Princess Louise, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1858-1924)

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Princess Louise of Belgium (1858-1924)

This thread is about Princess Louse Marie Amélie of Belgium (Brussels, 18 Feb 1858 - Paris 1 Mar 1924)

Parents: King Leopold II of The Belgians and Archduchess Marie-Henriette of Austria

Husband: Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Children: Prince Leopold Clemens of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Duchess Dorothea Marie of Sleswig-Holstein

Siblings: Prince Leopold of Belgium, Crownprincess Stefanie of Austria and Princess Clementine Napoleon



Note that all images posted in this thread by me are free of copyrights, unless stated differently. The TRF policy conserning copyrights has not changed

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Louise Marie Amélie (18 Feb. 1858 - 1 Mar. 1924) of Belgium, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was the first child of King Leopold II of the Belgians and his wife Queen Marie-Henriette.

Her birth was a severe blow for her father, King Leopold II as he was hoping for a son. Princess Louise grew up at the court of Laeken, and received a Spartan upbringing, slightly tempered by the nice moments she shared with her younger brother Prince Leopold and her younger sister Princess Stefanie.

In 1875, at 17 years of age the barely adult Louise was forced to marry her second cousin, Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who belonged to the wealthy Hungarian branch of the Coburg family and who was 14 years older then his bride. From the marriage two children were born, Princess Dorothea and Prince Leopold, but the marriage was by no means succesfull. Leopold II however was proud as his marriage strategy, which almost meant that he sold his daughter with the eye on political issues. His inexperienced daughter quickly found herself waking up in a nightmare. Already on her first night with her husband she exchanges their bed for the glasshouses of Laeken, where she was hiding in fear. Her mother Marie-Henriette however points out to her the duties of a Princess and she has to return...

After her marriage the Princess moved to Vienna, far away from her familiar and safe envronment. Her motherhad already told her many stories about the Habsburg court, but still it was very different from what she expected. She was bedazzled by the glitter and glamour which seemed without an end. Due to her birth and marriage she was allowed into the close circle around the Emperor and the -usually absent- Empress. The couple enjoyed it that they were allowed to sit at the Imperial table and received many important curteseys. The Princess, who was financially dependent on her husband, started to enjoy her new and cosmopolitan life in Vienna to the fullest.

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Her husband gave her lessons how she had to fulfill her duties as an adult. The Princess seems to get a serious make-over and start to get glamour allures, which she showed of to anybody who liked (and didn't like), which caused the Emperor to get some misgrievings with this couple. This lifestyle worried Louise's mother, Queen marie-Henriette, who usually received full reports from her Habsburg relatives on her daughters scandalous conduct. Marie-Henriette did everything she could to make her daughter change her lifestyle and live a more sober life.

In the mean time her husband merrily went on partying as he did before his marriage, he didn't take his vows too seriously and is terribly promiscuous. Slowly the first cracks start to appear in the marriage. Another problem was that the Princess came into financial troubles due to her lifestyle, and her husband who slowly estranged from her wasn´t willing to pay her debts anymore.

Louise now took several lovers herself but finally found her true love in the person of the Croatian count Mattacic, whom she met at the Prater. A romance started which wasn´t kept very discrete. A vindictive Archduke Ludwig-Victor, turned to his brother the Emperor and urged him to discipline Louise, but Louise still failed to realise the seriousness of the matter.

She fell completely from grace with the imperial couple and her father chose the side of Louise´s husband instead of that of his daughter. Louise decided to chose for her count, dispite of everything. Philip felt that he had to defend his honour and entered into a duel with Mattacic, which he lost. Louise´s triumph was shortlived only as she came into serious financial troubles as her husband refused to give her even a penny.

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Louise was forced to sell her pocessions in public, even her own underwear. Phillip felt humiliated by this and the Emperor was shocked and urged Phillip to do something about it. As a solution to the problem, Phillip had to buy everything that was sold by Louise, even the undergarments. Followed by fiunancial troubles Louise left for Croatia, but even there the power of the Habsburg court was felt.

Count Mattacic was soon arrested for embazzlement and lost his title. Louise, who didn´t find any support with her children or Belgian relatives, was send to a ÿchiatric hospital. She was ignored by her relatives in Vienna and Brussels, only her sister, Crownprincess Stefanie of Austria kept in touch with her in secret. Mattacic managed to escape from prison and was able to release the Princess in a heroic way, after which the two fled to France. There the Princess acquired a divorce from her husband and got estranged completely from her father. King Leopold II remarked that his daughter was dead to him, to which the Emperor of Austria cynically (but probably close to the truth) replied that Leopold even had to ¨pay for a dead daughter.

After Leopolds death Louise and her sisters chose the attack, they were hunting for the Baroness de Vaughan, Leopodl II's mistress who was left with a considerable part of Leopolds fortune. The sisters started a court case against the Belgian state to defend their rights to the inheritence. But it was to no avail, the King even preferred to put his money in the 'Royal Dotation' than to give it to his own daughters. In the end the sisters only 15 million francs, only a fraction of the original capital.

Louise died in 1924, a year after Count Mattacic while she lived impoverished in Paris. She died while holding the picture of her deceased lover...

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Prince Ferdinand Philip (Paris, 28 Mar. 1844 – Coburg, 4 July 1921) of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was the son of Prince August of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Princess Clementine of France (Orleans).

Philip was a confident and brother-in-law of Crownprince Rudolf of Austria and it was he with Count Hoyos who discovered the bodies of Rufdolf and Marie Vestera were at Mayerling. From 1870 he was a major in the Hungarian army. On Feb 4th 1875 he married Princess Louise of Belgium (see above), the couple divorced on Jan 15th 1906.

Prince Philip owned a coin collection of Saxony, the Orient and oversees coins. He published articles about oriental coins. His collection of coins was auctioned in 1928 by the auctionhouse Leo Hamburger in Frankfurt am Main.

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The couple got two children:

Prince Leopold Clemens Philipp August Maria (Leo) of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Szent-Antal, Hungary 19 Jul 1878-Vienna 27 Apr 1916), died unmarried.
Princess Dorothea Marie Henriette Auguste Louise (Dora) of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Vienna 30 Apr 1881-Taxis, Württemberg 21 Jan 1967), married to Duke Ernst Günther of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1863-1921). The marriage remained without children.

A picture of Louise and her two children:

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In Vienna Louise and her husband lived in Palais Coburg, which is a hotel today, have a look at their website here.

Picture 1


Here an old drawing:

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Two more pictures, one of Lousie and her husband and one of Louise alone:

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This large first picture shows of Princess Louise (standing) and her sister Crownprincess Stefanie of Austria.

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Louise was burried in Wiesbaden, here an old picture of her grave: