea Shop at 7 and 8 Berkley Square 1757 where it remained until 1956 as the business grew and opened different premises. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales. Even after the tea shop finally closed, the catering business carried on until the mid 1970s.

***The Brompton Oratory is a large neo-classical Roman Catholic church in the Knightsbridge area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Its full name is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The foundation stone was laid in June 1869; and the new church designed by Herbert Dribble was consecrated on 16 April 1884. The church is faced in Portland stone, with the vaults and dome in concrete; the latter was heightened in profile and the cupola added in 1869. It was the largest Catholic church in London before the opening of Westminster Cathedral in 1903. Catholic aristocrats who married at the church include John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, and Gwendoline Fitzalan-Howard in 1872, Lord William Beauchamp Nevill and Mabel Murietta in1889, Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk, and Lavinia Strutt in 1937, Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, and Rosamund Broughton in 1938, Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian, and Antonella Newland in1943), Anthony Noel, 5th Earl of Gainsborough, and Mary Stourton in 1947 and Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, and Anne Palairet in 1947). Others who married at the church include Lord of Appeal in Ordinary Baron Russell of Killowen, traveller and landowner John Talbot Clifton and author Violet Clifton in 1907) and Australian rules footballer Joe Fogarty in 1916.

****Captain Cuttle, ridden by jockey Steve Donaghue won the Derby at Epsom racecourse in June 1922.

*****The Prince of Wales would later become Edward VIII, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20th of January 1936 until his abdication in December of the same year when he married American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. As well as a penchant for married woman, David, the Prince of Wales, had a great fondness for Americans and enjoyed their more relaxed and modern attitudes.

******Founded in 1781 as a silk printing business by William Asprey, Asprey soon became a luxury emporium. In 1847 the business moved to their present premises at 167 Bond Street, where they advertised 'articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment’. In 1862 Asprey received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. They received a second Royal Warrant from the Future Edward VII in 1889. Asprey has a tradition of producing jewellery inspired by the blooms found in English gardens and Woodland Flora. Over the decades jewelled interpretations of flowers have evolved to include Daisy, Woodland and sunflower collections. They have their own special cut of diamond and produce leather goods, silver and gold pieces, trophies and leatherbound books, both old and new. They also produce accessories for playing polo. In 1997, Asprey produced the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn in the motion picture blockbuster, ‘Titanic’.

*******Society Hill is a historic upper-class neighborhood in Center City Philadelphia.

********By the end of his life, in 1930, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, was a fervent believer in spiritualism, having spent decades researching ghosts, fairies and the paranormal. His fascination with the supernatural grew after his son Kingsley and his younger brother, Innes, battle-weary from service in World War I, died amid the worldwide influenza pandemic shortly after returning home.

*********Jeanne Lanvin (1867 – 1946) was a French haute couture fashion designer. She founded the Lanvin fashion house and the beauty and perfume company Lanvin Parfums. She became an apprentice milliner at Madame Félix in Paris at the age of 16 and trained with Suzanne Talbot and Caroline Montagne Roux before becoming a milliner on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1889. In 1909, Jeanne joined the Syndicat de la Couture, which marked her formal status as a couturière. The clothing she made for her daughter began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children. Soon, Jeanne was making dresses for their mothers, and some of the most famous names in Europe were included in the clientele of her new boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. By 1922 when this story is set, she had just opened her first shop devoted to home décor, menswear, furs and lingerie. Her gowns were always very feminine and romantic.

*********The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

**********Clendon is the family seat of the Duke and Duchess of Walmsford in Buckinghamshire.

Any bride would be only too happy to receive such an array of wedding gifts, however, however real they may appear, these are all items from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my own childhood.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

The silver coffee set on the square tray, the egg cruet set, the condiments caddy, the champagne bucket and the two candlesticks are all made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The two hand painted Meissen figures are also made by Warwick Miniatures. The three prong Art Deco style candelabra in the sideboard is an artisan piece made of sterling silver. Although unsigned, the piece was made in England by an unknown artist. The two silver water jugs were acquired from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The silver statue of the ballet dancers on the far right of the photo came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom. The sods siphon, the bulbous glass vase and the glass jug are made from hand spun glass and have been made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The floral edged dinner service I acquired from an online stockist of miniatures through E-Bay. Lady Marchmont’s silver salver is a miniature I have had since I was around six or seven years old. All the Edwardian wedding cards are artisan pieces. Each is a 1:12 miniature version of a real wedding card, and all have ben made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

The sideboard that can be seen laden with wedding gifts is of Queen Anne design. It was given to me when I was six. It has three opening drawers with proper drawer pulls and each is lined with red velvet.

The very realistic floral arrangements in tall vases are made by hand by Falcon Miniatures in America who specialise in high end miniatures.

The paintings on the walls came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom.

The gold flocked Edwardian wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

The Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk is enormous, and all around the back, there are parked cars, trees and street signs. It presented a challenge to capture the whole building without too much distortion. I ended up merging four shots.

The Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk is the main church of Ostend, Belgium. The architect, Louis Delacenserie, based his Neo-Gothic design on the Cologne Cathedral and the Neo-Gothic Votivkirche in Vienna.

Few visitors to Oostende know about the chapel on the left of the image which holds the empty tomb intended for Louise of Orléans, a French princess who became the first Queen of the Belgians as the second wife of King Leopold I. She was also known as Louise-Marie. She died in Ostend in 1850 but was never buried there although the tomb was completed. She lies in Laeken with the rest of the royal family.

Alexandra of Denmark. My colorization of a Bain News Service photo in the Library of Congress archive.

"Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was Queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress consort of India from 1901 to 1910 as the wife of King Edward VII.Alexandra's family had been relatively obscure until 1852, when her father, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was chosen with the consent of the major European powers to succeed his distant cousin, Frederick VII of Denmark. At the age of sixteen, she was chosen as the future wife of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the heir apparent of Queen Victoria. They married eighteen months later in 1863, the same year her father became king of Denmark as Christian IX and her brother was appointed king of Greece as George I. She was Princess of Wales from 1863 to 1901, the longest anyone has ever held that title, and became generally popular; her style of dress and bearing were copied by fashion-conscious women. Largely excluded from wielding any political power, she unsuccessfully attempted to sway the opinion of British ministers and her husband's family to favour Greek and Danish interests. Her public duties were restricted to uncontroversial involvement in charitable work.On the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, Albert Edward became king-emperor as Edward VII, with Alexandra as queen-empress. She held the status until Edward's death in 1910. She greatly distrusted her nephew Wilhelm II, German Emperor, and supported her son George V during the First World War, in which Britain and its allies fought Germany."(Wikipedia)

No layers involved in the processing :) Just some old buildings, reflected in a modern glass façade in Princess Marie Louise street (which sorely needs some renovation to live up to its lofty name).

Press 'L' or click image to view larger on black.

Italien / Toskana - Lucca

View from Torre Guinigi

Aussicht vom Torre Guinigi

Lucca (/ˈluːkə/ LOO-kə, Italian: [ˈlukka] (listen)) is a city and comune in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957.

Lucca is known as an Italian "Città d'arte" (City of Art) from its intact Renaissance-era city walls and its very well preserved historic center, where, among other buildings and monuments, are located the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, which has its origins in the second half of the 1st century A.D. and the Guinigi Tower, a 45-metre-tall (150 ft) tower that dates from the 1300s.

The city is also the birthplace of numerous world-class composers, including Giacomo Puccini, Alfredo Catalani, and Luigi Boccherini.

Toponymy

By the Romans, Lucca was known as Luca. From more recent and concrete toponymic studies, the name Lucca has references that lead to "sacred grove" (Latin: lucus), "to cut" (Latin: lucare) and "luminous space" (leuk, a term used by the first European populations). The origin apparently refers to a wooded area deforested to make room for light or to a clearing located on a river island of Serchio debris, in the middle of wooded areas.

History

Antiquity

The territory of present-day Lucca was certainly settled by the Etruscans, having also traces of a probable earlier Ligurian presence (called Luk meaning "marsh", which has already been speculated as a possible origin for the city's name), dating from 3rd century BC. However, it was only with the arrival of the Romans, that the area took on the appearance of a real town, obtaining the status of a Roman colony in 180 BC, and transformed into a town hall in 89 BC.

The rectangular grid of its historical centre preserves the Roman street plan, and the Piazza San Michele occupies the site of the ancient forum. The outline of the Roman amphitheatre is still seen in the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, and the outline of a Roman theater is visible in Piazza Sant'Augostino. Fragments of the Roman-era walls are incorporated into the church of Santa Maria della Rosa.

At the Lucca Conference, in 56 BC, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus reaffirmed their political alliance known as the First Triumvirate.

Middle Ages

Frediano, an Irish monk, was bishop of Lucca in the early sixth century. At one point, Lucca was plundered by Odoacer, the first Germanic King of Italy. Lucca was an important city and fortress even in the sixth century, when Narses besieged it for several months in 553. From 576 to 797, under the Lombards, it was the capital of a duchy, known as Ducato di Tuscia, which included a large part of today's Tuscany and the province of Viterbo, during this time the city also minted its own coins. The Holy Face of Lucca (or Volto Santo), a major relic supposedly carved by Nicodemus, arrived in 742.

Among the population that inhabited Lucca in the medieval era, there was also a significant presence of Jews. The first mention of their presence in the city is from a document from the year 859. The jewish community was led by the Kalonymos family (which later became a major component of proto-Ashkenazic Jewry).

Thanks above all to the Holy Face and to the relics of important saints, such as San Regolo and Saint Fridianus, the city was one of the main destinations of the Via Francigena, the major pilgrimage route to Rome from the north.

The Lucca cloth was a silk fabric that was woven with gold or silver threads. It was a popular type of textile in Lucca throughout the mediaeval period.

Lucca became prosperous through the silk trade that began in the eleventh century, and came to rival the silks of Byzantium. During the tenth–eleventh centuries Lucca was the capital of the feudal margraviate of Tuscany, more or less independent but owing nominal allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor.

In 1057, Anselm of Baggio (later Pope Alexander II) was appointed bishop of Lucca, a position he held also during the papacy. As bishop of Lucca he managed to rebuild the patrimony of the Church of Lucca, recovering alienated assets, obtaining numerous donations thanks to his prestige, and had the Cathedral of the city rebuilt. From 1073 to 1086, the bishop of Lucca was his nephew Anselm II, a prominent figure in the Investiture Controversy.

During the High Middle Ages, one of the most illustrious dynasties of Lucca was the noble Allucingoli family, who managed to forge strong ties with the Church. Among the family members were Ubaldo Allucingoli, who was elected to the Papacy as Pope Lucius III in 1181, and the Cardinals Gerardo Allucingoli and Uberto Allucingoli.

After the death of Matilda of Tuscany, the city began to constitute itself an independent commune with a charter in 1160. For almost 500 years, Lucca remained an independent republic. There were many minor provinces in the region between southern Liguria and northern Tuscany dominated by the Malaspina; Tuscany in this time was a part of feudal Europe. Dante’s Divine Comedy includes many references to the great feudal families who had huge jurisdictions with administrative and judicial rights. Dante spent some of his exile in Lucca.

In 1273 and again in 1277, Lucca was ruled by a Guelph capitano del popolo (captain of the people) named Luchetto Gattilusio. In 1314, internal discord allowed Uguccione della Faggiuola of Pisa to make himself lord of Lucca. The Lucchesi expelled him two years later, and handed over the city to another condottiero, Castruccio Castracani, under whose rule it became a leading state in central Italy. Lucca rivalled Florence until Castracani's death in 1328. On 22 and 23 September 1325, in the battle of Altopascio, Castracani defeated Florence's Guelphs. For this he was nominated by Louis IV the Bavarian to become duke of Lucca. Castracani's tomb is in the church of San Francesco. His biography is Machiavelli's third famous book on political rule.

Occupied by the troops of Louis of Bavaria, the city was sold to a rich Genoese, Gherardino Spinola, then seized by John, king of Bohemia. Pawned to the Rossi of Parma, by them it was ceded to Mastino II della Scala of Verona, sold to the Florentines, surrendered to the Pisans, and then nominally liberated by the emperor Charles IV and governed by his vicar.

In 1408, Lucca hosted a convocation organized by Pope Gregory XII with his cardinals intended to end the schism in the papacy.

Lucca managed, at first as a democracy, and after 1628 as an oligarchy, to maintain its independence alongside of Venice and Genoa, and painted the word Libertas on its banner until the French Revolution in 1789.

Early modern period

Lucca had been the second largest Italian city state (after Venice) with a republican constitution ("comune") to remain independent over the centuries.

Between 1799 and 1800, it was contested by the French and Austrian armies. Finally the French prevailed and granted a democratic constitution in the 1801. However, already in 1805 the Republic of Lucca was converted into a monarchy by Napoleon, who installed his sister Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi as "Princess of Lucca".

From 1815 to 1847, it was a Bourbon-Parma duchy. The only reigning dukes of Lucca were Maria Luisa of Spain, who was succeeded by her son Charles II, Duke of Parma in 1824. Meanwhile, the Duchy of Parma had been assigned for life to Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the second wife of Napoleon. In accordance with the Treaty of Vienna (1815), upon the death of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma in 1847, Parma reverted to Charles II, Duke of Parma, while Lucca lost independence and was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. As part of Tuscany, it became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860 and finally part of the Italian State in 1861.

World War II internment camp

Further information: List of World War II prisoner-of-war camps in Italy

In 1942, during World War II, a prisoner-of-war camp was established at the village of Colle di Compito, in the municipality of Capannori, about 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) from Lucca. Its official number was P.G. (prigionieri di guerra) 60, and it was usually referred to as PG 60 Lucca. Although it never had permanent structures and accommodation consisted of tents in an area prone to flooding, it housed more than 3,000 British and Commonwealth prisoners of war during the period of its existence. It was handed over to the Germans on 10 September 1943, not long after the signing of the Italian armistice. During the Italian Social Republic, as a puppet state of the Germans, political prisoners, foreigners, common law prisoners and Jews were interned there, and it functioned as a concentration camp. In June 1944, the prisoners were moved to Bagni di Lucca.

Culture

Lucca is the birthplace of composers Giacomo Puccini (La Bohème and Madama Butterfly), Nicolao Dorati, Francesco Geminiani, Gioseffo Guami, Luigi Boccherini, and Alfredo Catalani. It is also the birthplace of artist Benedetto Brandimarte. Since 2004, Lucca is home to IMT Lucca, a public research institution and a selective graduate school and part of the Superior Graduate Schools in Italy (Grandes écoles).

Events

Lucca hosts the annual Lucca Summer Festival. The 2006 edition featured live performances by Eric Clapton, Placebo, Massive Attack, Roger Waters, Tracy Chapman, and Santana at the Piazza Napoleone.

Lucca hosts the annual Lucca Comics and Games festival, Europe's largest festival for comics, movies, games and related subjects.

Other events include:

Lucca Film Festival

Lucca Digital Photography Fest

Procession of Santa Croce, on 13 September. Costume procession through the town's roads.

Lucca Jazz Donna

Moreover, Lucca hosts Lucca Biennale Cartasia, an international biennial contemporary art exhibition focusing solely on Paper Art.

Film and television

Mauro Bolognini's 1958 film Giovani mariti, with Sylva Koscina, is set and was filmed in Lucca.

Top Gear filmed the third episode of the 17th season here.

Architecture

Lucca is also known for its marble deposits. After a fire in the early 1900s, the West Wing of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario was rebuilt with marble sourced in Lucca. The floor mosaic in the West Wing was hand-laid and is constructed entirely of Italian, Lucca marble.

Main sights

Walls, streets, and squares

The walls encircling the old town remain intact, even though the city has expanded and been modernised, which is unusual for cities in this region. These walls were built initially as a defensive rampart which, after losing their military importance, became a pedestrian promenade (the Passeggiata delle Mure Urbane) atop the walls which not only links the Bastions of Santa Croce, San Frediano, San Martino, San Pietro/Battisti, San Salvatore, La Libertà/Cairoli, San Regolo, San Colombano, Santa Maria, San Paolino/Catalani and San Donato but also passes over the gates (Porte) of San Donato, Santa Maria, San Jacopo, Elisa, San Pietro, and Sant'Anna. Each of the four principal sides of the structure is lined with a tree species different from the others.

The walled city is encircled by Piazzale Boccherini, Viale Lazzaro Papi, Viale Carlo Del Prete, Piazzale Martiri della Libertà, Via Batoni, Viale Agostino Marti, Viale G. Marconi (vide Guglielmo Marconi), Piazza Don A. Mei, Viale Pacini, Viale Giusti, Piazza Curtatone, Piazzale Ricasoli, Viale Ricasoli, Piazza Risorgimento (vide Risorgimento), and Viale Giosuè Carducci.

The town includes a number of public squares, most notably the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, (site of the ancient Roman amphitheater), the Piazzale Verdi, the Piazza Napoleone, and the Piazza San Michele.

Palaces, villas, houses, offices, and museums

Ducal Palace: built on the site of Castruccio Castracani's fortress. Construction was begun by Ammannati in 1577–1582 and continued by Juvarra in the eighteenth century

Pfanner Palace

Villa Garzoni, noted for its water gardens

Casa di Puccini: House of the opera composer, at the nearby Torre del Lago, where the composer spent his summers. A Puccini opera festival takes place every July–August

Torre delle Ore: ("The Clock Tower")

Guinigi Tower and House: Panoramic view from tower-top balcony with oak trees

National Museum of Villa Guinigi

National Museum of Palazzo Mansi

Orto Botanico Comunale di Lucca: botanical garden dating from 1820

Academy of Sciences (1584)

Teatro del Giglio: nineteenth-century opera house

Churches

There are many medieval, a few as old as the eighth century, basilica-form churches with richly arcaded façades and campaniles

Duomo di San Martino: St Martin's Cathedral

San Michele in Foro: Romanesque church

San Giusto: Romanesque church

Basilica di San Frediano

SanSan Romano, Luccat'Alessandro an example of medieval classicism

Santa Giulia: Lombard church rebuilt in thirteenth century

San Michele: church at Antraccoli, founded in 777, it was enlarged and rebuilt in the twelfth century with the introduction of a sixteenth-century portico

San Giorgio church in the locality of Brancoli, built in the late twelfth century has a bell tower in Lombard-Romanesque style, the interior houses a massive ambo (1194) with four columns mounted on lion sculptures, a highly decorated Romanesque octagonal baptismal fount, and the altar is supported by six small columns with human figures

San Lorenzo di Moriano, a 12th century Romanesque style parish church

San Romano, erected by the Dominican order in the second half of the 13th century, is today a deconsecrated Roman Catholic Church located on Piazza San Romano in the center of Lucca

Museums

Museo della Cattedrale

Orto Botanico Comunale di Lucca

(Wikipedia)

The Torre Guinigi is a tower in Lucca, Tuscany, central Italy. It is a typical example of local Romanesque-Gothic architecture. The height of the tower is 45 meters with a total of 233 steps to reach the top.

The tower dates from the 1300s, when a number of wealthy families were building bell towers within the walls of Lucca as status symbols. It is one of the few remaining towers within the walls. It is known for the tall trees (holm oaks) growing on top of the tower - The kitchen was originally on the floor below with the rooftop serving as a kitchen garden.

The tower was donated to the local government by the descendants of the Guinigi family.

(Wikipedia)

Lucca (in der Antike: Luca) ist die Hauptstadt der Provinz Lucca in der Toskana mit 90.055 Einwohnern (Stand 31. Dezember 2019). Sie liegt im Tal des Flusses Serchio etwa 20 km nordöstlich von Pisa und 20 km östlich der toskanischen Küste. Im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert zählte Lucca zu den einflussreichsten europäischen Städten. Große Bedeutung hatte insbesondere die Textilindustrie. Die großen Plätze, die romanischen Kirchen und die mittelalterlichen Türme zeugen von der einstigen Bedeutung dieser Stadt. Ihre von vier Toren durchbrochenen Befestigungsanlagen wurden 1504 begonnen und 1645 fertiggestellt. Die heute noch gut erhaltenen Anlagen, die lange zu den bemerkenswertesten in Italien zählten, tragen eine von Bäumen gesäumte Promenade um den Stadtkern.

Geschichte

Antike bis Renaissance

Das antike etruskische Lucca, das das Tal des Serchio beherrschte, findet erstmals Erwähnung beim Historiker Livius als der Ort, wohin sich Sempronius 218 v. Chr. vor Hannibal zurückzog; es gibt Zweifel an der Korrektheit von Livius’ Feststellung, denn obwohl es kontinuierlich Kriege mit den Ligurern gab, wird Lucca erst 180 v. Chr. erneut genannt. Damals wurde Lucca gleichzeitig mit Pisa (ebenfalls 180) und Luna (177) als römische Kolonie gegründet, um die Herrschaft der bis dahin in diesem Raum ansässigen Apuaner endgültig brechen zu können und das Land für Rom in Besitz zu nehmen. Durch die Lex Julia von 90 v. Chr. muss es ein municipium geworden sein; hier hielt Julius Caesar 56 v. Chr. seine berühmte Besprechung mit Pompeius und Crassus. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt gehörte Lucca noch zu Ligurien, nicht zu Etrurien. Wenig später wurde hier durch das Triumvirat oder durch Octavian eine Kolonie geführt, ob nach der Schlacht von Philippi oder nach der von Actium ist unklar.

In der augusteischen Unterteilung Italiens wurde Lucca der siebten Region (Etruria) zugeordnet. Aus der Periode des Kaiserreichs ist wenig bekannt, außer dass es eine Kreuzung der Straßen nach Florentia (siehe Via Clodia), Luna und Pisae war. Obwohl es von Odoaker geplündert und eines Teils seines Territoriums beraubt wurde, erscheint Lucca zur Zeit von Narses, der es 553 drei Monate lang belagerte, als wichtige Stadt und Festung. Unter den Langobarden war Lucca die Residenz eines Herzogs oder Markgrafen, welche das Münzprivileg hatte. Die Herzöge erweiterten ihre Macht allmählich auf die ganze Toskana, aber nach dem Tod der berühmten Matilda begann sich die Stadt als unabhängige Kommune zu konstituieren. 1160 erhielt sie vom bayerischen Herzog und toskanischen Markgrafen Welf VI. im Gegenzug für einen jährlichen Tribut die Herrschaft über ein Territorium um die Stadt. Der Reichtum und Einfluss der Stadt Lucca im 13. Jahrhundert basierte zu einem großen Teil auf ihrer Textilindustrie.

Innere Uneinigkeit gab Uguccione della Faggiola, mit dem Dante einige Zeit dort verbrachte, Gelegenheit, sich 1314 zum Herrn von Lucca zu machen, aber die Lucchesi verstießen ihn zwei Jahre später und übergaben die Stadt an Castruccio Castracani, unter dessen geschickter Tyrannei sie für kurze Zeit bis zu seinem Tod 1328 – sein Grab befindet sich in der Kirche San Francesco – die führende Stadt Italiens wurde.

Von den Truppen Ludwigs des Bayern besetzt, an den reichen Genueser Gheradino Spinola verkauft, vom böhmischen König Johann besetzt, an die Rossi aus Parma verpfändet, von denen an Mastino della Scala aus Verona abgetreten, an die Florentiner verkauft, an die Pisaner übergeben, nominell befreit von Kaiser Karl IV. und von seinem Vikar regiert, gelang es Lucca, ab 1369 zuerst als Demokratie, nach 1628 als patrizisch-aristokratische Oligarchie, seine Unabhängigkeit als Stadtrepublik neben Venedig und Genua zu behaupten. Bis zur Französischen Revolution schrieb es das Wort Libertas auf seine Fahnen. Die politischen Wirren des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts wurden von Dante in seinem Werk thematisiert, so führt Leeck (2007) anhand der Fallbeispiele Alessio Interminelli, Bonturo Dati und Bonagiunta aus.

