The Wittelsbach Sisters
These stirring events naturally had not been without their influence on
Duke Max and his family, although the relations between them and the new
sovereigns were no less cordial and intimate than they had been with the
former ones.
At the time when Duke Max bought Possenhofen the Crown Prince had
acquired the castle of Hohenschwangen in that same region and set a
force of artists and architects at work to make it an ideal home for his
bride. Prince Maximilian had spent the greater part of his youth in
travel, and during a visit to the court of Berlin had first seen his
future wife, then but four years of age. She was a daughter of Prince
Karl of Prussia, and when he again met the Princess Marie as a lovely
girl of sixteen, he fell in love with her on the spot. In the Autumn of
1841 he made a formal offer for her hand, and the marriage took place on
the fifth of October, 1842.
Like the ducal family, the youthful pair spent most of the year at
Hohenschwangen, the two princes hunting and riding together, while a
close friendship developed between the Crown Princess and the Duke’s
young daughters, which was in no way interrupted by her becoming Queen
of Bavaria.
These daughters, the Wittelsbach sisters, were tenderly attached to one
another and there was a strong family resemblance between them. Four had
inherited their parents’ good looks, and Hélène, the oldest, while not
so beautiful as the rest, was clever and clear-headed like her mother.
Elizabeth and Maria both had a share of the family eccentricity; but of
all the eight children, Maria was the only one endowed with Duke Max’s
high spirits and cheerful, sunny nature. She also possessed to a marked
degree the distinguished bearing and grace of movement so characteristic
of the whole race, while added to the gentle sweetness of Elizabeth’s
face, whom she much resembled, was an expression of strength and
firmness unusual in one so young.
The five sisters were brought up in the simplest manner, without regard
to etiquette, and often walked about the streets of Munich without
attendants of any kind. The Duke was much away from home and concerned
himself little with his children’s education, except as to music, sport,
and out-of-door exercise; but Ludovica was constantly with her
daughters, and devoted her whole life to fitting them for the positions
she was ambitious they should occupy.
Elizabeth was famous for her beauty and Hélène for her cleverness, while
Maria was endowed with almost an equal share of both. She was
warm-hearted, sweet-tempered, and incapable of falsehood, but very
impulsive and unable to adapt herself to people; and the Duchess’s
methods of education did little to modify her independence of speech and
action. Like Elizabeth, she was a passionate lover of nature and of
animals; but she was bolder and less sensitive than her sister and early
developed a love of danger and excitement. The happy days of childhood
soon passed, however, and one by one the sisters left the home nest. In
1854 Elizabeth became Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, to the
bitter disappointment of Hélène, who had been selected as bride of
Francis Joseph. The Emperor preferred her younger sister, however, and
in 1858 Hélène consoled herself with the enormously wealthy Hereditary
Prince of Thurn and Taxis, and went to Regensburg to live. Ludwig, the
eldest son, had renounced his right of succession the preceding year to
marry an actress in Augsburg, making Karl Theodore, then in his
twentieth year, the future head of the house. Although the court of
Possenhofen was seemingly of small importance, it enjoyed universal
respect, and the Catholic royal houses of Europe were glad to ally
themselves with it.
In the Autumn of 1858 a messenger arrived from the King of Naples
desiring to know whether the Duke and Duchess would consent to an
alliance between their daughter Maria, then eighteen years old, and his
eldest son. The two families were scarcely acquainted personally, and
the young people had never seen each other, yet the Duke and Duchess
returned an unconditional acceptance of the offer. To be sure, the
Neapolitan Prince was considered a good match, being a Bourbon on his
father’s side and a member of the royal house of Sardinia on his
mother’s, and the heir, moreover, to an ancient and important kingdom in
fair Italy.
On the twenty-second of December, King Ferdinand’s minister, Count
Ludolff, arrived in Munich with a formal proposal of marriage, and after
receiving the young princess’s consent, presented her on a velvet
cushion a portrait of her future husband, a rather pleasant-looking
young man in the uniform of a hussar. Two weeks later the marriage took
place by proxy, as was the custom of the time. On the evening of the
eighth of January, 1859, Maria Sophia Amalia, Duchess in Bavaria, was
solemnly united in wedlock to Francis Maria Leopold, Duke of Calabria
and Crown Prince of the Two Sicilies, in the court chapel at Munich. All
the members of the royal house were present with the entire diplomatic
corps and many nobles and high officials of the State. King Maximilian
and Queen Marie led the bride to the altar, where the bridegroom’s
brother, Prince Leopold (the present Regent of Bavaria), represented him
in his absence. Following this ceremony the King and Queen held a
reception, during which crowds gathered outside the palace windows,
eager for a glimpse of the little bride who had gone about among them
all her life so gayly and familiarly.
On the thirteenth of January, Maria left her parents’ home with many
tears and embraces for the dear ones she was leaving behind. She had
never seen her husband nor any member of his family. Both the land and
people that were to be hers in future were strange to her—an uncertain
fate, indeed, to look forward to! But she was young and light-hearted,
full of hope and courage, and well equipped by nature for the trials
that awaited her. Her brother Ludwig, with several Bavarian ladies and
gentlemen, accompanied her on the journey, besides a Neapolitan court
lady, Nina Rizzo, sent by the Queen of Naples to instruct her in her new
duties. At Vienna a stay of several days was made, owing to news of King
Ferdinand’s illness; but on the thirtieth of January the party resumed
its way with the addition of the Empress Elizabeth, and on the following
day reached Trieste, where they were met by the Duke of Serracapriola,
sent by the King to welcome the future Queen of Naples. This pompous
personage discharged his errand with such ceremonious solemnity that the
simple, unaffected Bavarian princess knew not whether to laugh or cry.
On the first of February, at half-past one, the ceremony of delivering
the bride into the hands of the Neapolitan envoy took place in the
Governor’s palace. Across the centre of the great salon a silken cord
had been stretched, representing the boundary line between Bavaria and
Naples. Beside this were placed a table, covered with red velvet, and
two gilded arm-chairs. The room had folding doors at either end, one of
which was decorated with the colors of Naples and guarded by Neapolitan
marines, while at the other, similarly adorned with Bavarian arms and
banners, stood a band of the royal Bavarian retainers. The Neapolitan
envoy, with two ladies of high rank who had come to act as escort to the
Princess, were stationed on their side of the boundary line with the
Admiral and officers of the ship that was to carry Maria Sophia and her
suite to Naples, while the Duchess and her Bavarian escort entered
through the other door and took their places. The two envoys then
advanced from their respective positions to the silken cord, where they
exchanged documents concerning the marriage. The Count von Rechburg
addressed a few words of farewell to the youthful bride, who rose and
extended her hand for her German attendants to kiss, after which the
Count led her to the middle of the room and gave her into the hands of
the Duke of Serracapriola, who humbly begged her to seat herself in the
Neapolitan arm-chair while he delivered a short address of
congratulation and welcome. This almost mediæval ceremony concluded,
Maria left the salon through the door draped in Neapolitan colors and
went directly on board the _Fulminante_, in the cabin of which the
Empress Elizabeth and Prince Ludwig took an affecting farewell of their
young sister. The greater part of her suite embarked on another vessel,
the _Tancredo_, and an hour later both ships were steaming out of the
harbor of Trieste.