A Trace of Royalty Read online

  A TRACE OF ROYALTY

  KOPP CHRONICLES

  By Gregory Kopp

  Copyright © 2016 Gregory Kopp

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13:978-1539540892

  ISBN-10:1539540898

  BY GREGORY KOPP

  KOPP CHRONICLES

  AN IMMIGRANT AMERICAN

  UN INMIGRANTE AMERICANO (Spanish Edition).

  EIN IMMIGRANT AMERIKANER (German Edition)

  This book is dedicated to my beautiful wife and family who have their own trace of royalty and noble virtues.

  Cover Images courtesy of: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wilhelm_Gause_Hofball_in_Wien.jpg

  AN IMMIGRANT AMERICAN

  A TRACE OF ROYALTY

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Afterword

  Appendix One – Karolina Sorg’s birth

  Appendix Two – Stanislaus and Karolina’s marriage record

  Appendix Three – The Order of St. Anne of Würzburg

  Appendix Four – Grand Duchess Stéphanie, Princess Marie Amelie and the Mannheim Palace

  Appendix Five – Duke, Duchess and the Marquess of Hamilton

  Appendix Six – 19th Century New York City

  Appendix Seven – New York City to Ohio

  Chapter One

  February 23, 1843, 10 years before the events of An Immigrant American, Volume 1 of the Kopp Chronicles.

  Suddenly, the door of the carriage flung open, as it pulled up to the doors of the Mannheim Palace on an early and cold February morning in 1843.

  “Karolina, I am so glad you are here!” A young woman with brown disheveled hair said frantically as she burst into tears.

  “I thought you would never get here. I don’t know what to do with my hair, and my mother needs help with the wedding, and they will be here any moment! Please hurry and come with me!” She sobbed and ran toward the doors of the palace.

  Karolina Sorg, a pretty seventeen-year-old girl, and her mother Theresia surprised at the sudden stop of the carriage and the loud outburst quickly recovered. They stepped out of the carriage and followed her, breaking with all proper decorum as they entered the palace.

  The woman’s name was Princess Marie Amelie Elisabeth Karoline of Baden and that evening she was marrying the Marquess of Hamilton, son of the Duke of Hamilton.

  The previous day, her mother had sent an urgent message to Theresia to come to the palace and help with last minute wedding preparations. She also suggested Theresia bring her daughter with her to help the princess.

  Karolina and Theresia traveled overnight by carriage and by train all the way to Mannheim from the small village of Sulz, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, a distance of over 160 kilometers.

  When they arrived early in the morning at the Mannheim train station, a carriage was already waiting for them. The carriage driver lifted their luggage into the back of the carriage, helped Karolina and her mother inside, jumped to the top and yelled sharply for the horses to move forward. The carriage began to pick up speed traveling through the streets of the city while shaking Karolina and Theresia back and forth inside. The driver, promised an extra fare from Princess Marie and her mother to bring their guests to the palace as soon as possible, drove the carriage and horses as fast as he could. The Grand Duke and the Duchess of Baden and the other wedding guests would be arriving at the palace later that day and all the wedding arrangements needed to be complete before they arrived.

  Karolina gasped as she looked through the windows of the carriage at the towering Jesuit Church and the other large buildings in Mannheim as they came closer to their destination. Men and women were walking in the city streets, going about their normal business, but forced to jump out of the way as the carriage careened past them. The carriage driver was overheard shouting at his horses, “Faster, boys, faster. We must get there on time!”

  When they arrived at the palace, the carriage horses were panting, but the driver was satisfied with their progress as he unloaded the baggage. Karolina and her mother followed Princess Marie as she ran up the staircase into the Knight’s Hall, the largest room in the building. The Princess kept urging them to hurry, and without stopping, she told the waiting servants to gather her visitor’s belongings from the carriage and bring them inside.

  The Mannheim Palace was an imposing structure, originally built in the 1700’s to house the Palatinate Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and his court. During the Napoleonic wars Mannheim became part of the Grand Duchy of Baden, and the palace, as large as the Palace of Versailles in France, was no longer used as the seat of government and quickly fell into various stages of disrepair.

  Princess Marie’s mother, the Dowager Duchess Stéphanie de Beauharnais and her daughter were the only remaining Baden royalty living in the palace. The Dowager Duchess was the adopted daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte, the former Emperor of France, and she moved to the Grand Duchy of Baden over 25 years ago when she married Princess Marie’s father, the Grand Duke Karl Ludwig.

  After he died, she was forced to move to Mannheim and they now resided in the Imperial Quarters in the east wing of the palace. The Imperial Bedroom next to the Throne Room was where the Dowager Duchess was waiting and where the hurrying princess was bringing her guests.

  Chapter Two

  Karolina followed the princess into the Knight’s Hall, and was astonished since this was the largest room that she had ever seen. Multiple crystal chandeliers and magnificent frescoes decorated the ceiling, and ancestral paintings hung on the walls. Karolina recognized the portrait of the old Grand Duke, the princess’s father, which she last saw as a child in the Grand Duke’s palace in Karlsruhe. Several of the windows looked out onto the palace gardens where Princess Marie enjoyed spending her time growing roses during the summer months. Draperies were hanging in the windows, but they seemed to be the worse for wear and Karolina noticed they required mending as she hurried past them into the hallway.