Ab dem 16. Jahrhundert

Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts unternahm einer seiner führenden Bürger, Francesco Burlamacchi, einen Versuch, Italien politischen Zusammenhalt zu verleihen, er fiel aber auf dem Schafott; sein Denkmal von Ulisse Cambi wurde 1863 auf der Piazza San Michele aufgestellt.

Durch die militärische Macht der siegreichen französischen Revolutionsarmeen, die die österreichische Oberherrschaft über Italien beendeten, wurde die Republik Lucca 1799/1800 gezwungen, eine moderne „Demokratie“ nach französischem Muster und in völliger Abhängigkeit vom Frankreich Napoleon Bonapartes einzuführen (Lucchesische Republik). Im Juni 1805 dekretierte der unterdessen zum Kaiser der Franzosen und zum König von Italien proklamierte Napoleon Bonaparte die Abschaffung der Republik, die stattdessen zugunsten seiner Schwester Elisa und ihres Ehemanns Félix Baciocchi zum Fürstentum Lucca umgebildet wurde. Lucca wurde im Zuge des Sturzes Napoleons 1814 kurzfristig von neapolitanischen, dann von österreichischen Truppen besetzt. Auf dem Wiener Kongress, der 1814/15 über die Neuordnung Europas entschied, wurde der kleine, aber wohlhabende Staat Lucca zur Verschiebe- und Entschädigungsmasse für dynastische und machtpolitische Interessen. Das Kaisertum Österreich verweigerte damals – trotz des ansonsten von ihm hochgehaltenen dynastischen Legitimitätsprinzips – dem bourbonischen Herzog von Parma die Rückkehr in dessen Hauptstädte Parma und Piacenza, die auf Lebenszeit als Versorgungsgebiet für Napoleons Ehefrau, die ehemalige französische Kaiserin Marie Louise († 1847), eine Tochter von Franz I., vorgesehen wurden. Die parmesischen Bourbonen sollten, solange Marie Louise lebte, stattdessen mit der ehemaligen Republik Lucca als Herzogtum entschädigt werden, das allerdings nach einem Überwechseln der Bourbonen nach Parma und Piacenza an das habsburgische Großherzogtum Toskana (und damit in den Einflussbereich Österreichs) fallen sollte. Nach längerem Widerstand des Hauses Bourbon-Parma, das darin (vergeblich) vom eng verwandten spanischen König Ferdinand VII. unterstützt wurde, trat Ferdinands Schwester Maria Luisa (die unter Napoleon zeitweilig Königin und Regentin des in der Toskana gebildeten „Königreiches Etrurien“ gewesen war), im November 1817 die Herrschaft als Herzogin von Lucca an. Mit ihrem Tode 1824 folgte ihr Sohn Karl Ludwig († 1883), der ehemalige Kind-König von Etrurien. Dieser verzichtete aufgrund der sich verschärfenden innenpolitischen Lage im Vorfeld der Revolution von 1848/49 jedoch im Oktober 1847 schon vor dem Tode der parmesisch-habsburgischen Herrscherin Marie Louise zugunsten des Großherzogs der Toskana auf die Regierung in Lucca. Das Herzogtum bildete seither einen Teil der Toskana, mit der es im Laufe des Risorgimento 1859/61 zunächst an Sardinien, dann an den neuen Einheitsstaat Italien angeschlossen wurde.

Wirtschaft

Lucca war früher ein Zentrum der Luxusstoffindustrie. Berühmt war die Stadt unter anderem für ihre Seide, deren Farbenpracht in Europa als unübertroffen galt.[3] Politische Unruhen zu Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts führten dazu, dass viele Luccheser Färber und Seidenweber nach Venedig flohen. Die Stadt Venedig bot den Flüchtlingen großzügig Asyl und finanzielle Hilfe an, allerdings unter der Bedingung, dass sie in Venedig ihr Gewerbe praktizierten. Die Luccheser Zunftgesetze sahen zwar den Tod für alle Bürger vor, die ihr Textilhandwerk außerhalb der Stadtmauern praktizierten, angesichts ihrer finanziellen Lage nahmen jedoch viele Luccheser Handwerker die venezianischen Bedingungen an.

Begonnen um 1300, ist die Papierindustrie seit vielen Jahren eine der wichtigsten Säulen für die Wirtschaft der gesamten Provinz. Hinzu kommt für Lucca unter anderem der Fremdenverkehr, die chemische, pharmazeutische und mechanische Industrie.

Sehenswürdigkeiten

Das rechtwinklige Straßennetz im historischen Zentrum lässt noch die Struktur der römischen Anlage erkennen. Die antike Stadtmauer verlief entlang der heutigen Straßen Via San Giorgio/A. Mordini – Via dell’Angelo Custode/della Rosa – Corso Garibaldi – Via della Cittadella/Galli Tassi. Das Forum befand sich am Kreuzungspunkt von Cardo und Decumanus, seit dem Mittelalter die Piazza San Michele. Im Namen der Kirche San Michele in Foro lebt dieses römische Erbe bis in unsere Zeit fort.

Lucca ist reich an Sehenswürdigkeiten und daher auch touristisch von großem Interesse. Das historische Zentrum stand von 2006 bis 2021 auf der Welterbe-Tentativliste, dann wurde die Kandidatur entweder zurückgezogen oder von der UNESCO abgelehnt.

Mit mehr als 200.000 Besuchern ist Lucca Comics & Games ist die zweitgrößte Comicbuch- und Gaming-Messe der Welt.

Das Geburtshaus des Komponisten Giacomo Puccini beherbergt heute ein Museum. Der italienische Staat hat das Haus – zusammen mit den Museums-Geburtshäusern von Gioachino Rossini und Giuseppe Verdi – mit dem Europäischen Kulturerbe-Siegel ausgezeichnet (nach dem alten System bis 2010).

Stadtmauer und Stadttore

Das womöglich beeindruckendste Bauwerk der Stadt ist die vollständig erhaltene Stadtmauer von Lucca, italienisch Mura di Lucca. Ihr Ursprung liegt im Mittelalter, als sie im 12./13. Jahrhundert die römische Mauer ablöste, um im Nordosten die Borghi San Frediano, San Pietro Somaldi und Santa Mari Forisportam mit einzuschließen. Der nächsten, eher marginalen Erweiterung folgte 1504 – 1648 der Ausbau zur Stadtmauer, wie sie sich heute darbietet: 4,2 km lang, mit 11 Bastionen und 12 Kurtinen. Das Kuriose: Die Mauer wurde nie wirklich zur Verteidigung gebraucht. Immerhin bewahrte sie ganz Lucca vor der Überschwemmung durch das Hochwasser 1812. Maria Luisa von Bourbon-Spanien, 1815 – 1824 Herzogin von Lucca, ließ auf der Mauer eine Promenade errichten und die Bastionen und Außenbereiche begrünen. Sowohl der Spazierweg als auch die Grünflächen sind äußerst beliebte Areale für sportliche Aktivitäten und Veranstaltungen.

Beim Ausbau der Mauer waren ursprünglich nur drei Stadttore vorgesehen: die Porta di Santa Maria im Norden, die Porta di San Donato im Nordwesten und die Porta di San Pietro im Südwesten. Der Ostteil erhielt erst 1804 ein Tor. Es heißt nach seiner Erbauerin, der Fürstin von Lucca Elisa Bonaparte, Porta Elisa. Zwei weitere Torbauten, die Porta San Jacopo im Nordosten und die Porta Sant‘Anna im Westen sind jüngeren Datums. Die mittelalterliche Stadtmauer hatte ebenfalls vier Stadttore. Die beiden heute noch erhaltenen, die Porta San Gervasio (oder Portone dell‘Anunziata) und die Porta dei Borghi, befinden sich jetzt innerhalb des Mauerrings.

(Wikpedia)

Der Guinigiturm (ital. Torre Guinigi) ist der wichtigste Geschlechterturm der Stadt Lucca in der Toskana (Italien) und einer der wenigen erhaltenen innerhalb der Stadt. Er kann mit Zugang von der Via Sant’Andrea 45 aus besichtigt werden.

Geschichte

Der aus Steinen und Ziegeln erbaute Turm ist eines der repräsentativsten und berühmtesten Denkmäler Luccas; sein Hauptmerkmal ist das Hinauswachsen einiger Steineichen aus seiner Spitze. Im frühen vierzehnten Jahrhundert war Lucca stolz auf die mehr als 250 Türme und zahlreichen Glockentürme, die die Stadt im Mittelalter, in einem Kreis von Mauern, der viel enger als die heutige Stadtmauer ist, bereicherten. Die Guinigi, die die Herrscher der Stadt waren, wollten ihre bisher eher strengen Behausungen mit einem mit Bäumen gesäumten Turm, der zum Symbol der Wiedergeburt wurde, veredeln.

Auf Wunsch des letzten Nachkommen der Familie gingen der mit Bäumen gesäumte Turm und der Palast in der Via Sant’Andrea an die Gemeinde Lucca über.

Unter den mittelalterlichen Türmen, die im Privatbesitz waren, ist es der einzige, der im 16. Jahrhundert nicht abgerissen oder gekürzt wurde.

Beschreibung

Der Turm befindet sich an der Ecke Via Sant’Andrea und Via delle Chiavi D’Oro, erhebt sich 44,25 Meter über Grund und unterscheidet sich damit von allen anderen Gebäuden der Altstadt. Das Erreichen der Spitze wird durch 25 Treppenabsätze – mit insgesamt 230 Stufen – ermöglicht. Einfach ist der Turm im ersten Teil zu besteigen, nicht aber im letzten Teil, wo man nur dank kleineren Metallrampen weiter steigen kann. An den Innenwänden hängen zahlreiche Gemälde, die Szenen des mittelalterlichen Lebens darstellen. Von oben kann man das Stadtzentrum, die Piazza Anfiteatro und die Landschaft der umliegenden Berge, die Apuanischen Alpen im Nordwesten, den Apennin im Nordosten und den Monte Pisano im Süden betrachten.

Der hängende Garten

Oben auf dem Turm befindet sich ein kleiner Hängegarten, der aus einer mit Erde gefüllten Wandkiste besteht, in die sieben Steineichen gepflanzt wurden.

Es ist nicht genau bekannt, wann der Garten angelegt wurde, aber auf einem Bild, das in der Chronik von Giovanni Sercambi (15. Jahrhundert) enthalten ist, kann man sehen, dass unter den vielen Türmen von Lucca ein mit Bäumen gekrönter Turm steht. Es wird daher davon ausgegangen, dass die Anlage am Guinigiturm sehr alt ist, obwohl die heute vorhandenen Steineichen sicherlich im Laufe der Zeit neu gepflanzt wurden.

(Wikipedia)

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

Two of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie of bright young things are getting married: Dickie Channon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Taunton, and Margot de Virre, only daughter of Lord Charles and Lady Lucie de Virre. Lettice is hosting an exclusive buffet supper party in their honour this evening, which is turning out to be one of the events of the 1921 London Season. Over the last few days, Lettice’s flat has been in upheaval as Edith, Lettice’s maid, and Lettice’s charwoman* Mrs. Boothby have been cleaning the flat thoroughly in preparation for the occasion. Earlier today with the help of a few hired men they moved some of the furnishings in Lettice’s drawing room into the spare bedroom to make space for a hired dance band and for the guests to dance and mingle. Edith’s preserve of the kitchen has been overrun by delivery men, florists and caterers. Throughout all of this upheaval, Lettice has fled to Margot’s parents’ house in Hans Crescent in nearby Belgravia, only returning just as a red and white striped marquee is erected by Gunter and Company** over the entrance and the pavement outside.

Now we find ourselves in Lettice’s dressing room where she and Margot sit at Lettice’s Regency dressing table making last minute adjustments and choices to their eveningwear. The surface of the dressing table is littered with jewellery and perfume bottles as the two excited girls chat, whilst Margot’s fiancée, Dickie, whips up the latest cocktails for them at the makeshift bar on Lettice’s dining table down the hall in the flat’s dining room.

“Oh Lettice, I’m so nervous!” Margot confides, clasping her friend’s hands.

“Good heavens why, darling?” Lettice looks across at her friend in concern as she feels the tremble in her dainty fingers wrapped around her own. She notices her pale face. “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”

“About the party?”

“About Dickie!”

“Goodness no, darling!” Margot clutches her bare throat with her hand, the diamonds in her engagement ring winking brightly. “About him I have never been so sure. He’s always been the one for me, darling. You of all people should know that!”

“Then what, Margot darling?”

“Well, this party!”

“What on earth do you mean? Its going to be a thrilling bash.” Lettice soothes. “I’ve hired this divine little jazz quartet to play dance music for us. All our friends are on the guest list, and they are all coming. It will be just like being at the Embassy Club, only it will be here instead.” She waves her arms generously around her. “What’s to be nervous about?”

“Oh, it just all seems so formal.”

“Formal?”

“Yes,” Margot goes on. “So grown up. I mean it’s one thing to see your names printed together in the papers, yet it’s quite another to have a party thrown in honour of your engagement as you step out into society as an engaged couple. I’m not used to being the centre of attention.”

“Well, you’ll have to get used to it, at least for a little while.” Lettice smiles as she hangs a necklace of sparkling diamonds from her jewellery casket about her neck, allowing them to cascade down the front of her powder blue silk georgette gown designed and made for her by Gerald. She sighs with satisfaction at the effect before addressing Margot again. “Think of this as a rehearsal for your wedding day.”

Margot gulps.

“Only tonight,” Lettice continues wagging a finger in the air. “You can drink as much as you like.”

The pair are interrupted by a loud knocking on the door before it suddenly opens, and Dickie pokes his head around it. The sound of the jazz band tuning up in Lettice’s drawing room pours into the room.

“Get out!” Lettice cries, jumping up from her seat and flapping her hands at Dickie. “You aren’t supposed to see the bride yet! It’s bad luck!”

“That’s on the wedding day you silly goose!” Dickie laughs.

“Don’t bother us now, Dickie,” Lettice continues, leaning against the doorframe and then glancing at Margot’s anxious face reflected in the looking glass of her dressing table. “We’re fixing something.”

“Oh, secret women’s business, is it?” he whispers conspiratorially with a cheeky smile.

“Something like that,” Lettice says breezily. “Margot just has a case of centre stage jitters.”

Dickie face clouds over. He frowns in concern and presses on the door.

“She’ll be fine.” Lettice assures him, pressing hard against the pressure she can feel from his side of the door. “I just need a few more minutes with her. Alright darling?”

“Well,” Dickie says a little doubtfully. “Only if you’re sure. But don’t be too long.” He glances at Lettice’s pretty green onyx Art Deco clock on her dressing table. “The guests will be arriving shortly.”

“We won’t be, Dickie.” she assures him as she presses a little more forcefully on the door.

“Well,” he remarks brightly in an effort to settle his fiancée’s nerves. “I’d only come down here to see if you two ladies fancied a special Dickie Channon pre-cocktail party cocktail?”

“Oh yes!” Lettice enthuses. “That sounds divine, darling! I’ll have a Dubonnet and gin. What will you have Margot, darling?”

“I’ll have a Bee’s Knees, thank you Dickie.” she replies with a less than enthusiastic lilt to her quiet voice.

The furrows on Dickie’s brow deepen as he glances between Margot and Lettice. Lettice raises a finger to silence the concerns he is about to express about Margot, and then she points back down the hallway to the dining room. Dickie’s mouth screws up in concern, and he shakes his head slightly as he withdraws.

“See you in a few minutes,” Lettice assures his retreating figure.

“He’s cross, isn’t he?” Margot asks as Lettice closes the door again.

“No, he’s just concerned is all,” she replies as she resumes her seat. “As am I.”

Margot’s stance of slumped shoulders displays her deflated feeling as much as the look in her dark eyes as she glances up at her friend.

“Look. How do you ever expect to be the Marchioness of Taunton one day, standing at the end of a long presentation line for a ball that you are hosting, if you can’t greet a few guests now?”

“I never wanted to be the future Marchioness of Taunton, just Mrs. Dickie Channon.”

“Well,” Lettice places a consoling hand on the bare shoulder of her friend. “The two come hand-in-hand, Margot darling, so you have to accept it, come what may.”

Lettice suddenly thinks of something and starts fossicking around in the drawers of her dressing table. She pulls open the right-hand drawer and pulls out some lemon yellow kid gloves and a pretty white bead necklace which sparkles in the light as she lays it on the dressing table top.

“What on earth are you doing, darling?” Margot asks Lettice.

Dropping a bright blue bead necklace on the surface of the dressing table next, Lettice makes a disgruntled noise and then reaches for the brass drawer pull of the left-hand drawer.

“I’m going to share something with you Margot. Something very special. I wasn’t going to, because it’s mine, and no-one else we know has it. However, it may give you the confidence you need for tonight to have something beautiful that nobody else does.”

She drags open the left hand drawer. Its runners protest loudly with a squeaking groan. Beads and chains spew forth as she does, spilling over the edge of the drawer.

“Ahh! Here it is!” Lettice cries triumphantly.

She withdraws a small eau-de-nil box with black writing on it. Opening it she takes out a stylish bevelled green glass Art Deco bottle which she places on the surface of her dressing table amidst pieces of her jewellery.

“What is it?” Margot looks on intrigued, a bemused smile playing upon her lips.

“I picked this up when I was last in Paris. I visited a little maison de couture on the rue Cambon. It was owned and run by a remarkable woman named Coco Chanel. She used to own a small boutique in Deauville and her clothes are remarkably simple and stylish. It’s simply called Chanel Number 5.***”

Margot picks up the scent bottle in both her elegant hands with undisguised reverence.

“Like her clothes, and even the perfume’s name, it is simple, yet unique. I’ve never smelt anything quite like it.”

“Oh its divine!” Margot enthuses as she removes the stopper and inhales deeply. ‘Like champagne and jasmine!”

“She wasn’t going to sell it to me as she only had the bottle on the counter for her own use, but I begged her after smelling it. No-one else at the party will be wearing this, so why don’t you Margot?”

“Really Lettice?”

“Yes,” Lettice smiles. “I’ll wear something else. It will be your scent of confidence for this evening.”

“Oh thank you darling.” Margot replies humbly. “This scent makes me feel better already.”

“Good!” Lettice sighs happily. “Then dab it on and let’s go. The first guests will be here soon, and it will be bad form not to be ready to greet them.”

“You’re right Lettice!” Margot agrees, sounding cheerier and more confident.

“Besides, Dickie will have made those cocktails for us now.”

Margot dabs her neck and wrists with scent from the Chanel Number 5. bottle with the round glass stopper whilst Lettice applies some Habanita****. The two gaze at themselves in Lettice’s looking glass, giving themselves a final check. Lettice with her blonde finger waved chignon and pale blue gown looks the opposite to Margot with her dark waves and silver gown, yet both look beautiful. Suitably satisfied with their appearances, they step away from the dressing table, walk out of Lettice’s dressing room and walk down the hallway to join Dickie who offers them both their cocktail of choice.

*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.

**Gunter and Company were London caterers and ball furnishers with shops in Berkley Square, Sloane Street, Lowndes Street and New Bond Street. They began as Gunter’s Tea Shop at 7 and 8 Berley Square 1757 where it remained until 1956 as the business grew and opened different premises. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales. Even after the tea shop finally closed, the catering business carried on until the mid 1970s.

***Chanel Number 5. was launched in 1921. Coco Chanel wanted to launch a scent for the new, modern woman she embodied. She loved the scent of soap and freshly-scrubbed skin; Chanel’s mother was a laundrywoman and market stall-holder, though when she died, the young Gabrielle was sent to live with Cistercian nuns at Aubazine. When it came to creating her signature scent, though, freshness was all-important. While holidaying with her lover, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, she heard tell of a Grasse-based perfumer called Ernest Beaux, who’d been the perfumer darling of the Russian royal family. Over several months, he produced a series of 10 samples to show to ‘Mademoiselle’. They were numbered one to five, and 20 to 24. She picked No. 5

****Molinard Habanita was launched in 1921. Molinard say that Habanita was the first women’s fragrance to strongly feature vetiver as an ingredient – something hitherto reserved for men, commenting that ‘Habanita’s innovative style was eagerly embraced by the garçonnes – France’s flappers – and soon became Molinard’s runaway success and an icon in the history of French perfume.’ Originaly conceived as a scent for cigarettes – inserted via glass rods or to sprinkle from a sachet – women had begun sprinkling themselves with it instead, and Molinard eventually released it as a personal fragrance.

This rather beautiful, if slightly messy boudoir scene may be a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection. Some pieces in this scene come from my own childhood, whilst other items in this tableau I acquired as a teenager and as an adult through specialist doll shops, online dealers and artists who specialise in making 1:12 miniatures.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

Central to this story is the bottle of Chanel Number 5. which stands on the dressing table. It is made of very thinly cut green glass. It, and its accompanying box peeping out of the drawer were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

Lettice’s Regency dressing table was given to me as part of a Christmas present when I was around ten years old. Made of walnut, it features a real bevelled mirror, a central well for makeup, two working drawers and a faux marble column down each side below the drawers.

The same Christmas I was given the Regency dressing table, I was also given a three piece gilt pewter dressing table set consisting of comb, hairbrush and hand mirror, the latter featuring a real piece of mirror set into it. Like the dressing table, these small pieces have survived the tests of time and survived without being lost, even though they are tiny.

Even smaller than the gilt dressing table set pieces are the tiny pieces of jewellery on the left-hand side of the dressing table. Amongst the smallest pieces I have in my collection, the gold bangle, pearl and gold brooch and gold and amethyst brooch, along with the ‘diamond’ necklace behind the Chanel perfume bottle, the purple bead necklace hanging from the left-hand drawer and the blue bead necklace to the right of the dressing table’s well, I acquired as part of an artisan jewellery box from a specialist doll house supplier when I was a teenager. Amazingly, they too have not become lost over the passing years since I bought them.

Lettice’s Art Deco beaded jewellery casket on the left-hand side of the picture is a handmade artisan piece. All the peary pale blue beads are individually attached and the casket has a black velvet lining. It was made by Pat’s World of Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

To the right of Lettice’s jewellery casket is an ornamental green jar filled with hatpins. The jar is made from a single large glass Art Deco bead, whilst each hatpin is made from either a nickel or brass plate pin with beads for ornamental heads. They were made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

There is a selection of sparkling perfume bottles on Lettice’s dressing table and in its well which are handmade by an English artisan for the Little Green Workshop. Made of cut coloured crystals set in a gilt metal frames or using vintage cut glass beads they look so elegant and terribly luxurious.

The container of Snowfire Cold Cream standing next to the Chanel perfume bottle was supplied by Shepherd’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Exactly like its life size counterpart, it features a very Art Deco design on its lid with geometric patterns in traditionally popular colours of the 1920s with the silhouette of a woman at the top. It is only nine millimetres in diameter and three millimetres in depth. Snowfire was a brand created by F.W. Hampshire and Company, who had a works in Sinfin Lane in Derby. The firm manufactured Snowfire ointment, Zubes (cough sweets) ice cream powder, wafers and cornets; Jubes (fruit sweets covered in sugar). Later it made ointment (for burns) and sweetening tablets. The company was eventually merged with Reckitt Toiletry Products in the 1960s.

