Princess Stéphanie of Belgium

Rare card · No. 50968

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-apparent to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Princess Stéphanie was the second daughter of King Leopold II of the Belgians 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...

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