She is used to living in a castle and it seems that she does not plan to move from there. Princess Diane of Orleans, 83 years old, daughter of the Counts of Paris, Dowager Duchess of Württemberg and second cousin of King Juan Carlos, is currently fighting her most personal (and family) battle and is willing to fight tooth and nail. . to emerge victorious after it became public that her grandson, Duke Wilhem, current head of the House of Württemberg, after the death of his father Friedrich in a car accident in 2018, had asked her to leave Altshausen Castle in Germany, in the one where she has resided for five decades.
My grandson hasn't told me to leave but he is doing everything possible to get me to leave the castle. "He is very clever," points out the Princess. "These days he is reviewing all the packages I've sent to my friends for Christmas from the castle to check that I am not sending anything that belongs to this residence, and therefore to him. "It's horrible," she adds.
But Diane of Orleans is clear that everything would have been different if her husband had left her better “armored” in his will after his death on June 7, 2022. "My husband's will was very unfavorable for me and I only ask justice and live in peace" declares, somewhat annoyed by everything that is happening and without wanting to delve into the details of the last wills that the Duke of Württemberg wrote. "Women in my family have been relegated to the background," she adds.
A multifaceted sculptor, painter and artist if there ever was one, the Princess, who specializes in monumental carvings, has already begun to collect her works, which adorn every corner of the castle, since these, she assures, are not to her grandson's liking. "He never listens to me and he thinks I'm bad, but I only defend myself," she said.
Mother of six children during her marriage, the late Friedrich, Mathilde, Eberhard, Philipp, Michael and Fleur, the Princess does not want to involve them in this dispute, as she prefers to protect them from any family problem. "My children defend me but I don't want to involve them in this because I don't want them to suffer. I'm going to defend myself more or less alone because I don't want them to be hurt. So I'm alone, but many times in life it's better that way."
Although she is used to moving around the world, she was born in Brazil where her parents Henri of Orleans and Princess Isabella of Orleans-Braganza were exiled, and spent her youth in Louveciennes Castle, very close to Paris before contracting marriage and going to Germany, Diane of Orleans does not plan to move to Spain. "The townspeople and the castle workers adore me and for this reason I am not going to leave. I do not plan to abandon them."
Full of energy and with very clear ideas, Diane does not intend to give up. “For me, life is a game and I either play it or I don't play it, but I'm not going to stay sitting or locked in a room as if I were in prison because I'm going to die,” she says. "They have made it very clear to me that I am no longer the owner of this castle that I have looked after since the year 60 and that everything in it, including my clothes, my jewelry and even my bed, belonged to my husband and therefore , now from my grandson" she tells us. "They even took my cook away," she adds.
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