Lettice’s little green Art Deco boudoir clock is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Hall’s Miniature Clocks, supplied through Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniatures in England. Made of resin with a green onyx marble effect, it has been gilded by hand and contains a beautifully detailed face beneath a miniature glass cover.

Also from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom are the pale yellow gloves sticking out of the right-hand drawer. Artisan pieces, they are made of kid leather with a fine white braid trim and are so light and soft.

The 1920s beaded headdress standing on the wooden hatstand was made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge in the United Kingdom. You might just notice that it has a single feather aigrette sticking out of it on the right-hand side, held in place by a faceted sequin.

The painting you can see hanging in the wall is an artisan miniature of an Elizabethan woman in a gilt frame, made my Marie Makes Miniatures.

The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

On the southbound climb of Shap.

My original pen and ink drawing.

Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal

Materials : Oil on canvas

BIOGRAPHY

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

Gerard van Honthorst (Gerrit van Honthorst) (4 November 1592 – 27 April 1656)[1] was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Early in his career he visited Rome, where he had great success painting in a style influenced by Caravaggio. Following his return to the Netherlands he became a leading portrait painter.

EARLY LIFE

Honthorst was born in Utrecht, the son of a decorative painter, and trained under his father, and then under Abraham Bloemaert.

ITALY

Having completed his education, Honthorst went to Italy, where he is first recorded in 1616. He was one the artists from Utrecht who went to Rome at around this time, all of whom were to be deeply influenced by the recent art they encountered there.

They were named the Utrecht caravaggisti. The other three were Dirk van Baburen, Hendrick ter Bruggen and Jan van Bijlert.

In Rome he lodged at the palace of Vincenzo Giustiniani, where he painted Christ Before the High Priest, now in the National Gallery, London.

Giustiniani had an important art collection, and Honthorst was especially influenced by the contemporary artists, notably Caravaggio, Bartolomeo Manfredi and the Carracci. He became especially noted for his depiction of artificially lit scenes, receiving the nickname "Gherardo delle Notti" (Gerard of the night).

Cardinal Scipione Borghese became another important patron, securing important commissions for him at San Silvestro Della Mariro, Montecompatri, and at Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. He also worked for Cosimo II de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

RETURN TO UTRECHT

Honthorst returned to Utrecht in 1620, and went on to build a considerable reputation both in the Dutch Republic and abroad.

In 1623, the year of his marriage, he was president of the Guild of St. Luke in Utrecht. He soon became so fashionable that Sir Dudley Carleton, then English envoy at The Hague, recommended his works to the Earl of Arundel and Lord Dorchester.

In 1626 Honthorst hosted a dinner for Rubens, and painted him as the honest man sought for and found by Diogenes.

ROYAL PATRONAGE

QUEEN ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA, SISTER OF CHARLES I OF ENGLAND AND ELECTRESS PALATINE, THEN IN EXILE IN THE NETHERLANDS, COMMISSIONED HONTHORST AS A PAINTER AND EMPLOYED HIM AS A DRAWING-MASTER FOR HER CHILDREN.[WHEN?]

Through her he became known to Charles, who invited him to England in 1628. There he painted several portraits, and a vast allegory, now at Hampton Court, of Charles and his queen as Diana and Apollo in the clouds receiving the Duke of Buckingham as Mercury and guardian of the King of Bohemia's children. He painted a more intimate group portrait of The Four Eldest Children of the King of Bohemia, (also at Hampton Court) in which the two eldest are depicted as Diana and Apollo.

After his return to Utrecht, Honthorst retained the patronage of the English monarch, painting for him, in 1631, a large picture of the king and queen of Bohemia and all their children. At around the same time he painted some pictures illustrating the Odyssey for Lord Dorchester, and some showing incidents of Danish history for Christian IV of Denmark. He also painted a portrait of the king's daughter Countess Leonora while she was in the Hague.

His popularity in the Netherlands was such that he opened a second studio in the Hague, where he painted portraits of members of the court, and taught drawing.

These large studios, where the work included making replicas of Honthorst's royal portraits, employed a large number of pupils and assistants; according to one pupil, Joachim von Sandrart, describing his experiences in the mid-1620s, Honthorst would have about 24 students at any one time, each paying 100 guilders a year for their education.

His brother Willem van Honthorst (1594–1666) was also a portrait painter. Many of Willem's paintings were previously misattributed to Gerrit due to the similarity if their signatures. Willem was a pupil of Abraham Bloemaert, and was also taught by his own elder brother. In 1646 he went to Berlin, where he became court painter to Louise-Henriette, wife of the elector Frederick II of Brandenburg. He returned to Utrecht in 1664.

LEGACY

Honthorst was a prolific artist. His most attractive pieces are those in which he cultivates the style of Caravaggio, often tavern scenes with musicians, gamblers and people eating. He had great skill at chiaroscuro, often painting scenes illuminated by a single candle.

Some of his most notable pieces were portraits of the Duke of Buckingham and his family (Hampton Court), the King and Queen of Bohemia (Hanover and Combe Abbey), Marie de Medici (Amsterdam Stadthuis), 1628, the Stadtholders and their Wives (Amsterdam and The Hague), Charles Louis and Rupert, Charles I's nephews (Musée du Louvre, St Petersburg, Combe Abbey and Willin), and Baron Craven (National Portrait Gallery, London). His early style can be seen in the Lute-player (1614) in the Louvre, the Martyrdom of St John in Santa Maria della Scala at Rome, or the Liberation of Peter in the Berlin Museum.

His 1620 The Adoration of the Shepherds in the Uffizi was destroyed in the Via dei Georgofili Massacre of 1993.

Honthorst's 1623 The Concert was purchased for an undisclosed sum by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from a private collection in France in November 2013. The painting has not been on view since 1795. The 1.23-by-2.06-metre (4.0 by 6.8 ft) The Concert will go on display for the first time in 218 years in a special installation at the National Gallery of Art's West Building on November 23, 2013. It will remain there for six months before going on permanent display in the museum's Dutch and Flemish galleries.

Vintage French postcard. Warner Bros, No. 796.

Anita Louise (born Anita Louise Fremault; January 9, 1915 – April 25, 1970) was an American film and television actress best known for her performances in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), Marie Antoinette (1938) and The Little Princess (1939). She was named as a WAMPAS Baby Star, and frequently described as one of the cinema's more fashionable and stylish women.

The Princessehof Ceramics Museum (in Dutch: Keramiekmuseum Princessehof) is a museum of ceramics in the city of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. The museum's name comes from one of two buildings in which it is housed: a small palace (hof means ‘royal court’) built in 1693 and later occupied by Marie Louise, dowager Princess of Orange. The other annexed building is the Papinga stins, a former stronghold from the 15th century. The museum buildings are of interest, and so are its collection of tiles, pottery, and ceramic sculpture

The Princessehof Ceramics Museum (in Dutch: Keramiekmuseum Princessehof) is a museum of ceramics in the city of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. The museum's name comes from one of two buildings in which it is housed: a small palace (hof means ‘royal court’) built in 1693 and later occupied by Marie Louise, dowager Princess of Orange. The other annexed building is the Papinga stins, a former stronghold from the 15th century. The museum buildings are of interest, and so are its collection of tiles, pottery, and ceramic sculpture.

In 1731, the building was purchased by Marie Louise (known in Leeuwarden as Marijke Meu, 'Aunt Mary'), who had been a widow since 1711 and acted as regent for her son William IV up to that year, when he came of age. She moved in and began a collection of ceramics, and her collection forms part of the museum's collection,

After she died, the building was split into three houses, and one of these later came into the hands of the Leeuwarden notary and art collector Nanne Ottema (1874–1955) and his wife Grietje Kingma, who founded the museum in 1917.

The Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints, was born in the middle house in 1898!

It's not often that we can satisfy the wishes of several of our contacts with the one shot. In this fine image of two ladies in elegant dress with hats accompanied by two dogs we hit all of their preferences. The original title was:-

Group of two, both looking down : commissioned by Countess of Bessborough, Piltown

With thanks to all today's contributors (who shared some interesting - even tabloid - information on one of the non-canine subjects here), we have additional confirmation that this was possibly taken at Bessborough Estate. And that the two ladies pictured are Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein (1872-1956) and Blanche Vere Ponsonby née Guest, Countess of Bessborough (c.1850-1919). The identities of the two small dogs are less certain :)

Photographer: A. H. Poole

Collection: Poole Photographic Studio, Waterford

Date: ca. 31 August 1910

NLI Ref: POOLEWP 2201

You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie

Pauline Elisabeth Ottilie Luise zu Wied (29 December 1843 – 2 March 1916) was the Queen consort of Romania as the wife of King Carol I of Romania, widely known by her literary name of Carmen Sylva. Her brother William, 5th Prince of Wied married on 18 July 1871 in Wassenaar, Princess Marie of the Netherlands (1841–1910), younger daughter of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands (1792–1839), second son of William I of the Netherlands and his wife, Princess Louise of Prussia (1808–1870), daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia. Elisabeth was therefore the aunt of William of Albania.

Princess Marie Louise at Rugby on fitted freight in 1961...a couple of years earlier it would have been unthinkable to see these locos on anything other than heavy passenger trains...she was shedded at Rugby for most of 1961.

Italien / Toskana - Lucca

Piazza San Michele - San Michele in Foro

Lucca (/ˈluːkə/ LOO-kə, Italian: [ˈlukka] (listen)) is a city and comune in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957.

Lucca is known as an Italian "Città d'arte" (City of Art) from its intact Renaissance-era city walls and its very well preserved historic center, where, among other buildings and monuments, are located the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, which has its origins in the second half of the 1st century A.D. and the Guinigi Tower, a 45-metre-tall (150 ft) tower that dates from the 1300s.

The city is also the birthplace of numerous world-class composers, including Giacomo Puccini, Alfredo Catalani, and Luigi Boccherini.

Toponymy

By the Romans, Lucca was known as Luca. From more recent and concrete toponymic studies, the name Lucca has references that lead to "sacred grove" (Latin: lucus), "to cut" (Latin: lucare) and "luminous space" (leuk, a term used by the first European populations). The origin apparently refers to a wooded area deforested to make room for light or to a clearing located on a river island of Serchio debris, in the middle of wooded areas.

History

Antiquity

The territory of present-day Lucca was certainly settled by the Etruscans, having also traces of a probable earlier Ligurian presence (called Luk meaning "marsh", which has already been speculated as a possible origin for the city's name), dating from 3rd century BC. However, it was only with the arrival of the Romans, that the area took on the appearance of a real town, obtaining the status of a Roman colony in 180 BC, and transformed into a town hall in 89 BC.

The rectangular grid of its historical centre preserves the Roman street plan, and the Piazza San Michele occupies the site of the ancient forum. The outline of the Roman amphitheatre is still seen in the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, and the outline of a Roman theater is visible in Piazza Sant'Augostino. Fragments of the Roman-era walls are incorporated into the church of Santa Maria della Rosa.

At the Lucca Conference, in 56 BC, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus reaffirmed their political alliance known as the First Triumvirate.

Middle Ages

Frediano, an Irish monk, was bishop of Lucca in the early sixth century. At one point, Lucca was plundered by Odoacer, the first Germanic King of Italy. Lucca was an important city and fortress even in the sixth century, when Narses besieged it for several months in 553. From 576 to 797, under the Lombards, it was the capital of a duchy, known as Ducato di Tuscia, which included a large part of today's Tuscany and the province of Viterbo, during this time the city also minted its own coins. The Holy Face of Lucca (or Volto Santo), a major relic supposedly carved by Nicodemus, arrived in 742.

Among the population that inhabited Lucca in the medieval era, there was also a significant presence of Jews. The first mention of their presence in the city is from a document from the year 859. The jewish community was led by the Kalonymos family (which later became a major component of proto-Ashkenazic Jewry).

Thanks above all to the Holy Face and to the relics of important saints, such as San Regolo and Saint Fridianus, the city was one of the main destinations of the Via Francigena, the major pilgrimage route to Rome from the north.

The Lucca cloth was a silk fabric that was woven with gold or silver threads. It was a popular type of textile in Lucca throughout the mediaeval period.

Lucca became prosperous through the silk trade that began in the eleventh century, and came to rival the silks of Byzantium. During the tenth–eleventh centuries Lucca was the capital of the feudal margraviate of Tuscany, more or less independent but owing nominal allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor.

In 1057, Anselm of Baggio (later Pope Alexander II) was appointed bishop of Lucca, a position he held also during the papacy. As bishop of Lucca he managed to rebuild the patrimony of the Church of Lucca, recovering alienated assets, obtaining numerous donations thanks to his prestige, and had the Cathedral of the city rebuilt. From 1073 to 1086, the bishop of Lucca was his nephew Anselm II, a prominent figure in the Investiture Controversy.

During the High Middle Ages, one of the most illustrious dynasties of Lucca was the noble Allucingoli family, who managed to forge strong ties with the Church. Among the family members were Ubaldo Allucingoli, who was elected to the Papacy as Pope Lucius III in 1181, and the Cardinals Gerardo Allucingoli and Uberto Allucingoli.

After the death of Matilda of Tuscany, the city began to constitute itself an independent commune with a charter in 1160. For almost 500 years, Lucca remained an independent republic. There were many minor provinces in the region between southern Liguria and northern Tuscany dominated by the Malaspina; Tuscany in this time was a part of feudal Europe. Dante’s Divine Comedy includes many references to the great feudal families who had huge jurisdictions with administrative and judicial rights. Dante spent some of his exile in Lucca.

In 1273 and again in 1277, Lucca was ruled by a Guelph capitano del popolo (captain of the people) named Luchetto Gattilusio. In 1314, internal discord allowed Uguccione della Faggiuola of Pisa to make himself lord of Lucca. The Lucchesi expelled him two years later, and handed over the city to another condottiero, Castruccio Castracani, under whose rule it became a leading state in central Italy. Lucca rivalled Florence until Castracani's death in 1328. On 22 and 23 September 1325, in the battle of Altopascio, Castracani defeated Florence's Guelphs. For this he was nominated by Louis IV the Bavarian to become duke of Lucca. Castracani's tomb is in the church of San Francesco. His biography is Machiavelli's third famous book on political rule.

Occupied by the troops of Louis of Bavaria, the city was sold to a rich Genoese, Gherardino Spinola, then seized by John, king of Bohemia. Pawned to the Rossi of Parma, by them it was ceded to Mastino II della Scala of Verona, sold to the Florentines, surrendered to the Pisans, and then nominally liberated by the emperor Charles IV and governed by his vicar.

In 1408, Lucca hosted a convocation organized by Pope Gregory XII with his cardinals intended to end the schism in the papacy.

Lucca managed, at first as a democracy, and after 1628 as an oligarchy, to maintain its independence alongside of Venice and Genoa, and painted the word Libertas on its banner until the French Revolution in 1789.

Early modern period

Lucca had been the second largest Italian city state (after Venice) with a republican constitution ("comune") to remain independent over the centuries.

Between 1799 and 1800, it was contested by the French and Austrian armies. Finally the French prevailed and granted a democratic constitution in the 1801. However, already in 1805 the Republic of Lucca was converted into a monarchy by Napoleon, who installed his sister Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi as "Princess of Lucca".

From 1815 to 1847, it was a Bourbon-Parma duchy. The only reigning dukes of Lucca were Maria Luisa of Spain, who was succeeded by her son Charles II, Duke of Parma in 1824. Meanwhile, the Duchy of Parma had been assigned for life to Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the second wife of Napoleon. In accordance with the Treaty of Vienna (1815), upon the death of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma in 1847, Parma reverted to Charles II, Duke of Parma, while Lucca lost independence and was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. As part of Tuscany, it became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860 and finally part of the Italian State in 1861.

World War II internment camp

Further information: List of World War II prisoner-of-war camps in Italy

In 1942, during World War II, a prisoner-of-war camp was established at the village of Colle di Compito, in the municipality of Capannori, about 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) from Lucca. Its official number was P.G. (prigionieri di guerra) 60, and it was usually referred to as PG 60 Lucca. Although it never had permanent structures and accommodation consisted of tents in an area prone to flooding, it housed more than 3,000 British and Commonwealth prisoners of war during the period of its existence. It was handed over to the Germans on 10 September 1943, not long after the signing of the Italian armistice. During the Italian Social Republic, as a puppet state of the Germans, political prisoners, foreigners, common law prisoners and Jews were interned there, and it functioned as a concentration camp. In June 1944, the prisoners were moved to Bagni di Lucca.

Culture

Lucca is the birthplace of composers Giacomo Puccini (La Bohème and Madama Butterfly), Nicolao Dorati, Francesco Geminiani, Gioseffo Guami, Luigi Boccherini, and Alfredo Catalani. It is also the birthplace of artist Benedetto Brandimarte. Since 2004, Lucca is home to IMT Lucca, a public research institution and a selective graduate school and part of the Superior Graduate Schools in Italy (Grandes écoles).

Events

Lucca hosts the annual Lucca Summer Festival. The 2006 edition featured live performances by Eric Clapton, Placebo, Massive Attack, Roger Waters, Tracy Chapman, and Santana at the Piazza Napoleone.

Lucca hosts the annual Lucca Comics and Games festival, Europe's largest festival for comics, movies, games and related subjects.

Other events include:

Lucca Film Festival

Lucca Digital Photography Fest

Procession of Santa Croce, on 13 September. Costume procession through the town's roads.

Lucca Jazz Donna

Moreover, Lucca hosts Lucca Biennale Cartasia, an international biennial contemporary art exhibition focusing solely on Paper Art.

Film and television

Mauro Bolognini's 1958 film Giovani mariti, with Sylva Koscina, is set and was filmed in Lucca.

Top Gear filmed the third episode of the 17th season here.

Architecture

Lucca is also known for its marble deposits. After a fire in the early 1900s, the West Wing of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario was rebuilt with marble sourced in Lucca. The floor mosaic in the West Wing was hand-laid and is constructed entirely of Italian, Lucca marble.

Main sights

Walls, streets, and squares

The walls encircling the old town remain intact, even though the city has expanded and been modernised, which is unusual for cities in this region. These walls were built initially as a defensive rampart which, after losing their military importance, became a pedestrian promenade (the Passeggiata delle Mure Urbane) atop the walls which not only links the Bastions of Santa Croce, San Frediano, San Martino, San Pietro/Battisti, San Salvatore, La Libertà/Cairoli, San Regolo, San Colombano, Santa Maria, San Paolino/Catalani and San Donato but also passes over the gates (Porte) of San Donato, Santa Maria, San Jacopo, Elisa, San Pietro, and Sant'Anna. Each of the four principal sides of the structure is lined with a tree species different from the others.

The walled city is encircled by Piazzale Boccherini, Viale Lazzaro Papi, Viale Carlo Del Prete, Piazzale Martiri della Libertà, Via Batoni, Viale Agostino Marti, Viale G. Marconi (vide Guglielmo Marconi), Piazza Don A. Mei, Viale Pacini, Viale Giusti, Piazza Curtatone, Piazzale Ricasoli, Viale Ricasoli, Piazza Risorgimento (vide Risorgimento), and Viale Giosuè Carducci.

The town includes a number of public squares, most notably the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, (site of the ancient Roman amphitheater), the Piazzale Verdi, the Piazza Napoleone, and the Piazza San Michele.

Palaces, villas, houses, offices, and museums

Ducal Palace: built on the site of Castruccio Castracani's fortress. Construction was begun by Ammannati in 1577–1582 and continued by Juvarra in the eighteenth century

Pfanner Palace

Villa Garzoni, noted for its water gardens

Casa di Puccini: House of the opera composer, at the nearby Torre del Lago, where the composer spent his summers. A Puccini opera festival takes place every July–August

Torre delle Ore: ("The Clock Tower")

Guinigi Tower and House: Panoramic view from tower-top balcony with oak trees

National Museum of Villa Guinigi

National Museum of Palazzo Mansi

Orto Botanico Comunale di Lucca: botanical garden dating from 1820

Academy of Sciences (1584)

Teatro del Giglio: nineteenth-century opera house

Churches

There are many medieval, a few as old as the eighth century, basilica-form churches with richly arcaded façades and campaniles

Duomo di San Martino: St Martin's Cathedral

San Michele in Foro: Romanesque church

San Giusto: Romanesque church

Basilica di San Frediano

SanSan Romano, Luccat'Alessandro an example of medieval classicism

Santa Giulia: Lombard church rebuilt in thirteenth century

San Michele: church at Antraccoli, founded in 777, it was enlarged and rebuilt in the twelfth century with the introduction of a sixteenth-century portico

San Giorgio church in the locality of Brancoli, built in the late twelfth century has a bell tower in Lombard-Romanesque style, the interior houses a massive ambo (1194) with four columns mounted on lion sculptures, a highly decorated Romanesque octagonal baptismal fount, and the altar is supported by six small columns with human figures

San Lorenzo di Moriano, a 12th century Romanesque style parish church

San Romano, erected by the Dominican order in the second half of the 13th century, is today a deconsecrated Roman Catholic Church located on Piazza San Romano in the center of Lucca

Museums

Museo della Cattedrale

Orto Botanico Comunale di Lucca

(Wikipedia)

Lucca (in der Antike: Luca) ist die Hauptstadt der Provinz Lucca in der Toskana mit 90.055 Einwohnern (Stand 31. Dezember 2019). Sie liegt im Tal des Flusses Serchio etwa 20 km nordöstlich von Pisa und 20 km östlich der toskanischen Küste. Im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert zählte Lucca zu den einflussreichsten europäischen Städten. Große Bedeutung hatte insbesondere die Textilindustrie. Die großen Plätze, die romanischen Kirchen und die mittelalterlichen Türme zeugen von der einstigen Bedeutung dieser Stadt. Ihre von vier Toren durchbrochenen Befestigungsanlagen wurden 1504 begonnen und 1645 fertiggestellt. Die heute noch gut erhaltenen Anlagen, die lange zu den bemerkenswertesten in Italien zählten, tragen eine von Bäumen gesäumte Promenade um den Stadtkern.

Geschichte

Antike bis Renaissance

Das antike etruskische Lucca, das das Tal des Serchio beherrschte, findet erstmals Erwähnung beim Historiker Livius als der Ort, wohin sich Sempronius 218 v. Chr. vor Hannibal zurückzog; es gibt Zweifel an der Korrektheit von Livius’ Feststellung, denn obwohl es kontinuierlich Kriege mit den Ligurern gab, wird Lucca erst 180 v. Chr. erneut genannt. Damals wurde Lucca gleichzeitig mit Pisa (ebenfalls 180) und Luna (177) als römische Kolonie gegründet, um die Herrschaft der bis dahin in diesem Raum ansässigen Apuaner endgültig brechen zu können und das Land für Rom in Besitz zu nehmen. Durch die Lex Julia von 90 v. Chr. muss es ein municipium geworden sein; hier hielt Julius Caesar 56 v. Chr. seine berühmte Besprechung mit Pompeius und Crassus. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt gehörte Lucca noch zu Ligurien, nicht zu Etrurien. Wenig später wurde hier durch das Triumvirat oder durch Octavian eine Kolonie geführt, ob nach der Schlacht von Philippi oder nach der von Actium ist unklar.

In der augusteischen Unterteilung Italiens wurde Lucca der siebten Region (Etruria) zugeordnet. Aus der Periode des Kaiserreichs ist wenig bekannt, außer dass es eine Kreuzung der Straßen nach Florentia (siehe Via Clodia), Luna und Pisae war. Obwohl es von Odoaker geplündert und eines Teils seines Territoriums beraubt wurde, erscheint Lucca zur Zeit von Narses, der es 553 drei Monate lang belagerte, als wichtige Stadt und Festung. Unter den Langobarden war Lucca die Residenz eines Herzogs oder Markgrafen, welche das Münzprivileg hatte. Die Herzöge erweiterten ihre Macht allmählich auf die ganze Toskana, aber nach dem Tod der berühmten Matilda begann sich die Stadt als unabhängige Kommune zu konstituieren. 1160 erhielt sie vom bayerischen Herzog und toskanischen Markgrafen Welf VI. im Gegenzug für einen jährlichen Tribut die Herrschaft über ein Territorium um die Stadt. Der Reichtum und Einfluss der Stadt Lucca im 13. Jahrhundert basierte zu einem großen Teil auf ihrer Textilindustrie.

Innere Uneinigkeit gab Uguccione della Faggiola, mit dem Dante einige Zeit dort verbrachte, Gelegenheit, sich 1314 zum Herrn von Lucca zu machen, aber die Lucchesi verstießen ihn zwei Jahre später und übergaben die Stadt an Castruccio Castracani, unter dessen geschickter Tyrannei sie für kurze Zeit bis zu seinem Tod 1328 – sein Grab befindet sich in der Kirche San Francesco – die führende Stadt Italiens wurde.

Von den Truppen Ludwigs des Bayern besetzt, an den reichen Genueser Gheradino Spinola verkauft, vom böhmischen König Johann besetzt, an die Rossi aus Parma verpfändet, von denen an Mastino della Scala aus Verona abgetreten, an die Florentiner verkauft, an die Pisaner übergeben, nominell befreit von Kaiser Karl IV. und von seinem Vikar regiert, gelang es Lucca, ab 1369 zuerst als Demokratie, nach 1628 als patrizisch-aristokratische Oligarchie, seine Unabhängigkeit als Stadtrepublik neben Venedig und Genua zu behaupten. Bis zur Französischen Revolution schrieb es das Wort Libertas auf seine Fahnen. Die politischen Wirren des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts wurden von Dante in seinem Werk thematisiert, so führt Leeck (2007) anhand der Fallbeispiele Alessio Interminelli, Bonturo Dati und Bonagiunta aus.

Ab dem 16. Jahrhundert

Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts unternahm einer seiner führenden Bürger, Francesco Burlamacchi, einen Versuch, Italien politischen Zusammenhalt zu verleihen, er fiel aber auf dem Schafott; sein Denkmal von Ulisse Cambi wurde 1863 auf der Piazza San Michele aufgestellt.

Durch die militärische Macht der siegreichen französischen Revolutionsarmeen, die die österreichische Oberherrschaft über Italien beendeten, wurde die Republik Lucca 1799/1800 gezwungen, eine moderne „Demokratie“ nach französischem Muster und in völliger Abhängigkeit vom Frankreich Napoleon Bonapartes einzuführen (Lucchesische Republik). Im Juni 1805 dekretierte der unterdessen zum Kaiser der Franzosen und zum König von Italien proklamierte Napoleon Bonaparte die Abschaffung der Republik, die stattdessen zugunsten seiner Schwester Elisa und ihres Ehemanns Félix Baciocchi zum Fürstentum Lucca umgebildet wurde. Lucca wurde im Zuge des Sturzes Napoleons 1814 kurzfristig von neapolitanischen, dann von österreichischen Truppen besetzt. Auf dem Wiener Kongress, der 1814/15 über die Neuordnung Europas entschied, wurde der kleine, aber wohlhabende Staat Lucca zur Verschiebe- und Entschädigungsmasse für dynastische und machtpolitische Interessen. Das Kaisertum Österreich verweigerte damals – trotz des ansonsten von ihm hochgehaltenen dynastischen Legitimitätsprinzips – dem bourbonischen Herzog von Parma die Rückkehr in dessen Hauptstädte Parma und Piacenza, die auf Lebenszeit als Versorgungsgebiet für Napoleons Ehefrau, die ehemalige französische Kaiserin Marie Louise († 1847), eine Tochter von Franz I., vorgesehen wurden. Die parmesischen Bourbonen sollten, solange Marie Louise lebte, stattdessen mit der ehemaligen Republik Lucca als Herzogtum entschädigt werden, das allerdings nach einem Überwechseln der Bourbonen nach Parma und Piacenza an das habsburgische Großherzogtum Toskana (und damit in den Einflussbereich Österreichs) fallen sollte. Nach längerem Widerstand des Hauses Bourbon-Parma, das darin (vergeblich) vom eng verwandten spanischen König Ferdinand VII. unterstützt wurde, trat Ferdinands Schwester Maria Luisa (die unter Napoleon zeitweilig Königin und Regentin des in der Toskana gebildeten „Königreiches Etrurien“ gewesen war), im November 1817 die Herrschaft als Herzogin von Lucca an. Mit ihrem Tode 1824 folgte ihr Sohn Karl Ludwig († 1883), der ehemalige Kind-König von Etrurien. Dieser verzichtete aufgrund der sich verschärfenden innenpolitischen Lage im Vorfeld der Revolution von 1848/49 jedoch im Oktober 1847 schon vor dem Tode der parmesisch-habsburgischen Herrscherin Marie Louise zugunsten des Großherzogs der Toskana auf die Regierung in Lucca. Das Herzogtum bildete seither einen Teil der Toskana, mit der es im Laufe des Risorgimento 1859/61 zunächst an Sardinien, dann an den neuen Einheitsstaat Italien angeschlossen wurde.

Wirtschaft

Lucca war früher ein Zentrum der Luxusstoffindustrie. Berühmt war die Stadt unter anderem für ihre Seide, deren Farbenpracht in Europa als unübertroffen galt.[3] Politische Unruhen zu Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts führten dazu, dass viele Luccheser Färber und Seidenweber nach Venedig flohen. Die Stadt Venedig bot den Flüchtlingen großzügig Asyl und finanzielle Hilfe an, allerdings unter der Bedingung, dass sie in Venedig ihr Gewerbe praktizierten. Die Luccheser Zunftgesetze sahen zwar den Tod für alle Bürger vor, die ihr Textilhandwerk außerhalb der Stadtmauern praktizierten, angesichts ihrer finanziellen Lage nahmen jedoch viele Luccheser Handwerker die venezianischen Bedingungen an.

Begonnen um 1300, ist die Papierindustrie seit vielen Jahren eine der wichtigsten Säulen für die Wirtschaft der gesamten Provinz. Hinzu kommt für Lucca unter anderem der Fremdenverkehr, die chemische, pharmazeutische und mechanische Industrie.

Sehenswürdigkeiten

Das rechtwinklige Straßennetz im historischen Zentrum lässt noch die Struktur der römischen Anlage erkennen. Die antike Stadtmauer verlief entlang der heutigen Straßen Via San Giorgio/A. Mordini – Via dell’Angelo Custode/della Rosa – Corso Garibaldi – Via della Cittadella/Galli Tassi. Das Forum befand sich am Kreuzungspunkt von Cardo und Decumanus, seit dem Mittelalter die Piazza San Michele. Im Namen der Kirche San Michele in Foro lebt dieses römische Erbe bis in unsere Zeit fort.

Lucca ist reich an Sehenswürdigkeiten und daher auch touristisch von großem Interesse. Das historische Zentrum stand von 2006 bis 2021 auf der Welterbe-Tentativliste, dann wurde die Kandidatur entweder zurückgezogen oder von der UNESCO abgelehnt.

Mit mehr als 200.000 Besuchern ist Lucca Comics & Games ist die zweitgrößte Comicbuch- und Gaming-Messe der Welt.

Das Geburtshaus des Komponisten Giacomo Puccini beherbergt heute ein Museum. Der italienische Staat hat das Haus – zusammen mit den Museums-Geburtshäusern von Gioachino Rossini und Giuseppe Verdi – mit dem Europäischen Kulturerbe-Siegel ausgezeichnet (nach dem alten System bis 2010).

Stadtmauer und Stadttore

Das womöglich beeindruckendste Bauwerk der Stadt ist die vollständig erhaltene Stadtmauer von Lucca, italienisch Mura di Lucca. Ihr Ursprung liegt im Mittelalter, als sie im 12./13. Jahrhundert die römische Mauer ablöste, um im Nordosten die Borghi San Frediano, San Pietro Somaldi und Santa Mari Forisportam mit einzuschließen. Der nächsten, eher marginalen Erweiterung folgte 1504 – 1648 der Ausbau zur Stadtmauer, wie sie sich heute darbietet: 4,2 km lang, mit 11 Bastionen und 12 Kurtinen. Das Kuriose: Die Mauer wurde nie wirklich zur Verteidigung gebraucht. Immerhin bewahrte sie ganz Lucca vor der Überschwemmung durch das Hochwasser 1812. Maria Luisa von Bourbon-Spanien, 1815 – 1824 Herzogin von Lucca, ließ auf der Mauer eine Promenade errichten und die Bastionen und Außenbereiche begrünen. Sowohl der Spazierweg als auch die Grünflächen sind äußerst beliebte Areale für sportliche Aktivitäten und Veranstaltungen.

Beim Ausbau der Mauer waren ursprünglich nur drei Stadttore vorgesehen: die Porta di Santa Maria im Norden, die Porta di San Donato im Nordwesten und die Porta di San Pietro im Südwesten. Der Ostteil erhielt erst 1804 ein Tor. Es heißt nach seiner Erbauerin, der Fürstin von Lucca Elisa Bonaparte, Porta Elisa. Zwei weitere Torbauten, die Porta San Jacopo im Nordosten und die Porta Sant‘Anna im Westen sind jüngeren Datums. Die mittelalterliche Stadtmauer hatte ebenfalls vier Stadttore. Die beiden heute noch erhaltenen, die Porta San Gervasio (oder Portone dell‘Anunziata) und die Porta dei Borghi, befinden sich jetzt innerhalb des Mauerrings.

(Wikpedia)

A section of the bronze Panel 8 of the Lowestoft Naval Memorial. (Royal Naval Patrol Service Memorial)

Sub-Lt George Norman Head, RNVR, HM Trawler Rosemonde.

The son of George Edwin and Marie Blanche Head of Thornton Heath, Surrey.

Died 22nd. January 1942, aged 22.

Panel 8, Column 1.

Completed in January 1911 as a steam trawler for Victor Fourny, Boulogne. On 12th. February 1915 requisitioned by the French Navy as armed trawler and returned to owner on 3rd. February 1919. In 1937 she was sold to Soc. Boulonnaise d´Armement P. Le Garrec & Cie, Boulogne. Requsitioned again in September 1939 by the French Navy as minesweeping trawler, Rosemonde (AD 70). Seized on 3rd. July 1940 by the Royal Navy at Southampton.

At about 23.00 hours on 19th. January, U-581 attacked what was believed to be a British corvette of some 800 tons, steering towards Gibraltar during an extremely dark night with limited visibility due to rain, about 400 miles east of the Azores. A first torpedo fired from about 600 yards missed, but then one of spread of two torpedoes struck the vessel amidships and caused it to break in two and sink within one minute, followed by an underwater explosion presumably caused by depth charges. The U-boat searched the vicinity of the sinking for some considerable period, but found no survivors or wreckage. It is very likely that Rosemonde was the vessel sunk in this attack.

Sub-Lt Frederick William Hill, RNVR, HM Trawler Waterfly, (FY 681).

The son of Samuel Charles and Clara Jane Hill of Croxley Green, Hertfordshire, husband of Peggy Hill.

Died on 17th. September 1942, aged 30.

Panel 8, Column 1.

Waterfly was sunk by German aircraft off Dungeness, Kent in position 50º50'N, 00º54'E.

Sub-Lt Henry Belby Hodgson, RNVR, HM Trawler St. Cathan, (FY 234), on loan to U S Navy.

Died on 11th. April 1942.

Panel 8, Column 1.

St. Cathan was sunk in a collision with the Dutch merchant ship Hebe south-south-east of Little River, South Carolina, U.S.A. in position 33.09'N, 78.16'W.

Sub-Lt Roger Rodwell Humble-Smith, RNVR, HM Trawler Notts County, (FY 250).

The son of George and Myldrede Humble-Smith, husband of Stella Nora Humble-Smith of Southbourne, Hampshire.

Died on 8th. March 1942, aged 24.

Panel 8, Column 1.

At 00.39 hours on 9th. March, Notts County was hit on the port side amidships by one torpedo from U-701 while steaming at 9 knots southeast of Iceland. The trawler was seen listing to port with her bow and stern above water with her midship section awash before disappearing within two minutes in position 63º10'N, 13º16'W. Her depth charges exploded a few seconds later.

Sub-Lt Bernard Watt Jones, RNVR, HM Trawler Leyland, (FY 103).

The son of B. Watts Jones and Beatrice Jones of Swansea.

Died on 27th. November 1942, aged 25.

Panel 8, Column 1.

Leyland was sunk in a collision off Gibraltar.

Sub-Lt Anthony Channar Joy, RNVR, HM Trawler Notts County, (FY 250).

The son of Capt. and Mrs. Thomas C. Joy of Bournemouth, Hampshire.

Died on Died on 8th. March 1942, aged 21.

Panel 8, Column 1.

At 00.39 hours on 9th. March, Notts County was hit on the port side amidships by one torpedo from U-701 while steaming at 9 knots southeast of Iceland. The trawler was seen listing to port with her bow and stern above water with her midship section awash before disappearing within two minutes in position 63º10'N, 13º16'W. Her depth charges exploded a few seconds later.

Sub-Lt Jack MacDonnell, RNVR, HM Trawler Northern Princess, (4.06), on loan to U.S. Navy.

Died on 7th. March 1942.

Panel 8, Column 1.

Northern Princess was torpedoed and sunk by U-587 off the Grand Banks, Newfoundland. The vessel was reported missing after she was seen for the last time at 20.43 hours on 7th. March in 45°22N/55°59W. The commander, three officers and 34 ratings were lost.

Sub-Lt Thomas Frederick John Moss, RNVR, HM Trawler Ullswater, (FY 252).

Died 19 November 1942.

Panel 8, Column 1.

Ullswater was torpedoed and sunk by a German motor torpedo boat in the English Channel.

Sub-Lt Peter Henry Dennis Vardon-Patton, RNVR, HMS Midge, serving on ML 298.

Husband of Margaret M, nee Frawley.

Died on 28th. March 1942, aged 26.

Panel 8, Column 1.

ML 298 was lost on 'Operation Chariot' a British amphibious attack on the heavily defended Normandie dry dock at St. Nazaire in German occupied France.

Lt (E) Peter Hansen, RNR, HMS Shera, (FY 1724).

The son of Hans Rasmus Syventsen and Hilma Elisabeht,nee Johannessen, husband of Martha Hansen of Haukerod, Norway.

Died on 9th. March 1942, aged 42.

Panel 8, Column 1.

Transferred to the Soviet Union in February 1942, while en route Shera capsized in heavy weather and ice conditions in the Barents Sea.

Lt (E) Karl Johan Johansen, RNVR, HMS Sotra.

The son of Johan and Ovidia Johansen, husband of Henny Johansen, of Husoysund, Tonsberg, Norway.

Died on 29th. January 1942, aged 40.

Panel 8, Column 1.

At 21.46 hours on 29 Jan 1942, U-431 attacked convoy TA-21 off Bardia, about 80 nm east of Tobruk, Libya, and hit Sotra with one torpedo. The vessel exploded and sank in position 32º07'N, 25º30'E, with the loss of all hands, six of them Norwegian.

Lt (E) Thorbjorn Olsen, RNR, HMS Sotra.

The son of Lars Martin Olsen and Mathilde Enersen of Larvik, Norway, husband of Louise Pernille Olsen of Larvik.

Died on 29th. January 1942, aged 42.

Panel 8, Column 1.

At 21.46 hours on 29 Jan 1942, U-431 attacked convoy TA-21 off Bardia, about 80 nm east of Tobruk, Libya, and hit Sotra with one torpedo. The vessel exploded and sank in position 32º07'N, 25º30'E, with the loss of all hands, six of them Norwegian.

Sub-Lt (E) Hans Kristian Olsen Myhre, RNR, HMS Sulla, (FY 1874).

The son of Ole and Marthine Myhre, husband of Guuvar Marie Myhre of Tonsberg, Norway.

Died 25th. March 1942, aged 47.

Panel 8, Column 1.

Sulla was transferred to the Soviet Union in February 1942. She was lost in the Norwegian Sea when en route in convoy PQ-13 to be delivered. The vessel was last seen in a gale during the night of 24/25 March in approx. 70°15'N/02°10'E. She was most likely lost by capsizing due to heavy icing in the bad weather.

Skipper Lt James Noble Hall, RNR, HMS Canada

The son of William A. and Anne Hall of Edinburgh, husband of Marjorie T. A. Hall of Edinburgh.

Died as a passenger on the refrigerator ship Vibran on 24th. September 1942, aged 30.

Panel 8, Column 1.

The unescorted Vibran of Haugesund, Norway was torpedoed and sunk by U-582 about 400 miles north-northwest of the Azores. All aboard, the master, 34 crew members, two gunners and eleven passengers were lost. The ship was reported missing and was presumed lost in approx. 42°45N/42°45W.

Skipper Lt Patrick James Quinlan DSC, RNR, HM Trawler Laertes, (T 137).

The son of Patrick Joseph and Williamina Quinlan of Aberdeen, husband of Williamina Christina Quinlan of Aberdeen.

Died 25 July 1942, aged 31.

Panel 8, Column 1.

Laertes was torpedoed and sunk off Freetown, Sierra Leone, in position 06º00'N, 14º17'W by the German submarine U-201.

LT/X 9429B, LS Neil Brodie, RNR (Patrol Service), HM Trawler Stella Capella, (FY 107).

The son of Samuel and Catherine Brodie of Campbeltown, Argyllshire, husband of Isabella Brodie, of Campbeltown.

Died on 11th. March 1942, aged 31.

Panel 8, Column 2.

At 02.11 hours on 11th. March 1942, HMS Stella Capella was hit by one G7e torpedo from U-701 and sank in 2 minutes 30 seconds about 12 miles southeast of Vattarnes Lighthouse, Iceland in position 64º48'N, 13º20'W. The commander, three officers and 29 ratings were lost. The armed trawler served with the 41st. A/S Group based in Iceland and was en route alone to Stornoway in order to carry out urgent repairs to its defective anti-submarine gear.

LT/X 19504A, LS George Whiley Cerrino, RNR (Patrol Service), HM Trawler Bedfordshire, (FY 141), on loan to U.S. Navy.

The son of Jack and Ruby Cerrino of Grimsby, Lincolnshire.

Died 11 May 1942, aged 24.

Panel 8, Column 2.

At 05.40 hours on 12th. May 1942, Bedfordshire was hit by one torpedo from U-558, while on anti-submarine patrol off Cape Lookout, North Carolina. The ship blew up and all hands were lost.

Four bodies were washed up on Ocracoke Island and were buried there. Two other bodies were recovered later and were buried in the Baptist Cemetery at Creeds, Virginia.

LT/X 19583A, LS Richard Chippendale, RNR (Patrol Service), HM Trawler Notts County, (FY 250).

The son of William Pearson Chippendale and Elizabeth Ann Chippendale husband of Mildred J. Chippendale, of Ilford, Essex.

Died on 8th. March 1942, aged 25.

Panel 8, Column 2.

At 00.39 hours on 9th. March, Notts County was hit on the port side amidships by one torpedo from U-701 while steaming at 9 knots southeast of Iceland. The trawler was seen listing to port with her bow and stern above water with her midship section awash before disappearing within two minutes in position 63º10'N, 13º16'W. Her depth charges exploded a few seconds later.

LT/JX 215811, LS William John Craig Christie, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HMS St. Briac.

The son of Robert and Elsepet Christie, husband of Jean Christie, of Aberdeen.

Died 12th. March 1942.

Panel 8, Column 2.

In a strong south easterly gale, St. Briac hit a British mine. The explosion happened under the starboard side near the engine room and within minutes the engine room was flooded and the engines failed. Drifting in the minefield the ship hit another mine midships and broke her back, sinking in position 56°33.045’N, 001°33.690’W with the loss of 47 crewmen.

LT/JX 163896, LS Ronald Albert Ivor Dungar, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HM Trawler Rosemonde.

Died 22 January 1942, aged 20.

Panel 8, Column 2.

At about 23.00 hours on 19th. January, U-581 attacked what was believed to be a British corvette of some 800 tons steering towards Gibraltar during an extremely dark night with limited visibility due to rain about 400 miles east of the Azores. It is very likely that Rosemonde was sunk in this attack.

LT/JX 173084, LS Walter Leonard Emmitt, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HM Trawler Manor, (FY 333).

The son of Frank and Helen Emmitt of Grimsby, Lincolnshire, husband of Dorothy Emmitt of Grimsby.

Died on 9th. July 1942, aged 35.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Manor was torpedoed and sunk by German motor torpedo boats in the English Channel south of Lyme Bay in position 50º19'N, 03º00'W.

LT/JX 221333, LS Cyril Frank Fearnley, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HM Trawler Notts County, (FY 250).

Died on 8th. March 1942.

Panel 8, Column 2.

At 00.39 hours on 9th. March, Notts County was hit on the port side amidships by one torpedo from U-701 while steaming at 9 knots southeast of Iceland. The trawler was seen listing to port with her bow and stern above water with her midship section awash before disappearing within two minutes in position 63º10'N, 13º16'W. Her depth charges exploded a few seconds later.

LT/JX 174588, LS Enoch Brown Fish DSM, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HM Trawler Ullswater, (FY 252).

The son of John and Hannah Fish of Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, husband of Emma Fish, of Barrow-in-Furness.

Died on 19th. November 1942, aged 43.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Ullswater was torpedoed and sunk by a German motor torpedo boat in the English Channel.

LT/JX 173551, LS Albert Robert Harris, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HM Trawler St. Cathan, (FY 234), on loan to U.S. Navy.

The son of George Arthur and Alice Edith Harris of Gorleston, Norfolk, husband of Violet May Harris.

Died on 11th. April 1942, aged 34.

Panel 8, Column 2.

St. Cathan was sunk in a collision with the Dutch merchant ship Hebe south-south-east of Little River, South Carolina, U.S.A. in position 33.09'N, 78.16'W.

LT/X7057C, LS Edward Lamb, RNR (Patrol Service), HM Trawler Leyland, (FY 103).

Died on 27th. November 1942.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Leyland was sunk in a collision off Gibraltar.

LT/X 18212A, LS William Lee, RNR (Patrol Service), HM Trawler Bedfordshire, (FY 141), on loan to U.S. Navy.

The son of John and Margaret Lee of Garrabost, Isle of Lewis.

Died on 11th. May 1942, aged 30.

Panel 8, Column 2.

At 05.40 hours on 12th. May 1942, Bedfordshire was hit by one torpedo from U-558, while on anti-submarine patrol off Cape Lookout, North Carolina. The ship blew up and all hands were lost.

Four bodies were washed up on Ocracoke Island and were buried there. Two other bodies were recovered later and were buried in the Baptist Cemetery at Creeds, Virginia.

LT/X 18031A, LS Kenneth MacDonald, RNR (Patrol Service), HMS Sotra.

Died on 29th. January 1942.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Sotra was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-431 about 80 nm east of Tobruk, Libya in position 32º07'N, 25º30'E. All 22 hands lost.

LT/X 20517A, LS Norman MacKinnon, RNR (Patrol Service), HM Trawler Kingston Ceylonite,(FY 214), on loan to U.S. Navy.

The son of Roderick and Marion MacKinnon of Marvig, Isle of Lewis.

