KDE JE NAŠE LUISA? PŘÍBĚH ÚTĚKU, HLEDÁNÍ A NALÉZÁNÍ SASKÉ KORUNNÍ PRINCEZNY A RAKOUSKÉ ARCIVÉVODKYNĚ LUISY TOSKÁNSKÉ
WHERE IS OUR LOUISE?

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals, based on unknown and unused documents from the Family Archive of Habsburgs of Tuscany, with the beginning of the affair of Louise of Tuscany, Crown Princess of Saxony and Archduchess of Austria. Princess Louise, that was pregnant at the time, fled from the court in Dresden in December 1902, leaving behind her husband, the Crown Prince Frederick August, and their five small children. She paid visit to her parents in Salzburg and then, with her brother Archduke Leopold Ferdinand, secretly left for Switzerland on December, 12. Here they met with their respective lovers, Leopold with Wilhelmine Adamović and Lousie with André Giron, a former tutor of her children. Few days later, they were found in Geneva, which resulted in an unprecedented public scandal. This affair concerned not only the Royal House of Saxony and Grand ducal House of Tuscany, but also the Court of Vienna and the whole House of Habsburg that had been plagued by various scandals and tragedies for years, however, the “dirty linen” had never been washed in public by press as intensively as this time. Leopold Ferdinand, at his own request, left the House of Habsburg, renounced to all his rights and privileges and accepted the name Leopold Wölfling. Louise, who finally understood that there was no way back and became aware of the precariousness of her situation, first split up with Giron and subsequently spent several months with her attorneys and parents trying to minimise the damage. It was clear at the end of December 1902 that there would be no way back for her to Dresden, nor to the monarchy. At the beginning of 1903, she was stripped of all her rights as the crown princess of Saxony and archduchess of Austria and a special court divorced her marriage with the crown prince. Her pregnancy, however, gave her certain hope to negotiate acceptable terms of her exile, which proved to be true in the end. She was allowed to return to her parents in Lindau in Bavaria to give birth to a daughter, her seventh child. She was granted a good allowance and title of countess. So started a new phase in her life that led her abroad and to new relations. Her scandal, therefore, did not die off, was only weakened and reminded with every new step of her in public.

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