In the 1860s Alexander fell madly in love with his mothers lady-in-waiting, Princess Maria Elimovna Meshcherskaya. Dismayed to learn that Prince Wittgenstein had made her a proposal in spring 1866, he told his parents that he was prepared to give up his rights to the sovereignty in order to marry his beloved Dusenka. On 19 May 1866, Alexander II informed his son that Russia had come to an agreement with the parents of Princess Dagmar of Denmark, his tenth cousin. Before then, she had been the fiancée of his elder brother Nicholas, who had died in 1865. But Alexander refused to travel to Copenhagen, declaring that he did not love Dagmar and wanted to marry Maria. The emperor flew into a rage and ordered Alexander to go straight to Denmark and to propose to Princess Dagmar. The tsarevich realised that he was not a free man and that duty had to come first. The only thing left to do was to write in his diary Farewell, dear Dusenka. Maria was forced to leave Russia, accompanied by her aunt, Princess Chernyshova. Almost a year after her first appearance in Paris, Pavel Pavlovich Demidov, 2nd Prince of San Donato, fell in love with her and the couple married in 1867. Maria died giving birth to a child Elim Pavlovich Demidov, 3rd Prince of San Donato. Alexanders reaction to the news of her death and the birth of her child is unknown.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 11:16:45 +0000
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