Died on 15th. June 1942, aged 21.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Lent to the US Navy but manned by her British crew, operating under USN control, while escorting convoy KN-109, Kingston Ceylonite ran into a minefield laid off Virginia Beach on 11th. June by U-701. Kingston Ceylonite sank sank in position 36º52'N, 75º51'W. From a crew of 32 men, 18 went down with the ship.

LT/X 19197A, LS Frederick Francis Maltby, RNR (Patrol Service), HM Trawler Bedfordshire, (FY 141), on loan to U.S. Navy.

The son of John and Beatrice Maltby; husband of Kate Maltby, of Swansea.

Died on 11th. May 1942, aged 31.

Panel 8, Column 2.

At 05.40 hours on 12th. May 1942, Bedfordshire was hit by one torpedo from U-558.

LT/JX 187364, LS William George Oliver, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HM Trawler Lord Stonehaven, (FY 187).

The son of George and Kate Oliver of Croydon, Surrey.

Died on 2nd. October 1942, aged 42.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Lord Stonehaven was sunk by the German motor torpedo boat S-112 off Eddystone in the English Channel. The wreck is broken in two and lays in position 50º11'150"N, 04º08'350"W. The ship is identified through it's builders plate.

LT/JX 228160, LS Carl Edgar Olsen, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HMS Shera.

Died on 9th. March 1942.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Transferred to the Soviet Union in February 1942, while en route Shera capsized in heavy weather and ice conditions in the Barents Sea.

LT/JX 183079, LS Jack Page, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HM Trawler Laertes, (T137).

The son of Henry Joseph and Eva Ellen Page of Lowestoft, Suffolk, husband of Kathleen Joyce Page, of Lowestoft.

Died on 25th. July 1942, aged 29.

Panel 8, Column 2.

At 23.05 hours on 25 July 1942, Laertes was hit by one torpedo from U-201, exploded and sank immediately in position 06º00'N, 14º17'W off Freetown, Sierra Leone. The commander, two officers and 16 ratings were lost.

LT/JX 229615, LS William Eric Ringrose, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HM Trawler Notts County, (FY 250).

Died on 8th. March 1942.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Notts County was torpedoed and sunk by U-701 southeast of Iceland in position 63º10'N, 13º16'W.

LT/JX 242336, LS Walter Wilson, Royal Naval Patrol Service, HMS Sulla.

The son of Robert William and Annie Wilson, husband of Elizabeth Agnes Wilson of Hessle, Yorkshire.

Died on 25th. March 1942, aged 37.

Panel 8, Column 2.

Sulla was transferred to the Soviet Union in February 1942. She was lost in the Norwegian Sea when en route in convoy PQ-13 to be delivered. The vessel was last seen in a gale during the night of 24/25 March in approx. 70°15'N/02°10'E. She was most likely lost by capsizing due to heavy icing in the bad weather.

To all true lovers of the British constitution an enchanting Tea Party collage with Her Royal Highness Princess Marie-Louise of France.

The beautiful and inspiring background image shared by:

www.flickr.com/photos/playingwithpsp/2932798449/in/set-72...

*All images are subject to international copyright laws and are the property of Wendy Paula Patterson. No images may be reproduced, downloaded, copied, stored, manipulated, or used whole or in part of a derivative work, without the designers permission.

*All rights reserved.*

Portsmouth Harbour and Naval Base, Hampshire UK.

Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) is alongside at the Princess Royal Jetty (PRJ) in the dockyard.

The warship on the Victory Jetty is Belgian Navy Ship (BNS) Louise-Marie, a Kate Doorman class Frigate.

A "Dockyard and Warships" tour boat is leaving ripples and it's wake in the water

War memorial. Erected 1922, after the First World War, to the design of the sculptor John Tweed with an inscription added after the Second World War.

Husb’s great uncle Sgt Gavin M H Wilson MM (19 Jan 1892 - 20 Oct 1918) served in the The King's Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC) from February 1914 until his death. 10 days before his death he was at home receiving his Military Medal from Mr Pink, Mayor of Portsmouth. He died in Etaples Military Hospital, France on 20 Oct 18 after receiving a gunshot wound to his leg on the 17th and is buried in Roisel, Departement de la Somme, Picardie, France. His younger brother, Alexander had also fought and died, whilst serving with The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI), on 5 Oct 1918. He is buried Beaurevoir, Aisne, Picardie, France. His second brother of 5, John, survived and was still working in France in 1919 on burial duties.

The King's Royal Rifle Corps was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army that was raised in British North America in 1755-56 as the Royal American Regiment during the Seven Years' War. It was recruited from settlers and volunteers from other regiments with the purpose of adopting an ‘Indian system’ of forest warfare with lighter equipment, more mobile and open formations. Additional battalions were raised in 1775 for service in the American Revolutionary War. The regiment served for more than 200 years throughout the British Empire. It was awarded the title of the King's Royal Rifle Corps in 1830 when King George IV ascended to the throne. During the First World War, it was in action from Mons onwards. Initially formed of four regular battalions with two reserve ones, a total of 22 battalions were raised during the course of the war. The regiment saw action on the Western Front, Macedonia and Italy, winning 60 battle honours including seven Victoria Crosses. A total of 12,840 men from the regiment died during the war.

The war memorial, featuring a bronze statue of a rifleman in full service dress with a Lee-Enfield rifle by the sculptor John Tweed, was unveiled on Wednesday 26 May 1922 at a ceremony attended by Prince Henry, Princess Beatrice and Princess Marie Louise. A memorial service took place in the cathedral with a substantial congregation including 1,500 relatives of the members of the regiment who fell in the war. The Bishop of Winchester and cathedral clergy were present and the choir was supplemented by singers from Westminster Abbey and Christ Church, Oxford. The Roll of Honour, enclosed in an oak casket on a stone plinth in the nave, was unveiled by Princess Beatrice and dedicated by the Bishop of Winchester. The war memorial in the Cathedral Yard outside was then also dedicated and wreaths laid in front of it. Each of the battalions of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps that served in the war was represented, as well as the Rifle Brigade, the Royal Air Force, the Hampshire Regiment, and the American Legion, No.1 (London) Post.

In 1966 The King’s Royal Rifle Corps was merged with The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and The Rifle Brigade to form The Royal Green Jackets, a large infantry regiment. By 2007, The Royal Green Jackets had been reduced to two battalions and the regiment was merged with three others to form The Rifles. The Rifles is the largest infantry regiment in the modern British Army and has a regimental headquarters and museum located in Winchester. The city has had a long tradition of training soldiers from the rifle regiments.

The sculptor John Tweed (1869-1933) was born in Glasgow and studied part-time at Glasgow School of Art. He moved to London in 1890 and worked for Hamo Thornycroft, studying at the South London Technical Art School and the Royal Academy Schools. He studied briefly in Paris under Alexandre Falguière. In 1893 he obtained an important portraiture commission through Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker and in 1901 was commissioned to complete the memorial to the first Duke of Wellington in St Paul’s Cathedral, after the death of Alfred Stevens. A close friend of Rodin, he organised the exhibition of Rodin’s sculpture at the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor House, London in 1914. Following the First World War he produced many statues and monuments, a number of which are listed, including: Barnsley War Memorial (Grade II*); the Rifle Brigade War Memorial at Grosvenor Gardens, Westminster (Grade II*); the statue of Lord Kitchener on Horse Guards, Westminster (Grade II); and the statue of Sir John Moore at Shorncliffe Barracks, Folkestone (Grade II).

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1447365

The Postcard

A Valentine's Series postcard with photography by Lafayette of Dublin. The date of posting is not legible, but it was posted prior to the 3rd. June 1918, because the card only bears a half-penny stamp, and on the 3rd. June 1918, the UK inland postal rate for postcards was raised to one penny in order to help pay for the Great War.

The card was posted to:

Mr. E. King,

83, Winchelsea Road,

Tottenham,

London N.W.

The pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

"Dear Dad,

I hope you got back

alright on Sunday night.

I have been to school

today.

Aunt Mabel has not

been up today.

I went on the pond this

afternoon.

I wish you were with me.

Love from Violet & Mum.

xx"

Madame Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt was born Henriette-Rosine Bernard on the 22nd. or 23rd. October 1844. The exact date is not known.

Sarah was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th. and early 20th. centuries, including 'La Dame Aux Camelias' by Alexandre Dumas, 'Ruy Blas' by Victor Hugo; 'Fédora' and 'La Tosca' by Victorien Sardou; and 'L'Aiglon' by Edmond Rostand.

Sarah also played male roles, including Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.

Rostand called her "The Queen of the Pose and the Princess of the Gesture", while Hugo praised her "Golden Voice".

Sarah made several theatrical tours around the world, and was one of the first prominent actresses to make sound recordings and to act in motion pictures.

Sarah Bernhardt - The Early Years

Henriette-Rosine Bernard was born at 5 Rue de L'École-de-Médecine in the Latin Quarter of Paris. She was the illegitimate daughter of Judith Bernard, a Dutch-Jewish courtesan with a wealthy clientele.

The name of Sarah's father is not recorded. Bernhardt later wrote that her father's family paid for her education, insisted she be baptised as a Catholic, and left a large sum to be paid when she came of age. Her mother travelled frequently, and saw little of her daughter. She placed Sarah with a nurse in Brittany, then in a cottage in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.

When Sarah was seven, her mother sent her to a boarding school for young ladies in the Paris suburb of Auteuil, paid with funds from her father's family. There, she acted in her first theatrical performance in the play 'Clothilde', where she held the role of the Queen of the Fairies, and performed the first of many dramatic death scenes.

While she was at the boarding school, Sarah's mother rose to the top ranks of Parisian courtesans, consorting with politicians, bankers, generals, and writers. Her patrons and friends included Charles, Duke of Morny, the half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III and President of the French legislature.

At the age of 10, with the sponsorship of Morny, Bernhardt was admitted to Grandchamp, an exclusive Augustine convent school near Versailles. At the convent, she performed the part of the Archangel Raphael in 'Tobias and the Angel'.

Sarah declared her intention to become a nun, but did not always follow convent rules; she was accused of sacrilege when she arranged a Christian burial, with a procession and ceremony, for her pet lizard.

She received her first communion as a Roman Catholic in 1856, and thereafter she was fervently religious. However, she never forgot her Jewish heritage. When asked years later by a reporter if she were a Christian, she replied:

"No, I'm a Roman Catholic, and a

member of the great Jewish race.

I'm waiting until Christians become

better."

Sarah accepted the last rites shortly before her death.

In 1859, Bernhardt learned that her father had died overseas. Her mother summoned a family council, including Morny, to decide what to do with her. Morny proposed that Bernhardt should become an actress, an idea that horrified Sarah, as she had never been inside a theatre.

Morny arranged for her to attend her first theatre performance at the Comédie Française in a party which included her mother, Morny, and his friend Alexandre Dumas Père. The play they attended was 'Brittanicus', by Jean Racine, followed by the classical comedy 'Amphitryon' by Plautus.

Bernhardt was so moved by the emotion of the play, she began to sob loudly, disturbing the rest of the audience. Morny and others in their party were angry with her and left, but Dumas comforted her, and later told Morny that he believed that she was destined for the stage. After the performance, Dumas called her "My little star".

Sarah Bernhardt and the Paris Conservatory

Morny used his influence with the composer Daniel Auber, the head of the Paris Conservatory, to arrange for Bernhardt to audition. She began preparing, as she described it in her memoirs:

"With that vivid exaggeration with

which I embrace any new enterprise."

Dumas coached her. The jury comprised Auber and five leading actors and actresses from the Comédie Française. Sarah was supposed to recite verses from Racine, but no one had told her that she needed someone to give her cues as she recited.

Sarah told the jury she would instead recite the fable of the Two Pigeons by La Fontaine. The jurors were sceptical, but the fervour and pathos of her recitation won them over, and she was invited to become a student.

Bernhardt studied acting at the Conservatory from January 1860 until 1862 under two prominent actors of the Comédie Française, Joseph-Isidore Samson and Jean-Baptiste Provost. She wrote in her memoirs that Provost taught her diction and grand gestures, while Samson taught her the power of simplicity.

For the stage, Sarah changed her name from 'Bernard' to 'Bernhardt'. While studying, she also received her first marriage proposal, from a wealthy businessman who offered her 500 thousand francs. He wept when she refused. Bernhardt later wrote:

"I was confused, sorry, and delighted -

because he loved me the way people

love in plays at the theatre".

Before the first examination for her tragedy class, she tried to straighten her abundance of frizzy hair, which made it even more uncontrollable, and came down with a bad cold, which made her voice so nasal that she hardly recognized it.

Furthermore, the parts assigned for her performance were classical and required carefully stylized emotions, while she preferred romanticism and fully and naturally expressing her emotions. The teachers ranked her 14th. in tragedy, and 2nd. in comedy.

Sarah Bernhardt and The Théâtre Français

Once again, Morny came to her rescue. He put in a good word for her with the National Minister of the Arts, Camille Doucet. Doucet recommended her to Edouard Thierry, the chief administrator of the Théâtre Français, who offered Bernhardt a place as a pensionnaire at the theatre, at a minimum salary.

Bernhardt made her debut with the company on the 31st. August 1862 in the title role of Racine's 'Iphigénie'. Her premiere was not a success. She experienced stage fright and rushed her lines. Furthermore some audience members made fun of her thin figure.

When the performance ended, Provost was waiting in the wings, and she asked his forgiveness. He told her:

"I can forgive you, and you'll

eventually forgive yourself,

but Racine in his grave never

will."

Francisque Sarcey, the influential theatre critic of 'L'Opinion Nationale' and 'Le Temps', wrote:

'She carries herself well and pronounces

with perfect precision. That is all that can

be said about her at the moment.'

Bernhardt did not remain long with the Comédie-Française. She played Henrietta in Molière's 'Les Femmes Savantes' and Hippolyte in 'L'Étourdi', and the title role in Scribe's 'Valérie', but did not impress the critics, or the other members of the company, who had resented her rapid rise.

The weeks passed, but she was given no further roles. Her hot temper also got her into trouble; when a theatre doorkeeper addressed her as "Little Bernhardt", she broke her umbrella over his head. She apologised profusely, and when the doorkeeper retired 20 years later, she bought him a cottage in Normandy.

At a ceremony honouring the birthday of Molière on the 15th. January 1863, Bernhardt invited her younger sister, Regina, to accompany her. Regina accidentally stood on the train of the gown of a leading actress of the company, Zaire-Nathalie Martel (1816–1885). Madame Nathalie pushed Regina off the gown, causing her to strike a stone column and gash her forehead.

Regina and Madame Nathalie began shouting at one another, and Bernhardt stepped forward and slapped Madame Nathalie on the cheek. The older actress fell onto another actor. Thierry asked that Bernhardt apologise to Madame Nathalie. Bernhardt refused to do so until Madame Nathalie apologised to Regina.

Bernhardt had already been scheduled for a new role with the theatre, and had begun rehearsals. Madame Nathalie demanded that Bernhardt be dropped from the role unless she apologised. Since neither would yield, and Madame Nathalie was the more senior member of the company, Thierry was forced to ask Bernhardt to leave.

The Gymnase and Brussels (1864–1866)

Sarah's family could not understand her departure from the theatre; it was inconceivable to them that anyone would walk away from the most prestigious theatre in Paris at the age of 18.

Instead, Sarah went to a popular theatre, the Gymnase, where she became an understudy to two of the leading actresses. She almost immediately caused another offstage scandal, when she was invited to recite poetry at a reception at the Tuileries Palace hosted by Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie, along with other actors from the Gymnase.

Sarah chose to recite two romantic poems by Victor Hugo, unaware that Hugo was a bitter critic of the Emperor. Following the first poem, the Emperor and Empress rose and walked out, followed by the court and all the other guests.

Her next role at the Gymnase, as a foolish Russian princess, was entirely unsuited for her; her mother told her that her performance was "ridiculous". She decided abruptly to quit the theatre to travel, and like her mother, to take on lovers. She went briefly to Spain, then, at the suggestion of Alexandre Dumas, to Belgium.

Sarah carried to Brussels letters of introduction from Dumas, and was admitted to the highest levels of society. She attended a masked ball in Brussels where she met the Belgian aristocrat Henri, Prince de Ligne, and had an affair with him. However the affair was cut short when she learned that her mother had suffered a heart attack. She returned to Paris, where she found that her mother was better, but that she herself was pregnant from her affair with the Prince.

She did not notify the Prince. Her mother did not want the fatherless child born under her roof, so Sarah moved to a small apartment on Rue Duphot, and on the 22nd. December 1864, the 20-year-old actress gave birth to her only child, Maurice Bernhardt.

Sarah never discussed Maurice's parentage with anyone. When asked who his father was, she sometimes answered:

"I could never make up my mind

whether his father was Gambetta,

Victor Hugo, or General Boulanger."

Many years later, in January 1885, when Bernhardt was famous, the Prince came to Paris and offered to formally recognise Maurice as his son, but Maurice politely declined, explaining he was entirely satisfied to be the son of Sarah Bernhardt.

Sarah Bernhardt and the Théâtre de l'Odéon (1866–1872)

To support herself after the birth of Maurice, Bernhardt played minor roles and understudies at the Porte-Saint-Martin, a popular melodrama theatre.

In early 1866, she obtained a reading with Felix Duquesnel, director of the Théâtre de L’Odéon on the Left Bank. Duquesnel described the reading years later, saying:

"I had before me a creature who

was marvellously gifted, intelligent

to the point of genius, with enormous

energy under an appearance frail and

delicate, and a savage will."

The co-director of the theatre, Charles de Chilly, wanted to reject Sarah as unreliable and too thin, but Duquesnel was enchanted; he hired her for the theatre at a modest salary of 150 francs a month, which he paid out of his own pocket.

The Odéon was second in prestige only to the Comédie Française, and unlike that very traditional theatre, specialised in more modern productions. The Odéon was popular with the students of the Left Bank.

Sarah's first performances at the Odéon were not successful. She was cast in highly stylised and frivolous 18th.-century comedies, whereas her strong point on stage was her complete sincerity.

Sarah's thin figure also made her look ridiculous in the ornate costumes. Dumas, her strongest supporter, commented after one performance:

"She has the head of a virgin

and the body of a broomstick."

Soon, however, with different plays and more experience, her performances improved; Sarah was praised for her performance of Cordelia in 'King Lear'. In June 1867, she played two roles in 'Athalie' by Jean Racine: the part of a young woman and a young boy, Zacharie, the first of many male parts she played in her career. The influential critic Sarcey wrote

'She charmed her audience

like a little Orpheus.'

Sarah's breakthrough performance was in the 1868 revival of 'Kean' by Alexandre Dumas, in which she played the female lead part of Anna Danby. The play was interrupted in the beginning by disturbances in the audience by young spectators who called out:

"Down with Dumas!

Give us Hugo!"

Bernhardt addressed the audience directly:

"Friends, you wish to defend the

cause of justice. Are you doing it

by making Monsieur Dumas

responsible for the banishment of

Monsieur Hugo?"

With this, the audience laughed and applauded, and then fell silent. At the final curtain, she received an enormous ovation, and Dumas hurried backstage to congratulate her. When she exited the theatre, a crowd had gathered at the stage door and tossed flowers at her. Her salary was immediately raised to 250 francs a month.

Sarah's next success was her performance in François Coppée's 'Le Passant', which premiered at the Odéon on the 14th. January 1868, playing the part of the boy troubadour, Zanetto, in a romantic renaissance tale. Critic Theophile Gautier described the 'delicate and tender charm' of her performance.

'Le Passant' played for 150 performances, plus a command performance at the Tuileries Palace for Napoleon III and his court. Afterwards, the Emperor sent her a brooch with his initials written in diamonds.

In her memoirs, Sarah wrote of her time at the Odéon:

"It was the theatre that I loved the most,

and that I only left with regret. We all

loved each other. Everyone was gay.

The theatre was a like a continuation of

school. All the young came there...

I remember my few months at the

Comédie Française. That little world was

stiff, gossipy, jealous.

I remember my few months at the Gymnase.

There they talked only about dresses and

hats, and chattered about a hundred things

that had nothing to do with art.

At the Odéon, I was happy. We thought only

of putting on plays. We rehearsed mornings,

afternoons, all the time. I adored that."

Bernhardt lived with her longtime friend and assistant Madame Guerard and her son in a small cottage in the suburb of Auteuil, and drove herself to the theatre in a small carriage. She developed a close friendship with the writer George Sand, and performed in two plays that she had written.

Sarah received celebrities in her dressing room, including Gustave Flaubert and Leon Gambetta. In 1869, as she became more prosperous, she moved to a larger seven-room apartment at 16 Rue Auber in the centre of Paris. Her mother began to visit her for the first time in years, and her Orthodox Jewish grandmother moved into the apartment to take care of Maurice.

Bernhardt added a maid and a cook to her household, as well as the beginning of a collection of animals; she had one or two dogs with her at all times, and two turtles moved freely around the apartment.

In 1868, a fire completely destroyed Sarah's apartment, along with all of her belongings. She had neglected to purchase insurance. The brooch presented to her by the Emperor and her pearls melted, as did the tiara presented by one of her lovers, Khalid Bey. She found the diamonds in the ashes.

The managers of the Odéon organized a benefit performance for Sarah. The most famous soprano of the time, Adelina Patti, performed for free. In addition, the grandmother of her father donated 120,000 francs. Bernhardt was able to buy an even larger residence, with two salons and a large dining room, at 4 Rue de Rome.

Sarah Bernhardt's Wartime service at the Odéon (1870–1871)

The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War abruptly interrupted Sarah's theatrical career. The news of the defeat of the French Army, the surrender of Napoleon III at Sedan, and the proclamation of the Third French Republic on the 4th. September 1870 was followed by a siege of the city of Paris by the Prussian Army.

Paris was cut off from news and from its food supply, and the theatres were closed. Bernhardt took charge of converting the Odéon into a hospital for soldiers wounded in the battles outside the city. She organized the placement of 32 beds in the lobby and in the foyers, brought in her personal chef to prepare soup for the patients, and persuaded her wealthy friends and admirers to donate supplies to the hospital.

Besides organising the hospital, Sarah worked as a nurse, assisting the chief surgeon with amputations and operations. When the coal supply of the city ran out, Bernhardt used old scenery, benches, and stage props for fuel to heat the theatre. In early January 1871, after 16 weeks of siege, the Germans began to bombard the city with long-range artillery. The patients had to be moved to the cellar, and before long, the hospital was forced to close.

Bernhardt arranged for serious cases to be transferred to another military hospital, and she rented an apartment on Rue de Provence to house the remaining 20 patients. By the end of the siege, Bernhardt's hospital had cared for more than 150 wounded soldiers, including a young undergraduate from the École Polytechnique, Ferdinand Foch, who later commanded the Allied armies in the First World War.

The French government signed an armistice on the 19th. January 1871, and Bernhardt learned that her son and family had been moved to Hamburg. She went to the new chief executive of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, and obtained a pass to go to Germany to bring them back.

When she returned to Paris several weeks later, the city was under the rule of the Paris Commune. She moved again, taking her family to Saint-Germain-en-Laye. She later returned to her apartment on the Rue de Rome in May, after the Commune was defeated by the French Army.

The Tuileries Palace, the City Hall of Paris, and many other public buildings had been burned by the Commune or damaged in the fighting, but the Odéon was still intact.

Charles-Marie Chilly, the co-director of the Odéon, came to her apartment, where Bernhardt received him reclining on a sofa. He announced that the theatre would re-open in October 1871, and he asked her to play the lead in a new play, 'Jean-Marie' by André Theuriet. Bernhardt replied that she was finished with the theatre, and was going to move to Brittany in order to start a farm.

Chilly, who knew Bernhardt's moods well, told her that he understood and accepted her decision, and would give the role to Jane Essler, a rival actress. According to Chilly, Bernhardt immediately jumped up from the sofa and asked:

"When are the rehearsals beginning?"

'Jean-Marie', featuring a young Breton woman forced by her father to marry an old man she did not love, was another critical and popular success for Bernhardt. The critic Sarcey wrote:

'She has the sovereign grace, the

penetrating charm, the I don't

know what. She is a natural artist,

an incomparable artist.'

The directors of the Odéon next decided to stage 'Ruy Blas', a play written by Victor Hugo in 1838, with Bernhardt playing the role of the Queen of Spain. Hugo himself attended all the rehearsals. At first, Bernhardt pretended to be indifferent to him, but he gradually won her over, and she became a fervent admirer.

The play premiered on the 16th. January 1872. The opening night was attended by the Prince of Wales and by Hugo himself; after the performance, Hugo approached Bernhardt, dropped to one knee, and kissed her hand. After the 100th. performance of 'Ruy Blas', Hugo gave a dinner for Bernhardt and her friends, toasting:

"My adorable Queen

and her Golden Voice."

'Ruy Blas' played to packed houses. A few months after it opened, Bernhardt received an invitation from Emile Perrin, Director of the Comédie Française, asking if she would return, and offering her 12,000 francs a year, compared with less than 10,000 at the Odéon. Bernhardt asked Chilly if he would match the offer, but he refused.

Always pressed by her growing expenses and growing household to earn more money, she announced her departure from the Odéon when she finished the run of 'Ruy Blas'. Chilly responded with a lawsuit, and she was forced to pay 6,000 francs in damages.

Sarah Bernhardt and the Comédie Française

Sarah returned to the Comédie Française on the 1st. October 1872, and quickly took on some of the most famous and demanding roles in French theatre. She played Junie in 'Britannicus' by Jean Racine, the male role of Cherubin in 'The Marriage of Figaro' by Pierre Beaumarchais, and the lead in Voltaire's five-act tragedy 'Zaïre'.

In 1873, with just 74 hours to learn the lines and practise the part, Sarah played the lead in Racine's 'Phédre', playing opposite the celebrated tragedian, Jean Mounet-Sully, who soon became her lover. The leading French critic Sarcey wrote:

'This is nature itself served by marvellous

intelligence, by a soul of fire, by the most

melodious voice that ever enchanted

human ears. This woman plays with her

heart, with her entrails.'

Phédre became her most famous classical role, performed over the years around the world, often for audiences who knew little or no French; she made them understand by her voice and gestures.

In 1877, Sarah had another success as Dona Sol in 'Hernani', a tragedy written 47 years earlier by Victor Hugo. Her lover in the play was her lover off-stage, as well, Mounet-Sully. Hugo himself was in the audience. The next day, he sent her a note:

"Madame, you were great and charming;

you moved me, me the old warrior, and,

at a certain moment when the public,

touched and enchanted by you, applauded,

I wept. The tear which you caused me to

shed is yours. I place it at your feet."

The note was accompanied by a tear-shaped pearl on a gold bracelet.

Sarah maintained a highly theatrical lifestyle in her house on the Rue de Rome. She kept a satin-lined coffin in her bedroom, and occasionally slept in it, or lay in it to study her roles, though, contrary to popular belief, she never took it with her on her travels.

Sarah cared for her younger sister who was ill with tuberculosis, and allowed her to sleep in her own bed, while she slept in the coffin. She posed in it for photographs, adding to the legends she created about herself.

Bernhardt repaired her old relationships with the other members of the Comédie Française; she participated in a benefit for Madame Nathalie, the actress she had once slapped. However, she was frequently in conflict with Perrin, the director of the theater.

In 1878, during the Paris Universal Exposition, she took a flight over Paris with balloonist Pierre Giffard, in a balloon decorated with the name of her current character, Dona Sol. However, an unexpected storm carried the balloon far outside of Paris to a small town.

When she returned by train to the city, Perrin was furious; he fined Bernhardt a thousand francs, citing a theatre rule which required actors to request permission before they left Paris. Bernhardt refused to pay, and threatened to resign from the Comédie. Perrin recognised that he could not afford to let her go. Perrin and the Minister of Fine Arts arranged a compromise; she withdrew her resignation, and in return was raised to a Societaire, the highest rank of the theatre.

Triumph in London and Departure from the Comédie Française (1879–1880)

Bernhardt was earning a substantial amount at the theatre, but her expenses were even greater. By this time she had eight servants, and she built her first house, an imposing mansion on rue Fortuny, not far from the Parc Monceau. She looked for additional ways to earn money.

In June 1879, while the theatre of the Comédie Française in Paris was being remodelled, Perrin took the company on tour to London. Shortly before the tour began, a British theatre impresario named Edward Jarrett travelled to Paris and proposed that she give private performances in the homes of wealthy Londoners; the fee she would receive for each performance was greater than her monthly salary with the Comédie.

When Perrin read in the press about the private performances, he was furious. Furthermore, the Gaiety Theatre in London demanded that Bernhardt star in the opening performance, contrary to the traditions of Comédie Française, where roles were assigned by seniority, and the idea of stardom was scorned.

When Perrin protested, saying that Bernhardt was only 10th. or 11th. in seniority, the Gaiety manager threatened to cancel the performance; Perrin had to give in. He scheduled Bernhardt to perform one act of 'Phèdre' on the opening night, between two traditional French comedies, 'Le Misanthrope' and 'Les Précieuses'.

On the 4th. June 1879, just before the opening curtain of her premiere in 'Phèdre', she suffered an attack of stage fright. She wrote later that she also pitched her voice too high, and was unable to lower it. Nonetheless, the performance was a triumph. Though most of the audience could not understand Racine's classical French, she captivated them with her voice and gestures; one member of the audience, Sir George Arthur, wrote that:

"She set every nerve and fibre in

their bodies throbbing, and held

them spellbound."

In addition to her performances of 'Zaire', 'Phèdre', 'Hernani', and other plays with her troupe, she gave the private recitals in the homes of British aristocrats arranged by Jarrett, who also arranged an exhibition of her sculptures and paintings in Piccadilly. This was attended by both the Prince of Wales and Prime Minister Gladstone.

While in London, Sarah added to her personal menagerie of animals by buying three dogs, a parrot, and a monkey. She also made a side trip to Liverpool, where she purchased a cheetah, a parrot, and a wolfhound, as well as receiving a gift of six chameleons, which she kept in her rented house on Chester Square, before taking them all back to Paris.

Having returned to Paris, Sarah was increasingly discontented with Perrin and the management of the Comédie Française. He insisted that she perform the lead in a new play, 'L'Aventurière' by Emile Augier, a play which she thought was mediocre. When she rehearsed the play without enthusiasm, and frequently forgot her lines, she was criticised by the playwright.

She responded:

"I know I'm bad, but not

as bad as your lines."

The play went ahead, but was a failure. She wrote immediately to Perrin:

"You forced me to play when I

was not ready... what I foresaw

came to pass... this is my first

failure at the Comédie and my

last."

Sarah sent a resignation letter to Perrin, made copies, and sent them to all the major newspapers. Perrin sued her for breach of contract; the court ordered her to pay 100,000 francs, plus interest, and she lost her accrued pension of 43,000 francs. She did not settle the debt until 1900.

Later, however, when the Comédie Française theatre was nearly destroyed by fire, she allowed her old troupe to use her own theatre.

'La Dame aux Camélias' and the first American tour (1880–1881)

In April 1880, as soon as he learned Bernhardt had resigned from the Comédie Française, the impresario Edward Jarrett hurried to Paris and proposed that she make a theatrical tour of England and then the United States. She could select her repertoire and the cast. She would receive 5,000 francs per performance, plus 15% of any earnings over 150,000 francs, plus all of her expenses, plus an account in her name for 100,000 francs, the amount she owed to the Comédie Française. Sarah accepted immediately.

Now on her own, Bernhardt first assembled and tried out her new troupe at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris. She performed for the first time 'La Dame aux Camélias', by Alexandre Dumas. She did not create the role; the play had first been performed by Eugénie Dochein in 1852, but it quickly became Sarah's most performed and most famous role. She eventually played the role more than a thousand times, and acted regularly and successfully in it until the end of her life. Audiences were often in tears during her famous death scene at the end.

Sarah could not perform 'La Dame aux Camélias' on a London stage because of British censorship laws; instead, she put on four of her proven successes, including 'Hernani' and 'Phèdre', plus four new roles, including 'Adrienne Lecouvreur' by Eugène Scribe and the drawing-room comedy 'Frou-Frou' by Meilhac-Halévy, both of which were highly successful in London.

In six of the eight plays in her repertoire, Sarah died dramatically in the final act. When she returned to Paris from London, the Comédie Française asked her to come back, but she refused their offer, explaining that she was making far more money on her own. Instead, she took her new company and new plays on tour to Brussels and Copenhagen, and then on a tour of French provincial cities.

Sarah and her troupe departed from Le Havre for America on the 15th. October 1880, arriving in New York on the 27th. October. On the 8th. November, she performed Scribe's 'Adrienne Lecouvreur' at Booth's Theatre before an audience which had paid a top price of $40 for a ticket, an enormous sum at the time.

Few in the audience understood French, but it was not necessary; her gestures and voice captivated the audience, and she received a thunderous ovation. She thanked the audience with her distinctive curtain call; she did not bow, but stood perfectly still, with her hands clasped under her chin, or with her palms on her cheeks, and then suddenly stretched them out to the audience.

After her first performance in New York, she made 27 curtain calls. However, although she was welcomed by theatre-goers, she was entirely ignored by New York high society, who considered her personal life scandalous.

Bernhardt's first American tour carried her to 157 performances in 51 cities. She travelled on a special train with her own luxurious palace car, which carried her two maids, two cooks, a waiter, her maitre d'hôtel, and her personal assistant, Madame Guérard. It also carried an actor named Édouard Angelo whom she had selected to serve as her leading man, and, according to most accounts, her lover during the tour.

From New York, Sarah made a side trip to Menlo Park, where she met Thomas Edison, who made a brief recording of her reciting a verse from Phèdre, which has not survived. She crisscrossed the United States and Canada from Montreal and Toronto to Saint Louis and New Orleans, usually performing each evening, and departing immediately after the performance.

Sarah gave countless press interviews, and in Boston posed for photos on the back of a dead whale. She was condemned as immoral by the Bishop of Montreal and by the Methodist press, which only increased ticket sales.

Sarah performed 'Phèdre' six times and 'La Dame aux Camélias' 65 times (which Jarrett had renamed 'Camille' to make it easier for Americans to pronounce, despite the fact that no character in the play has that name).

On the 3rd. May 1881, Sarah gave her final performance of 'La Dame aux Camélias' in New York. Throughout her life, she always insisted on being paid in cash. When Bernhardt returned to France, she brought with her a chest filled with $194,000 in gold coins. She described the result of her trip to her friends:

"I crossed the oceans, carrying my

dream of art in myself, and the genius

of my nation triumphed.

I planted the French verb in the heart

of a foreign literature, and it is that of

which I am most proud."

Return to Paris, European tour, Fédora to Theodora (1881–1886)

No crowd greeted Bernhardt when she returned to Paris on the 5th. May 1881, and theatre managers offered no new roles; the Paris press ignored her tour, and much of the Paris theatre world resented her leaving the most prestigious national theatre to earn a fortune abroad.

When no new plays or offers appeared, she went to London for a successful three-week run at the Gaiety Theatre. This London tour included the first British performance of 'La Dame aux Camelias' at the Shaftesbury Theatre; her friend, the Prince of Wales, had persuaded Queen Victoria to authorise the performance. Many years later, Sarah gave a private performance of the play for the Queen while she was on holiday in Nice.

When she returned to Paris, Bernhardt contrived to make a surprise performance at the annual 14th. July patriotic spectacle at the Paris Opera, which was attended by the President of France, and a houseful of dignitaries and celebrities.

Sarah recited the Marseillaise, dressed in a white robe with a tricolor banner, and at the end dramatically waved the French flag. The audience gave her a standing ovation, showered her with flowers, and demanded that she recite the song two more times.

With her place in the French theatre world restored, Bernhardt negotiated a contract to perform at the Vaudeville Theatre in Paris for 1,500 francs per performance, as well as 25 percent of the net profit. She also announced that she would not be available to begin until 1882.

She departed on a tour of theatres in the French provinces, and then on to Italy, Greece, Hungary, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Austria, and Russia. In Kiev and Odessa, she encountered anti-Semitic crowds who threw stones at her; pogroms were being conducted, forcing the Jewish population to leave.

However, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, she performed before Czar Alexander III, who broke court protocol and bowed to her. During her tour, she also gave performances for King Alfonso XII of Spain, and the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

The only European country where she refused to play was Germany, due to the German annexation of French territory after the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War.

When she returned to Paris, she was offered a new role in 'Fédora', a melodrama written for her by Victorien Sardou. It opened on the 12th. December 1882, with her husband Damala as the male lead. The play received good reviews. Critic Maurice Baring wrote:

'A secret atmosphere emanated from her,

an aroma, an attraction, which was at once

exotic and cerebral. She literally hypnotised

her audience.'

Another journalist wrote,

'She is incomparable ... The extreme love,

the extreme agony, the extreme suffering.'

However, the abrupt end of her marriage shortly after the premiere put her back into financial distress. She had leased and refurbished a theatre, the 'Ambigu', specifically to give her husband Damala leading roles, and made her 18-year-old son Maurice, who had no business experience, the manager.

'Fédora' ran for just 50 performances and lost 400,000 francs. She was forced to give up the Ambigu, and then, in February 1883, to sell her jewellery, her carriages, and her horses at an auction.

When Damala left, she took on a new leading man and lover, the poet and playwright Jean Richepin, who accompanied her on a quick tour of European cities to help pay off her debts. She renewed her relationship with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.

When they returned to Paris, Bernhardt leased the theatre of Porte-Saint-Martin and starred in a new play by Richepin, 'Nana-Sahib', a costume drama about love in British India in 1857. The play and Richepin's acting were poor, and it quickly closed. Richepin then wrote an adaptation of 'Macbeth' in French, with Bernhardt as Lady Macbeth, but it was also a failure.

The only person who praised the play was Oscar Wilde, who was then living in Paris. He began writing a play, 'Salomé', in French, especially for Bernhardt, though it was quickly banned by British censors, and Sarah never performed it.

Bernhardt then performed a new play by Sardou, 'Theodora' (1884), a melodrama set in sixth-century Byzantium. Sardou wrote a non-historic but dramatic new death scene for Bernhardt; in his version, the empress was publicly strangled, whereas the historical empress died of cancer.

Bernhardt travelled to Ravenna, Italy, to study and sketch the costumes seen in Byzantine mosaic murals, and had them reproduced for her own costumes. The play opened on the 26th. December 1884 and ran for 300 performances in Paris, and 100 in London, and was a financial success.

Sarah was able to pay off most of her debts, and bought a lion cub, which she named Justinian, for her home menagerie. She also renewed her love affair with her former lead actor, Philippe Garnier.

World tours (1886–1892)

Theodora was followed by two failures. In 1885, in homage to Victor Hugo, who had died a few months earlier, she staged one of his older plays, 'Marion Delorme', written in 1831, but the play was outdated, and her role did not give her a chance to show her talents. She next put on 'Hamlet', with Philippe Garnier in the leading role and Bernhardt in the relatively minor role of Ophelia. The critics and audiences were not impressed, and the play was unsuccessful.

Bernhardt had built up large expenses, which included a 10,000 francs a month allowance paid to her son Maurice, a passionate gambler. Bernhardt was forced to sell her chalet in Sainte-Addresse and her mansion on Rue Fortuny, and part of her collection of animals.

Her impresario, Edouard Jarrett, immediately proposed she make another world tour, this time to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Panama, Cuba, and Mexico, then on to Texas, New York, England, Ireland, and Scotland.

Sarah was on tour for 15 months, from early 1886 until late 1887. On the eve of departure, she told a French reporter:

"I passionately love this life of adventures.

I detest knowing in advance what they are

going to serve at my dinner, and I detest a

hundred thousand times more knowing

what will happen to me, for better or worse.

I adore the unexpected."

In every city she visited, she was feted and cheered by audiences. Emperor Pedro II of Brazil attended all of her performances in Rio de Janeiro, and presented her with a gold bracelet with diamonds, which was almost immediately stolen from her hotel.

The two leading actors both fell ill with yellow fever, and her long-time manager, Edward Jarrett, died of a heart attack. Bernhardt was undaunted, however, and went crocodile hunting at Guayaquil, and also bought more animals for her menagerie.

Her performances in every city were sold out, and by the end of the tour, she had earned more than a million francs. The tour allowed her to purchase her final home, which she filled with her paintings, plants, souvenirs, and animals.

From then on, whenever she ran short of money (which generally happened every three or four years), she went on tour, performing both her classics and new plays. In 1888, she toured Italy, Egypt, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. She returned to Paris in early 1889 with an enormous owl given to her by the Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovich, the brother of the Czar.

Sarah's 1891–92 tour was her most extensive, including much of Europe, Russia, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Samoa. Her personal luggage consisted of 45 costume crates for her 15 different productions, and 75 crates for her off-stage clothing, including her 250 pairs of shoes. She carried a trunk for her perfumes, cosmetics and makeup, and another for her sheets and tablecloths and her five pillows.

After the tour, she brought back a trunk filled with 3,500,000 francs, but she had also suffered a painful injury to her knee when she leaped off the parapet of the Castello Sant' Angelo in 'La Tosca'. The mattress on which she was supposed to land was misplaced, and she landed on the boards.

La Tosca to Cleopatra (1887–1893)

When Bernhardt returned from her 1886–87 tour, she received a new invitation to return to the Comédie Française. The theatre management was willing to forget the conflict of her two previous periods there, and offered a payment of 150,000 francs a year.

The money appealed to her, and she began negotiations. However, the senior members of the company protested the high salary offered, and conservative defenders of the more traditional theatre also complained; one anti-Bernhardt critic, Albert Delpit of 'Le Gaulois', wrote:

'Madame Sarah Bernhardt is forty-three;

she can no longer be useful to the Comédie.

Moreover, what roles could she have?

I can only imagine that she could play mothers'.

Bernhardt was deeply offended, and immediately broke off negotiations. She turned once again to Sardou, who had written a new play for her, 'La Tosca', which featured a prolonged and extremely dramatic death scene at the end.

The play was staged at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, opening on the 24th. November 1887. It was extremely popular, and critically acclaimed. Bernhardt played the role for 29 consecutive sold-out performances.

The success of 'La Tosca' allowed Bernhardt to buy a new pet lion for her household menagerie. She named him Scarpia, after the villain of 'La Tosca'. The play inspired Giacomo Puccini to write one of his most famous operas, 'Tosca' (1900).

Following this success, Sarah acted in several revivals and classics, and many French writers offered her new plays. In 1887, she acted in a stage version of the controversial drama 'Thérèse Raquin' by Emile Zola. Zola had previously been attacked due to the book's confronting content. Asked why she chose this play, she declared to reporters:

"My true country is the free air,

and my vocation is art without

constraints."

The play was unsuccessful; it ran for just 38 performances. She then performed another traditional melodrama, 'Francillon' by Alexandre Dumas in 1888. A short drama Sarah wrote herself, 'l'Aveu', disappointed both critics and the audience, and lasted only 12 performances.

Sarah had considerably more success with 'Jeanne d'Arc' by the poet Jules Barbier, in which the 45-year-old actress played Joan of Arc, a 19-year-old martyr.

Sarah's next success was another melodrama by Sardou and Moreau, 'Cleopatra', which allowed her to wear elaborate costumes and finished with a memorable death scene. For this scene, she kept two live garter snakes, which played the role of the poisonous asp which bites Cleopatra. For realism, she painted the palms of her hands red, though they could hardly be seen from the audience. Sarah explained:

"I shall see them. If I catch sight

of my hand, it will be the hand

of Cleopatra."

Bernhardt's violent portrayal of Cleopatra led to the theatrical story of a matron in the audience exclaiming to her companion:

"How unlike, how very unlike, the

home life of our own dear Queen!"

Théâtre de la Renaissance (1893–1899)

Bernhardt made a two-year world tour (1891–1893) to replenish her finances. Upon returning to Paris, she paid 700,000 francs for the Théâtre de la Renaissance, and from 1893 until 1899, was its artistic director and lead actress.

She managed every aspect of the theatre, from the finances to the lighting, sets, and costumes, as well as appearing in eight performances a week.

Sarah imposed a rule that women in the audience, no matter how wealthy or famous, had to take off their hats during performances, so the rest of the audience could see, and eliminated the prompter's box from the stage, declaring that actors should know their lines.

She abolished in her theatre the common practice of hiring claqueurs in the audience to applaud stars. She used the new technology of lithography to produce vivid colour posters, and in 1894, she hired Czech artist Alphonse Mucha to design the first of a series of posters for her play 'Gismonda'. He continued to make posters for her for six years.

In five years, Bernhardt produced nine plays, three of which were financially successful. The first was a revival of her performance as 'Phédre', which she took on tour around the world. In 1898, she had another success, in the play 'Lorenzaccio', playing the male lead role in a Renaissance revenge drama written in 1834 by Alfred de Musset, but never before actually staged.

As her biographer Cornelia Otis Skinner wrote, she did not try to be overly masculine when she performed male roles:

'Her male impersonations had the

sexless grace of the voices of

choirboys, or the not quite real

pathos of Pierrot.'

Anatole France wrote of her performance in 'Lorenzaccio':

'She formed out of her own self

a young man melancholic, full of

poetry and of truth.'

This was followed by another successful melodrama by Sardou, 'Gismonda', one of Bernhardt's few plays not finishing with a dramatic death scene. Her co-star was Lucien Guitry, who also acted as her leading man until the end of her career. Besides Guitry, she shared the stage with Edouard de Max, her leading man in 20 productions, and Constant Coquelin, who frequently toured with her.

In April 1895, she played the lead role in a romantic and poetic fantasy, 'Princess Lointaine', by the little-known 27-year-old poet Edmond Rostand. It was not a monetary success and lost 200,000 francs, but it began a long theatrical relationship between Bernhardt and Rostand. Rostand went on to write 'Cyrano de Bergerac' and became one of the most popular French playwrights of the period.

In 1898, she performed the female lead in the controversial play 'La Ville Morte' by the Italian poet and playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio; the play was fiercely attacked by critics because of its theme of incest between brother and sister.

Along with Emile Zola and Victorien Sardou, Bernhardt also became an outspoken defender of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer falsely accused of betraying France. The issue divided Parisian society; a conservative newspaper ran the headline:

'Sarah Bernhardt has joined

the Jews against the Army'.

Even Bernhardt's own son Maurice condemned Dreyfus; he refused to speak to her for a year.

At the Théâtre de la Renaissance, Bernhardt staged and performed in several modern plays, but she was not a follower of the more natural school of acting that was coming into fashion at the end of the 19th. century, preferring a more dramatic expression of emotions. She declared:

"In the theatre the natural is good,

but the sublime is even better."

Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt (1899–1900)

Despite her successes, Sarah's debts continued to mount, reaching two million gold francs by the end of 1898. Bernhardt was forced to give up the Renaissance, and was preparing to go on another world tour when she learned that a much larger Paris theatre, the Théâtre des Nations on the Place du Châtelet, was for lease. The theatre had 1,700 seats, twice the size of the Renaissance, enabling her to pay off the cost of performances more quickly; it had an enormous stage and backstage, allowing her to present several different plays a week; and since it was originally designed as a concert hall, it had excellent acoustics. On the 1st. January 1899, she signed a 25-year lease with the City of Paris, though she was already 55 years old.

She renamed it the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, and began to renovate it to suit her needs. The façade was lit by 5,700 electric bulbs, 17 arc lights, and 11 projectors. She completely redecorated the interior, replacing the red plush and gilt with yellow velvet, brocade, and white woodwork. The lobby was decorated with life-sized portraits of her in her most famous roles.

Her dressing room was a five-room suite, which, after the success of her Napoleonic play 'l'Aiglon', was decorated in Empire Style, featuring a marble fireplace with a fire Bernhardt kept burning all year round, a huge bathtub that was filled with the flowers she received after each performance, and a dining room seating 12 people, where she entertained guests after the final curtain.

Bernhardt opened the theatre on the 21st. January 1899 with a revival of Sardou's 'La Tosca', which she had first performed in 1887. This was followed by revivals of her other major successes, including 'Phédre', 'Theodora', 'Gismonda', and 'La Dame aux Camélias', plus Octave Feuillet's 'Dalila', Gaston de Wailly's 'Patron Bénic', and Rostand's 'La Samaritaine'.

On the 20th. May, Sarah premiered one of her most famous roles, playing the titular character of Hamlet in a prose adaptation. She played Hamlet in a manner which was direct, natural, and very feminine. Her performance received largely positive reviews in Paris, but mixed reviews in London. The British critic Max Beerbohm wrote:

'The only compliment one can

conscientiously pay her is that

her Hamlet was, from first to last,

a truly grand dame.'

In 1900, Bernhardt presented 'l'Aiglon', a new play by Rostand. She played the Duc de Reichstadt, the son of Napoleon Bonaparte, imprisoned by his unloving mother and family until his melancholy death in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. 'l'Aiglon' was a verse drama, six acts long.

The 56-year-old actress studied the walk and posture of young cavalry officers, and had her hair cut short to impersonate the young Duke. The Duke's stage mother, Marie-Louise of Austria, was played by Maria Legault, an actress 14 years younger than Bernhardt. The play ended with a memorable death scene; according to one critic:

'She died as dying angels would

die if they were allowed to."

The play was extremely successful; it was especially popular with visitors to the 1900 Paris International Exposition, and ran for nearly a year, with standing-room places selling for as much as 600 gold francs.

The play inspired the creation of Bernhardt souvenirs, including statuettes, medallions, fans, perfumes, postcards of her in the role, uniforms and cardboard swords for children, and pastries and cakes; the famed chef Escoffier added Peach Aiglon with Chantilly Cream to his repertoire of desserts.

Bernhardt continued to employ Mucha to design her posters, and expanded his work to include theatrical sets, programs, costumes, and jewellery props. His posters became icons of the Art Nouveau style. To earn more money, Bernhardt set aside a certain number of printed posters of each play to sell to collectors.

Farewell tours (1901–1913)

After her season in Paris, Bernhardt performed 'l'Aiglon' in London, and then made her sixth tour of the United States. On this tour, she travelled with Constant Coquelin, then the most popular leading man in France.

Bernhardt played the secondary role of Roxanne to his Cyrano de Bergerac, a role which he had premiered, and he co-starred with her as Flambeau in 'l'Aiglon' and as the first grave-digger in 'Hamlet'.

Sarah also changed, for the first time, her resolution not to perform in Germany or the "occupied territories" of Alsace and Lorraine. In 1902, at the invitation of the French Ministry of Culture, she took part in the first cultural exchange between Germany and France since the 1870 war. She performed 'l'Aiglon' 14 times in Germany; Kaiser William II of Germany attended two performances and hosted a dinner in her honour in Potsdam.

During her German tour, she began to suffer agonising pain in her right knee, probably connected with the fall she had suffered on stage during her tour in South America. She was forced to reduce her movements in l'Aiglon.

A German doctor recommended that she halt the tour immediately and have surgery, followed by six months of complete immobilisation of her leg. Bernhardt promised to see a doctor when she returned to Paris, but continued the tour.

In 1903, she had another unsuccessful role playing another masculine character in the opera 'Werther', a gloomy adaptation of the story by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

However, Sarah quickly came back with another hit, 'La Sorcière' by Sardou. She played a Moorish sorceress in love with a Christian Spaniard, leading to her persecution by the church. This story of tolerance, coming soon after the Dreyfus affair, was financially successful, with Bernhardt often giving both a matinee and evening performance.

Between 1904 and 1906, Sarah appeared in a wide range of parts, including in 'Francesca di Rimini' by Francis Marion Crawford, the role of Fanny in 'Sappho' by Alphonse Daudet, the magician Circe in a play by Charles Richet, and the part of Marie Antoinette in the historical drama 'Varennes' by Lavedan and Lenôtre.

Sarah also played the part of the prince-poet Landry in a version of 'Sleeping Beauty' by Richepin and Henri Cain, and a new version of the play 'Pelléas and Mélissande' by Maurice Maeterlinck, in which she played the male role of Pelléas with the British actress Mrs Patrick Campbell as Mélissande.

Sarah also starred in a new version of 'Adrienne Lecouvreur', which she wrote herself, departing from the earlier version which had been written for her by Scribe.

During this time, she wrote a drama, 'Un Coeur d'Homme', in which she had no part, which was performed at the Théâtre des Arts, but lasted only three performances. She also taught acting briefly at the Conservatory, but found the system there too rigid and traditional. Instead, she took aspiring actresses and actors into her company, trained them, and used them as unpaid extras and bit players.

Bernhardt made her first American Farewell Tour in 1905–1906, the first of four farewell tours she made to the US, Canada, and Latin America, with her new managers, the Shubert brothers.

Sarah attracted controversy and press attention when, during her 1905 visit to Montreal, the Roman Catholic bishop encouraged his followers to throw eggs at Bernhardt, because she portrayed prostitutes as sympathetic characters.

The US portion of the tour was complicated due to the Shuberts' competition with the powerful syndicate of theatre owners who controlled nearly all the major theatres and opera houses in the United States. The syndicate did not allow outside producers to use their stages.

As a result, in Texas and Kansas City, Bernhardt and her company performed under an enormous circus tent, seating 4,500 spectators, and in skating rinks in Atlanta, Savannah, Tampa, and other cities.

Her private train took her to Knoxville, Dallas, Denver, Tampa, Chattanooga, and Salt Lake City, then on to the West Coast. She could not play in San Francisco because of the recent 1906 earthquake, but she performed across the bay in the Hearst Greek Theatre at the University of California at Berkeley.

Sarah also gave a recital, entitled 'A Christmas Night during the Terror', for inmates at San Quentin penitentiary. (Johnny Cash - Sarah did it first!)

In April 1906 Bernhardt toured the ruins of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire, escorted by the critic Ashton Stevens.

Sarah's tour continued into South America, where it was marred by a more serious event: at the conclusion of 'La Tosca' in Rio de Janeiro, she leaped, as always, from the wall of the fortress to plunge to her death in the Tiber. This time, however, the mattress on which she was supposed to land had been positioned incorrectly.

She landed on her right knee, which had already been damaged in earlier tours. She fainted, and was taken from the theatre on a stretcher, but refused to be treated in a local hospital. She later sailed by ship from Rio to New York. When she arrived, her leg had swollen, and she was immobilised in her hotel for 15 days before returning to France.

In 1906–1907, the French government finally awarded Bernhardt the Legion of Honour, but only in her role as a theatre director, not as an actress. The award at that time required a review of the recipient's moral standards, and Bernhardt's behaviour was still considered scandalous.

Bernhardt ignored the snub, and continued to play both inoffensive and controversial characters. In November 1906, she starred in 'La Vierge d'Avila, ou La Courtisan de Dieu', by Catulle Mendes, playing Saint Theresa, followed on the 27th. January 1907 by 'Les Bouffons', by Miguel Zamocois, in which she played a young and amorous medieval lord.

In 1909, she again played the 19-year-old Joan of Arc in 'Le Procès de Jeanne d'Arc' by Émile Moreau. French newspapers encouraged schoolchildren to view her personification of French patriotism.

Despite the injury to her leg, Sarah continued to go on tour every summer, when her own theatre in Paris was closed. In June 1908, she made a 20-day tour of Great Britain and Ireland, performing in 16 different cities.

In 1908–1909, she toured Russia and Poland. Her second American farewell tour (her eighth tour in America) began in late 1910. She took along a new leading man, the Dutch-born Lou Tellegen, a very handsome actor who had served as a model for the sculpture 'Eternal Springtime' by Auguste Rodin, and who became her co-star for the next two years, as well as her escort to all events, functions, and parties.

Lou was not a particularly good actor, and had a strong Dutch accent, but he was successful in roles such as Hippolyte in 'Phédre', where he could take off his shirt and show off his physique.

In New York, Sarah created yet another scandal when she appeared in the role of Judas Iscariot in 'Judas' by the American playwright John Wesley De Kay. It was performed in New York's Globe Theatre for only one night in December 1910 before it was banned by local authorities. It was also banned in Boston and Philadelphia.

In April 1912, Bernhardt presented a new production in her theatre, 'Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth', a romantic costume drama by Émile Moreau about Queen Elizabeth's romances with Robert Dudley and Robert Devereux.

It was lavish and expensive, but was a financial failure, lasting only 12 performances. Fortunately for Bernhardt, she was able to pay off her debt with the money she received from the American producer Adolph Zukor for a film version of the play.

Sarah departed on her third farewell tour of the United States in 1913–1914, when she was 69. Her leg had not yet fully healed, and she was unable to perform an entire play, only selected acts. She also separated from her co-star and lover of the time, Lou Tellegen. When the tour ended, he remained in the United States, where he briefly became a silent movie star, while she returned to France in May 1913.

Amputation of Sarah's Leg and Wartime Performances (1914–1918)

In December 1913, Bernhardt achieved another success with the drama 'Jeanne Doré'. On the 16th. March, she was made a Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur. Despite her successes, she was still short of money. She had made her son Maurice the director of her new theatre, and permitted him to use the receipts of the theatre to pay his gambling debts, eventually forcing her to pawn some of her jewels to pay her bills.

In 1914, she went as usual to her holiday home on Belle-Île with her family and close friends. There, she received the news of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the beginning of the Great War.

Sarah hurried back to Paris, which was threatened by an approaching German army. In September, Bernhardt was asked by the Minister of War to move to a safer place. She departed for a villa on the Bay of Arcachon, where her physician discovered that gangrene had developed on her injured leg.

She was transported to Bordeaux, where on the 22nd. February 1915, a surgeon amputated her leg almost to the hip. She refused the idea of an artificial leg, crutches, or a wheelchair, and instead was usually carried in a palanquin she had designed, supported by two long shafts and carried by two men. She had the chair decorated in the Louis XV style, with white sides and gilded trim.

She returned to Paris on the 15th. October, and, despite the loss of her leg, continued to go on stage at her theatre; scenes were arranged so she could be seated, or supported by a prop with her leg hidden. She took part in a patriotic 'scenic poem' by Eugène Morand, 'Les Cathédrales', playing the part of Strasbourg Cathedral; first, while seated, she recited a poem; then she hoisted herself up on her one leg, leaned against the arm of the chair, and declared:

"Weep, weep, Germany! The German

eagle has fallen into the Rhine!"

Bernhardt joined a troupe of famous French actors and travelled to the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Argonne, where she performed for soldiers who had just returned or were about to go into battle.

Propped on pillows in an armchair, she recited her patriotic speech at Strasbourg Cathedral. Another actress present at the event, Beatrix Dussanne, described her performance:

"The miracle again took place; Sarah,

old, mutilated, once more illuminated

a crowd by the rays of her genius.

This fragile creature, ill, wounded and

immobile, could still, through the magic

of the spoken word, re-instil heroism in

those soldiers weary from battle."

Sarah returned to Paris in 1916 and made two short films on patriotic themes, one based on the story of Joan of Arc, the other called 'Mothers of France'.

Sarah then embarked on her final American farewell tour. Despite the threat of German submarines, she crossed the Atlantic and toured the United States, performing in major cities including New York and San Francisco.

Bernhardt was diagnosed with uremia, and had to have an emergency kidney operation. She recuperated in Long Beach, California, for several months, writing short stories and novellas for publication in French magazines. In 1918, she returned to New York and boarded a ship to France, landing in Bordeaux on the 11th. November 1918, the day that the Armistice was signed ending the First World War.

Sarah Bernhardt - The Final years (1919–1923)

In 1920, Sarah resumed acting in her theatre, usually performing single acts of classics such as Racine's 'Athelée', which did not require much movement. For her curtain calls, she stood, balancing on one leg and gesturing with one arm.

She also starred in a new play, 'Daniel', written by her grandson-in-law, playwright Louis Verneuil. She played the male lead role, but appeared in just two acts. She took the play and other famous scenes from her repertory on a European tour and then for her last tour of England, where she gave a special performance for Queen Mary.

In 1921, Bernhardt made her last tour of the French provinces, lecturing about the theatre and reciting the poetry of Rostand. Later that year, she produced a new play by Rostand, 'La Gloire', and another play by Verneuil, 'Régine Arnaud' in 1922. She continued to entertain guests at her home. One such guest, French author Colette, described being served coffee by Bernhardt:

"The delicate and withered hand offering

the brimming cup, the flowery azure of the

eyes, so young still in their network of fine

lines, the questioning and mocking coquetry

of the tilted head, and that indescribable

desire to charm, to charm still, to charm

right up to the gates of death itself."

In 1922, Sarah began rehearsing a new play by Sacha Guitry, called 'Un Sujet de Roman'. On the night of the dress rehearsal she collapsed into a coma for an hour, then awakened with the words, "When do I go on?"

She recuperated for several months, before preparing for a new role as Cleopatra in 'Rodogune' by Corneille, and agreed to make a new film called 'La Voyante', for a payment of 10,000 francs a day.

The Death of Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah was too weak to travel, so a room in her house on Boulevard Pereire was set up as a film studio, with scenery, lights, and cameras. However, on the 21st. March 1923, Sarah collapsed again, and never recovered. She died at the age of 78 from uremia on the 26th. March 1923.

Sarah died peacefully in the arms of her son. At her request, her Funeral Mass was celebrated at the church of Saint-François-de-Sales, which she attended when she was in Paris.

The following day, 30,000 people attended her funeral to pay their respects, and an enormous crowd followed her casket from the church to Père Lachaise Cemetery.

As the sun is in the process of setting and shot from a vaporetto.

The Ca' Foscari (right) was the palace of the Foscari family, is a Gothic building on the waterfront of the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, Italy. It was built for the doge Francesco Foscari in 1453, and designed by the architect Bartolomeo Bon. It is now the main seat of Ca' Foscari University of Venice. The palace is located on the widest bend of the Grand Canal.

Beside it is the Palazzo Giustinian (left and middle), built in the late 15th century, perhaps with the participation of Bartolomeo Bon. is among the best examples of the late Venetian Gothic and was the final residence of Princess Louise Marie Thérèse of France.

Another commuter vaporetto is in the foreground.

Jean-Baptiste Languet de Gergy was parish priest at Eglise Saint-Sulpice in Paris from 1714 to 1748. He was the initiator of the construction of the Gnomon of Saint-Sulpice. Languet de Gergy initially wished to establish the exact astrological time in order to ring the bells at the most appropriate time of day. For this, he commissioned the English clockmaker Henry Sully to build the gnomon. A staunch moralist, Languet is famous for denying the sacraments to Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, Duchess of Berry, eldest daughter of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. At the end of March 1719, the young widow became critically "ill", shut up in a little chamber of her Luxembourg Palace. In fact, she was deep in the pangs of childbirth and as she seemed close to dying, Languet was called upon to administer her the sacraments. He refused unless the royal princess would part with her lover, the count of Riom, captain of her guard. The Regent tried to intervene on behalf of his suffering daughter but the inflexible curé did not yield. At last, the Duchess was delivered, ending the crisis but not the scandal provoked by Languet's refusal to turn a blind eye to her clandestine childbearing.

This colourful tile panel at the outer wall of the 'Brasserie Maria Louise' in the Grote Kerkstraat, Leeuwarden, is new and replaces an older mural. It shows Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel (7 February 1688 – 9 April 1765). She was a Dutch regent, Princess of Orange by marriage to Johan Willem Friso, Prince of Orange, and regent of the Netherlands during the minority of her son and her grandson. She was a daughter of Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, and Maria Amalia of Courland. She and her husband are the most recent common ancestors of all currently reigning monarchs in Europe. Note them at the bottom of the tableau!

Marie Louise is notable for having served as regent for two periods in Dutch history: during the reigns of her young son, William IV, Prince of Orange from 1711 and 1730, and of her young grandson, William V, Prince of Orange, from 1759 to 1765. She was often fondly referred to as Marijke Meu (Aunt Mary) by her Dutch subjects and well liked by the inhabitants of Leeuwarden.

Decorative memorial piece made by Royal Copenhagen in 1918 in order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of King Christian IX of Denmark (1818 - 1906).

"Christian married his second cousin, Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel, in 1842. Their six children married into other royal families across Europe, earning him the sobriquet "the father-in-law of Europe". Most current European monarchs are descended from him, including Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, King Philippe of Belgium, King Harald V of Norway, King Felipe VI of Spain, and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg. The British consort Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is also an agnatic descendant of Christian IX, as are Michael I of Romania and Constantine II of Greece, whose thrones have been abolished. Also, the queens consort Anne of Romania, Anne-Marie of Greece, and Queen Sofia of Spain are among his descendants." (Wikipedia)

Princess Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte of Belgium (21 May 1864 – 23 August 1945) was a Belgian princess who became Crown Princess of Austria through marriage to Crown Prince Rudolf, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Princess Stéphanie was the second daughter of King Leopold II of Belgium and Marie Henriette of Austria. She married in Vienna on 10 May 1881, Crown Prince Rudolf, son and heir of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. They had one child, Archduchess Elisabeth Marie. Stéphanie's marriage quickly became fragile. Rudolf, depressed and disappointed by politics, had multiple extramarital affairs, and contracted a venereal disease that he transmitted to his wife, rendering her unable to conceive again. In 1889, Rudolf and his mistress Mary Vetsera were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide pact at the imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods.

In 1900, Stéphanie married again, to Count Elemér Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény, a Hungarian nobleman of lower rank; for this, she was excluded from the House of Austria-Hungary. However, this second union was happy. After the death of her father in 1909, Stéphanie joined her older sister Louise to claim from the Belgian courts the share of the inheritance of which they both felt they had been stripped.

Until World War II, Count and Countess Lónyay (elevated to the princely rank in 1917) peacefully spent their lives at Rusovce Mansion in Slovakia. In 1935, Stéphanie published her memoirs, entitled Je devais être impératrice ("I Had to Be Empress"). In 1944, she disinherited her daughter, who had divorced to live with a socialist deputy and whom she had not seen since 1925. The arrival of the Red Army in April 1945, at the end of the war, forced Stéphanie and her husband to leave their residence and take refuge in the Pannonhalma Archabbey in Hungary. Stéphanie died of a stroke in the abbey later the same year.

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s363 Br.23 9844 Vienac1888 Kraljevna Stefanija Vienac Zabavi i pouci Tečaj XX Urednici V. Klaić i M. Maravić u Zagrebu Tisak Dioničke tiskare Princess Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte of Belgium (21 May 1864 – 23 August 1945)

Alchemical Dragons

ANDROG(ynous) – a mixed up DRAGON.

The Twin Pillars of Jachin and Boaz.

The ALCHEMical fusion of male and female to create a parthenogenic ‘HYBRID’.

The Chemical Wedding of Man and Woman, Mater and Pater, Sun and Moon, Mona and Lisa…

SOVEREIGN – to reign from above – the ‘HIGH BRID(e)’ – the monARCH.

The ROYAL Secret of the Knights Templars (York Rite) and the 32nd Degree (Scottish Rite)

solve et coagula – ‘dissolve and conjoin’

SUPERIUS - The HYBRID(e) - monARCH - Sovereign - GOLD

INFERIUS - Man and Woman - LEAD

The KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

Keepers of the ROYAL Secret

Angels and Demons – As Above, So Below

baPHomet worshippers

Christine of Mecklenburg-Güstrow (14 August 1663 – 3 August 1749) was a German noblewoman of the House of Mecklenburg and by marriage Countess of Stolberg-Gedern.

Between 1684 and 1705 she had 23 children in 19 pregnancies (including 4 sets of twins).

Gustav Adolph, Hereditary Prince of Stolberg-Gedern (born and died Gedern, 17 January 1684).

A daughter (born and died Gedern, 17 January 1684), twin of Gustav Adolph.

Gustav Ernest, Hereditary Prince of Stolberg-Gedern (Gedern, 10 March 1685 – Gedern, 14 June 1689).

Fredericka Charlotte (Gedern, 3 April 1686 – Laubach, 10 January 1739), married on 8 December 1709 to Frederick Ernest, Count of Solms-Laubach.

Emilie Auguste (Gedern, 11 May 1687 – Rossla, 30 June 1730), married on 1 October 1709 to Jost Christian, Count of Stolberg-Rossla (her first-cousin).

Christiana Louise (Gedern, 6 April 1688 – Gedern, 11 August 1691).

Albertine Antonie (Gedern, 15 April 1689 – Gedern, 16 August 1691).

Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Stolberg-Gedern (Gedern, 15 April 1689 – Gedern, 6 August 1691), twin of Albertine Antonie.

Gustave Magdalene (Gedern, 6 April 1690 – Gedern, 22 March 1691).

Christian Ernest, Count of Stolberg-Wernigerode (Gedern, 2 April 1691 – Wernigerode, 25 October 1771).

Christine Eleonore (Gedern, 12 September 1692 – Büdingen, 30 January 1745), married on 8 August 1708 to Ernest Casimir I, Count of Isenburg-Büdingen in Büdingen.

Frederick Charles, Prince of Stolberg-Gedern (Gedern, 11 October 1693 – Gedern, 28 September 1767).

Ernestine Wilhelmine (Gedern, 29 January 1695 – Wächtersbach, 7 May 1759), married on 7 December 1725 to Ferdinand Maximilian, Count of Isenburg-Büdingen in Wächtersbach.

Fredericka Louise (Gedern, 20 January 1696 – Gedern, 24 April 1697).

Louis Adolph (Gedern, 17 June 1697 – Gedern, 6 January 1698).

Henry August, Count of Stolberg-Schwarza (Gedern, 17 June 1697 – Schwarza, 14 September 1748), twin of Louis Adolph.

Sophie Christiane (Gedern, 17 August 1698 – Gedern, 14 June 1771), unmarried.

Ferdinande Henriette (Gedern, 2 October 1699 – Schönberg, Odenwald, 31 January 1750), married on 15 December 1719 to George August, Count of Erbach-Schönberg. Through her, Christine was the great-great-great-grandmother of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.[6][7]

Rudolph Lebrecht (Gedern, 17 September 1701 – Gedern, 6 April 1702).

Louis Christian (Gedern, 17 September 1701 – Gedern, 22 November 1701), twin of Rudolph Lebrecht.

Auguste Marie (Gedern, 28 November 1702 – Herford, 3 July 1768), a nun in Herford, created Princess in 1742.

Caroline Adolphine (Gedern, 27 April 1704 – Gedern, 10 February 1707).

Philippina Louise (Gedern, 20 October 1705 – Philippseich, 1 November 1744), married on 2 April 1725 to William Maurice II, Count of Isenburg-Philippseich.

Christine was the great-great-great-grandmother of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

SOLVE et COAGULA - dissolve and conjoin

The ROYAL HYBRID

The DEVIL'S BRIDE

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Black swan at Swan Lake, Rosenau Palace and Gardens, Franconia (Bavaria)

Some background information:

The black swan (Cygnus atratus) is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic conditions. In the 1800s, black swans were introduced to various countries as ornamental birds, but have escaped and formed stable populations. The total population of black swans is estimated at 100,000 to a million adult animals. Therefore the black swan doesn’t belong to the endangered species.

Black swans are mostly black-feathered birds, with white flight feathers. The bill is bright red, with a pale bar and tip; and legs and feet are greyish-black. Cobs (males) are slightly larger than pens (females), with a longer and straighter bill. Cygnets (immature birds) are a greyish-brown with pale-edged feathers.

A mature black swan measures between 110 and 142 centimetres (43 and 56 inch) in length and weighs 3.7 to 9 kilograms Its wing span is between 1.6 and 2 metres (5.2 and 6.6 feet). The neck is long (relatively the longest neck among the swans) and curved in an "S"-shape. The black swan utters a musical and far reaching bugle-like sound, called either on the water or in flight, as well as a range of softer crooning notes. It can also whistle, especially when disturbed while breeding and nesting.

When swimming, black swans hold their necks arched or erect and often carry their feathers or wings raised in an aggressive display. In flight, a wedge of black swans will form as a line or a V, with the individual birds flying strongly with undulating long necks, making whistling sounds with their wings and baying, bugling or trumpeting calls.

Rosenau Palace or The Rosenau, is a former castle, converted into a ducal country house. It is located near the city of Coburg in the district of Upper Franconia in North-East Bavaria. As Rosenau Palace is a rather small manor, it is no building usually associated with the term "palace". However, it has a rather turbulent history with connections to some crowned heads. For that reason it is not unjustified to call it a palace.

Rosenau Palace is based on a medieval structure, which was built in the late 14th century. In 1439, it was first mentioned in a document as the possession of the lords of "Rosenawe", a noble family that took its name from the castle. Silvester von Rosenau was a friend of the Protestant reformers Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. His family owned the estate for almost three centuries, but as it was weighed down by debts, the house of Rosenau had to sell it to the Austrian baron Ferdinand Johann Adam von Pernau in 1704.

In 1731, after Pernau's death, the estate was bought by Frederick II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Due to the debts of a successor, the Rosenau passed out of the family, but in 1805 Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, bought it back as a summer residence for his own son and heir, Ernest, who later became Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Between 1808 and 1817 the main house was fully renovated and reconstructed in the Gothic Revival style under the supervision of the Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Its Marble Hall, with three aisles, takes up half of the ground floor and is so called from its decoration with grey marble. At the same time as the reconstruction of the house, the park was redesigned in the style of an English garden.

In the park are an orangery, the so called "Tournament Column" sun-dial, the ruins of a hermitage, and two waters called the Swan Lake and the Prince's Pond. At each end of Rosenau Palace, Schinkel added crow-stepped gables of an early Gothic style. The windows took on a later Gothic form, while small balconies and coats of arms in stone were added to decorate the main front.

On 26th August 1819, Ernest's first wife, Princess Louise, gave birth in the house to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819 to 1861). On 19th September 1819, Albert was baptized in the Marble Hall into the Lutheran Evangelical Church with water from the local river Itz in the presence of his godparent Francis II of Austria, the last Holy Roman Emperor, Albert Casimir, Duke of Teschen, Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg , and his grandmother, Augusta of Saxe-Coburg. Albert spent his boyhood years at the Rosenau. In 1840, he became the husband of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

During Victoria's first visit to Coburg, she and Albert slept in the room of his birth at the Rosenau. "How happy, how joyful we were!" Victoria later recalled. She visited Rosenau Palace about 15 times altogether and some of her visits even took place long after Albert’s death, when Victoria already had become an elderly lady. Victoria also wrote of her Franconian hideaway: "I cannot describe what I feel here – it is a feeling as if I had spent my youth here." But the greatest proof that Rosenau Palace had stolen Victoria’s heart is her following sentence by which she declared her love to the building and its gardens: "Were I not what I am, this would be my real home."

In April 1984, Nicholas II, Tsarevich of Russia, and his future wife Alix of Hesse and by Rhine visited the house on the day after their own engagement. At that time Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Victoria and Albert, owned Rosenau Palace. He died here on 30th July 1900, while his wife Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, continued to live at The Rosenau until her death 20 years later.

On 15th July 1909, Duke Alfred's daughter Princess Beatrice (1884 to1966) married Alfonso, Duke of Galliera, in a civil ceremony at the house, followed by a Roman Catholic religious ceremony at St. Augustin, Coburg, and a Lutheran one in Callenberg Castle.

The last reigning Duke, Charles Edward, abdicated on 14th November 1918, a few days after the end of the First World War. On 7 June 1919, he concluded with the new Free State of Coburg a termination agreement on his assets in Coburg, receiving some 1,500,000 Marks for about 4,500 hectares of land and the various art treasures and buildings of his family, including Rosenau Palace. However, until 1938 the house was leased to the daughters of Duke Alfred, Marie, Queen of Romania, Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna of Russia, Princess Alexandra of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Princess Beatrice, Duchess of Galliera.

Victoria, titular Empress consort of Russia, was the mother of Vladimir Kirillovich (1917 to 1992), head of the Romanov family and claimant to the Russian throne. She stayed at the house with her son in the 1920s. Victoria died in 1936 and was buried at Rosenau Palace, where she had maintained a Russian Orthodox chapel, established for her mother, Maria Alexandrovna. Her remains were transferred to the Grand Ducal Mausoleum of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg on 7th March 1995.

From 1941, during the Second World War, the house was used as accommodation for the Reichsarbeitsdienst (in English: "National Labour Service"). In 1945, it became a convalescent home of the Commission for Refugees, and from 1948 was a nursing home for more than twenty years. The house was then empty for a few years, before the Free State of Bavaria bought it in 1972, with the aim of restoring it. This restoration work took place between 1985 and 1990. It aimed at returning the house, both in external appearance and in the division of the rooms, to the condition it was in when Victoria and Albert stayed here. For that purpose, watercolours of Rosenau Palace were used, which were found at Windsor Castle.

Today, the heirs of the ducal family, now headed by Andreas, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, still live nearby, at Schloss Callenberg. However, Rosenau Palace and Gardens are open to the public. The interior can be visited within a guided tour, but unfortunately visitors are not allowed to take photos inside the building.

Name: Vallø Castle.

Location: near Køge, Sjælland, Denmark.

Map: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Denmark_location_sjalland.svg

Built in: 1256.

Current building: built in 1579-1765.

Current building: restored in 1893-1904.

Royal castle: in 1467-1523 and in 1708-1737.

Owner today: the Vallø Foundation.

History

Vallø consists of four wings with robust towers and is surrounded by a moat. Vallø traces its history back to the 13th century. From 1554 to 1651 it was divided into two separate estates, West Vallø and East Vallø. The south wing, with its robust corner towers, and the south end of the west wing were built from 1580 to 1586 by Mette Rosenkrantz, one of the richest women in Denmark of her day. In Christen Skeel's time of ownership, from 1638 to 1659, the castle was expanded to three storeys and the west wing extended. The north wing was built by Johan Cornelius Krieger in 1721. In 1708, Vallø was acquired by the Danish and Norwegian King Frederick IV who passed it on to Anne Sophie Reventlow in 1713. Anne Sophie Reventlow was a Danish noble and a royal mistress. She was later queen consort of Denmark and Norway in 1721–1730. She was the second spouse of king Frederick IV.

In 1711, King Frederick IV fell in love with her at a Masquerade Ball and wanted her as his mistress. Her mother refused to allow this. In 1712, the King took her to Skanderborg Castle, where she was married to him morganatically in a wedding ceremony by Thomas Clausen. The King's official spouse was still alive. However, he had committed bigamy once before, with Elisabeth Helene von Vieregg. The church authorities had not forbidden the king to engage in polygamy. She was made Princess and Duchess of Schleswig. In 1713, she was given Vallø as a fief. On 4 April 1721, soon after the death of Queen Louise, the King married Anne Sophie Reventlow a second time. This time, the wedding was formal and conducted under grand ceremonies. He declined to make this marriage morganatic, although it was regarded as highly scandalous by the noble subjects and foreign rulers alike, as it flouted the era's standards that royals marry regular noblewomen, their own subjects. The King had Anne Sophie Reventlow recognized as Queen, and had her crowned in May 1721. She has been referred to as the first non-royal to be Queen of Denmark: she was in reality the first since Ulvhild Hakansdotter, queen consort of Denmark in 1130-34 and queen consort of Sweden in 1117-1125 and in 1134-1148.

After Frederick IV's death in 1730, Anne Sophie Reventlow was expelled from Copenhagen to her birth place, the manor house Klausholm near Randers, Jutland. She was styled "Queen Anne Sophie", not Queen Anne Sophie of Denmark and Norway or Queen Dowager. She was placed virtually under house arrest on her estate the rest of her life, not allowed to leave Klausholm without permission from the king. In 1731 King Christian VI passed Vallø on to Queen Sophia Magdalene who in 1737 founded the Noble Vallø Foundation for Unmarried Daughters. A three-winged building designed by Lauritz de Thurah was built in the courtyard from 1735 to 1738. The surviving central wing expanded with an extra storey by Georg David Anthon in 1765. The park was turned into a Romantic landscape garden in 1830 but retains elements from the former French gardens from the 1720s. Vallø Castle was devastated by fire in 1893 but restored largely to its old design by Hans Jørgen Holm between 1893 and 1904. The estate is owned today by the Vallø Foundation and covers 4,109 hectares of land of which 1,860 hectares are woodlands. Apart from agriculture and forestry, the revenues derive from house rental, the inn, a campground located close to Køge. The castle still provides housing for women of the Danish nobility but since 1976 admission to the residences is not restricted to unmarried women but now also cover widows and divorced women.

Owners:

1256-1280 - Eskild Falk Krage

1280-1338 - Bo Eskildsen Falk

1338-1345 - Eskild Falk Krage

1345-1360 - Bo Eskildsen Falk

1360-1387 - Eskild Falk Krage

1387-1395 - Christine Evertsdatter Moltke, married Krage

1395-1405 - Jens Eskildsen Falk

1405-1407 - Birgitte Abrahamsdatter Baad, married Falk

1407-1409 - Kirsten Jensdatter Falk, married Podebusk / Karen Jensdatter Falk, married Thott

1409-1421 - Hans Henningsen Podebusk and Axel Pedersen Thott

1421-1467 - Hans Henningsen Podebusk and Oluf Axelsen Thott

1467-1475 - The family Podebusk and Christian I, King of Denmark and Norway

1475-1481 - Anne Jensdatter Thott and Christian I, King of Denmark and Norway

1481-1511 - The family Thott and John, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden

1511-1516 - Niels Eriksen Rosenkrantz and Christian II, King of Denmark and Norway

1516-1523 - Oluf Nielsen Rosenkrantz and Christian II, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden

1523-1545 - Oluf Nielsen Rosenkrantz

1545-1554 - Ida Munk, married Rosenkrantz

1554-1554 - Mette Olufsdatter Rosenkrantz, married (1) Rosensparre (2) Oxe (West Vallø) and Birgitte Olufsdatter Rosenkrantz, married Bille (East Vallø)

1554-1565 - Sten Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Peder Bille (East Vallø)

1565-1567 - Mette Olufsdatter Rosenkrantz, married (1) Rosensparre (2) Oxe (West Vallø) and Peder Bille (East Vallø)

1567-1575 - Peder Oxe (West Vallø) and Peder Bille (East Vallø)¨

1575-1588 - Mette Olufsdatter Rosenkrantz, married (1) Rosensparre (2) Oxe (West Vallø) and Peder Bille (East Vallø)

1588-1592 - Oluf Stensen Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Peder Bille (East Vallø)

1592-1602 - Oluf Stensen Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Oluf Pedersen Bille (East Vallø)

1602-1612 - Oluf Stensen Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Peder Pedersen Bille (East Vallø)

1612-1615 - Oluf Stensen Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Birgitte Olufsdatter Rosenkrantz, married Bille (East Vallø)

1615-1616 - Oluf Stensen Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Holger Olufsen Rosenkrantz (East Vallø)

1616-1620 - Oluf Stensen Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Ellen Marsvin, married Munk (East Vallø)

1620-1624 - Oluf Stensen Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Kirsten Ludvigsdatter Munk (East Vallø)

1624-1639 - Elisabeth Gyldenstjerne, married Rosensparre (West Vallø) and Kirsten Ludvigsdatter Munk (East Vallø)

1639-1639 - Birgitte Rud, married Skeel (West Vallø) and Kirsten Ludvigsdatter Munk (East Vallø)

1639-1651 - Christian Albretsen Skeel (West Vallø) and Kirsten Ludvigsdatter Munk (East Vallø)

1651-1659 - Christian Albretsen Skeel

1659-1695 - Otto Christiansen Skeel

1695-1707 - Christian Ottosen Skeel

1707-1708 - Christian Siegfried von Plessen

1708-1713 - Frederick IV, King of Denmark and Norway

1713-1730 - Anne Sophie Reventlow, Queen consort of Denmark and Norway in 1721-1730

1730-1730 - Christian VI, King of Denmark and Norway

1730-1737 - Sophia Magdalene of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, Queen consort of Denmark and Norway

1737-today - the Vallø Foundation

The Vallø Foundation in 1737-today

A number of Lutheran chapters for noble ladies were founded in the late 17th and early 18th century. They were significant landowners and very influential in their local realms. The chapter of Vallø (Vallø Adelige Stift, Vallø Stift, Vallø Kloster) The Lutheran chapter for noble unmarried ladies was founded by Dowager Queen Sofie Magalene in 1738. The Abbess had to be of royal birth and the three successive Abbesses of Vallø exercied both Eccleastical and secular authority from 1728 to 1810. After 1810 the chapter has been lead by the Dechaness

1738-1743 Abbess Friederike von Würtemberg-Neuenstadt.

Dowager Queen Sofie Magdalene had desided to turn the County of Vallø, which was part of her dowry, into a chapter for ladies of the high nobility. The abbesses had authority in the Stift and possesed jus vocandi - the right to appoint the priests in the 17 churches within its territory. Friederike was daughter of Duke Friederich August von Württemberg-Neuenstadt.

1738-1757 Dechaness Beata Henriette von Reuss-Plauen.

She was daughter of Imperial Councillor, Baron Rudolph Caspar von Söhlenthal, and Chief Lady of the Court of Princess Louise (Hofmesterinde).

1748-1782 Abbess Louise Sophie Friederike af Slesvig-Holsten-Sønderborg-Glücksborg.

Used the title; Heiress to Norway, Duchess to Slesvig-Holsten, Glücksborg, Stormarn and Ditmarsken. She possed both secular and ecclesiastical authority in the whole of the chapter, though the founder, Dowager Queen Sofie Magdalene had secured herself the right of veto for life. Louise Sopie lived in 1711-82.

1758-1768 Dechaness Anna Margaretha von Schmettau.

Daughter of Privyl Councillor Peter von Brandt and widow of Privy Councillor and Envoy Frederik Vilhelm von Schmettau. Chief Lady of the Court of Prince Frederik. She lived in 1685-1768.

1773-1776 Dechaness Margaretha Maria Thomasine Numsen.

She was daughter of Major General Johan Peter von Ingenhaef and widow of Fieldmarchal, Privy Councillor Michael Numsen, and lived in 1705-1776.

1776-1785 Dechaness Eleonora Louisa Caroline Knuth.

Daughter of Privy Councillor Joachim Christopher Moltke and widow of Privy Councillor, Count Eggert Christopher Knuth. She lived in 1728-1785.

1782-1810 Abbess Sophie Magdalene af Slesvig-Holsten-Sønderborg-Glücksborg.

The chapter (stift) influenced both church, shools, roads, bridges, inns, mills, forestry, care of the poor and sick. The Stift is still a major landowner. It was desided not to appoint new Abbesses after her death, and the Dechaness became the leader of the Chapter.

1785-1793 Dechaness Frederikke Louise Holck-Winterfeldt.

Daughter of Count Adam Ahlefeldt and widow of Privy Councillor, Count Gustav Frederik Holck-Winterfeldt til Wintersborg. Chief Lady of the Court of Dowager Queen Juliane-Marie (Overhofmesterinde). She never stayed at Vallø, and lived in 1736-1785.

1793-1798 Dechaness Marie Elisabeth Moltke.

Daughter of Privy Councillor Baron Verner Rosenkrantz til Villestrup and widow of Privy Councillor Anton Heinrich Molkte, and lived 1742-1798.

1799-1809 Dechaness Charlotte Elisabeth Henriette Holstein.

Daughter of Baron Inn- und Knyphausen and widow of Privy Councillor, Chief Master of the Hunt Count Christian Frederik Holstein til the County of Ledreborg.

1810-1811 Dechaness Henriette Sophie von Düring.

She was daughter of the Hannoveran Lieutenant General ernst Friederich von Rheder and widow of Friederich Ernst Christoph von Düring. She resigned and never lived in the chapter. In the 1810s the Chapter developped from an exclusive institution for the daughters of the highest nobility to a "life insurance" for unmarried daughters of the Danish nobility. She lived in 1752-1819.

1811-1839 Dechaness Lucie Charlotte Sehested Juul.

Daughter of Count Christen Scheel and widow of Christinan Sehestedt Juul til Raunhold. She died as Chief Lady of the Court of Dowager Queen Marie Sophie Frederikke, and lived in 1765-1839.

1840-1865 Dechaness Margrethe Vilhelmine von Schmettau.

Daughter of Privy Councillor Christian Ludvig Stemann and widow of Count Gottfried Vilhelm Christian von Schmettau and lived in 1780-1865.

1865-1893 Dechaness Sophie Amalie Bardenfledt.

It was not until the 1860’s, that Vallø started to sell it's farmhouses making many farmers and "husmænd" came to own their own farms. The castle burned almost to the ground and the 86 year old leader of the convent fled her chambers in her nightgown. She was widow of Carl Emil Bardenfleth and daughter of Count Gottfried von Schmettau. She lived in 1810-93.

1893-1904 Acting Dechaness Marie Winfrida Bangemann Huygens.

Daughter of the Dutch Ambassador, C.D.E.J. Bangemann Huygens. (d. 1904)

1904-1908 Acting Dechaness Komtesse Juliane Pauline Sofie Knuth.

She resigned from the post.

1908-1921 Acting Dechaness Karen Elisabeth Marie Christine Wichfeldt.

She resigned from the post.

1921-1932 Dechaness Anna Sophie Margrethe Emanuella Sponneck.

In 1919 the special privilleges for fidei commissum was abolished but Vallø and the Chapter for Noble Ladies of Vemmetofte were allowed to continue as special foundations. She was widow of Count of the Realm Frederik Vilhelm Sponneck and daughter of Count Knud Brockenhuss-Schack. She lived in 1859-1932.

1932-1943 Dechaness Margrethe Caroline Augusta Julie Danneskiold-Samsøe.

She was wido of Count Christian Valdemar Danneskjold-Samsøe and daughter of Baron Carl Juel-Brockendorff to the Barony of Schellenborg, Thorseng, Hindemae and Hollufgaard, and lived in 1867-1943.

1943-1946 Acting Dechaness L.H. de Seréne d'Acqueria.

She lived in 1867-1949.

1946-1948 Dechaness E.T. Moltke, née Countess Danneskiold-Samsøe.

She lived in 1869-1948.

1948-1965 Dechaness Benedicte Moltke.

In 1958 the chapter bought a car a replacement for the coach that had been used until then. She was widow of Count F.C. Moltke and daughter of Count K.A.V.Knuth and lived in 1893-1986.

1965-1968 Dechaness Edele Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ahlefeldt-Laurvig.

Widow of Count Julius Ahlefeldt-Laurvig and daughter of H.C.F.V. Cederfeld de Simonsen. Her daughter, Beke Reventlow, has been Dechaness since 1994. She lived in 1893-1984.

1968-1994 Acting Dechaness Ella Adelaide Wichfeld.

From 1976 the Chapter was open for widows or divorcees and later also for non-nobles. Normally known as Addi, she was daughter of N.H. F. Wichfeldt and unmarried. She resigned in 1994, and lived in 1898-2001.

1994-2009 Dechaness Beke Reventlow.

Widow of Christian Benedict Frederik Reventlow, Viscount/Marquess Reventlow of the County of Christianssæde in 1915-1984, and daughter of Count Julius Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Lehn and Edele Cederfeld de Simonsen (Dechaness 1965-68). She is mother of two daughters and a son. (b. 1921-).

2009-today Dechaness Marianne Elisabeth Bardenfleth (b. 1953).

The castle still provides housing for women of the Danish nobility but since 1976 admission to the residences is not restricted to unmarried women but now also cover widows and divorced women.

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Sources:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vall%C3%B8_Castle

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sophie_Reventlow

www.guide2womenleaders.com/Denmark_Eccleastical.htm

The owner of the image above is Flemming.

Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vall%C3%B8_Castle_(Vall%C3%B8_Castle_(Stevns_Municipality).jpg

The image above is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Link: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

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From a glass negative found in storage

by John Mack, Heritage Place Museum,

Lyn, Ontario

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Ross Dunn tells us:

"It is Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, King of England 1901-10. Very popular among the British people, even though she was from the Danish Royal family. As Princess of Wales, she is said to have been the Princess Diana of her time."

The driver has a last check round on 46206 Princess Marie Louise before departure from Glasgow Central with the up Midday Scot for London Euston.

Please Don't Use My Photos On Websites , Blogs Or Other Media Without My Explicit Permission. © All rights reserved ©

Princess de Monaco

[Grace Kelly

MEImagarmic

Preference

Princess Grace

Princess of Monaco

Princesse Grace de Monaco ]

Hybrid Tea raised by Marie-Louise (Louisette) Meilland (France, 1981).

Introduced in France by Meilland et Cie in 1981 as 'Princesse de Monaco'.

This is one of my favourite roses.

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Rosenau Gardens with chamomile flowers in the foreground, Franconia (Bavaria)

Some background information:

Rosenau Palace or The Rosenau, is a former castle, converted into a ducal country house. It is located near the city of Coburg in the district of Upper Franconia in North-East Bavaria. As Rosenau Palace is a rather small manor, it is no building usually associated with the term "palace". However, it has a rather turbulent history with connections to some crowned heads. For that reason it is not unjustified to call it a palace.

Rosenau Palace is based on a medieval structure, which was built in the late 14th century. In 1439, it was first mentioned in a document as the possession of the lords of "Rosenawe", a noble family that took its name from the castle. Silvester von Rosenau was a friend of the Protestant reformers Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. His family owned the estate for almost three centuries, but as it was weighed down by debts, the house of Rosenau had to sell it to the Austrian baron Ferdinand Johann Adam von Pernau in 1704.

In 1731, after Pernau's death, the estate was bought by Frederick II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Due to the debts of a successor, the Rosenau passed out of the family, but in 1805 Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, bought it back as a summer residence for his own son and heir, Ernest, who later became Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Between 1808 and 1817 the main house was fully renovated and reconstructed in the Gothic Revival style under the supervision of the Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Its Marble Hall, with three aisles, takes up half of the ground floor and is so called from its decoration with grey marble. At the same time as the reconstruction of the house, the park was redesigned in the style of an English garden.

In the park are an orangery, the so called "Tournament Column" sun-dial, the ruins of a hermitage, and two waters called the Swan Lake and the Prince's Pond. At each end of Rosena