  Several sections of the palace required renovation, but the Dowager Duchess was given limited funds from the current Grand Duke for its upkeep, did not use them for repairs, but instead for entertaining her visitors. She had continued to hold her court in the palace as best she could and yet she still keeps her popularity with the Mannheim nobility as when she had first arrived in Baden.

  Recently, it seems more and more visitors were coming to call on the Dowager Duchess, stretching her housekeeping budget even further. The rumblings of a new Bonapartist movement against the King of France was being stirred up by her jailed cousin Louis-Napoléon, nephew of the former Emperor. The Dowager Duchess’s visitors would ask if she received any more news from her cousin, but she only smiled and shook her head.

  Princess Marie steered them through the double doors of the Knight’s Hall, and down the hallway into the Imperial Quarters and the Imperial Bedroom. Waiting for them was the Dowager Duchess Stéphanie, a beautiful and stately French woman in her fifty-fourth year sitting in a large overstuffed armchair by the window.

  She had been raised in the French Emperor’s Court in Versailles and grown accustomed to all the luxuries and comforts have given to that royal position and she brought a small part of them to Baden with her to decorate her bedroom in the Mannheim Palace. The Dowager Duchess gave Theresia a big hug as she entered the room.

  “I am so glad you are here,” she spoke in French. “The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess w
ill be arriving soon and I am afraid the table settings for the wedding banquet will not be good enough for them! It’s been so long since I was at the palace in Karlsruhe and I do not remember how the table was set for such a grand banquet”.

  Theresia told her she would be glad to help, so she and the Dowager Duchess rushed out of the bedroom to instruct the servants on how to arrange the proper royal place settings for the wedding banquet guests.

  Princess Marie took Karolina’s hand and said to her, “Karolina, come with me, now you can help me with my hair and gown before William arrives.”

  Karolina shook off her amazement at seeing the exquisite silver embossed furniture and thick plush carpets in the Imperial Bedroom and began to help the princess with her hairstyling and last fitting for her wedding gown. Several hours later, the Dowager Duchess and Princess Marie, were much calmer and thanked Karolina and Theresia for all of their help for the wedding. Karolina and Theresia retired to their own rooms in the palace, exhausted from traveling and slept for several hours before the festivities began.

  Chapter Three

  After she had rested, Theresia arose and slowly unwrapped the evening gown she wore in Karlsruhe many years ago for Karolina to wear that night. She smoothed the rich silk and lace as she laid the gown out on her daughter’s bed. Theresia wanted her daughter to look as beautiful as possible that evening for the officers from the Grand Duke’s Guard and or any other distinguished wedding guests that could be potential suitors for her daughter.

  Theresia then laid out her own gown and carefully clipped on a gold rounded ivory cross pin attached to a red ribbon with silver borders.

  Theresia recalled the day in 1835 when she received this very special pin, from the Order of St Anne of Würzburg, a Knighthood for women, sponsored by the Queen of Bavaria. At the time, Theresia was a proud thirty-seven-year-old unmarried woman struggling to raise a child on her own when the Dowager Duchess Stéphanie’s servant called on her to come quickly to the palace in Karlsruhe for an audience with her royal highness. Theresia dropped everything she was doing, asked her friends to watch her child and hurried to the palace.

  The Dowager Duchess heard about Theresia’s situation and had requested the Abbess in Würzburg and the Queen of Bavaria include Theresia in the Order of St. Anne. They were only too happy to grant her request being aware of her influence in France.

  The Dowager Duchess informed Theresia of her selection and told her in addition to the St. Anne decorative pin, she would also receive a yearly pension which was awarded to its recipients as long as they remained unmarried. Theresia was stunned and struggled to contain her emotions in front of the Duchess and the other ladies in waiting. She thanked her profusely, and curtsied to leave, but not before offering her undying support to the Dowager Duchess.

  Chapter Four

  Karolina and Theresia finished dressing and joined Princess Marie and her mother in the main entrance of the palace as they were greeting their guests. The Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess of Baden were just arriving and stepping out of their carriage.

  Karolina and her mother stood behind the Princess and the Dowager Duchess as they curtsied and welcomed the royal couple. Theresia instructed the servants to take the royal baggage to their rooms in the palace. The Grand Duke acknowledged the Dowager Duchess and the Princess with a slight nod as he strode into the palace ignoring Karolina and Theresia. The Grand Duchess said nothing to anyone while noticing the various stitching repairs made to the Dowager Duchess’s gown.

  The Duke and the Duchess of Hamilton arrived not soon after the Baden royal couple. The Duke of Hamilton was very influential in British government circles, having won a seat in Parliament and serving as Lord High Steward at Queen Victoria’s coronation. He looked distinguished in his formal black frock coat and riding boots with the beautiful Duchess on his arm. He was the one who persuaded his son to marry the Princess of Baden because of his ardent admiration of Emperor Napoleon. He insisted to his peers in Parliament that the Princess was of royal lineage as the granddaughter of the Emperor even though she really descended from the Emperor’s wife Joséphine.

  The groom arrived next, William Hamilton, the Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale, son of the 10th Duke and Duchess of Hamilton, heir to the Highest Peerage of Scotland next to the Prince of Wales, and dressed in his most splendid traditional Scottish red military uniform with the requisite kilt and bonnet for the occasion. The Dowager Duchess told him he would not be able to spend time with his bride until after the wedding ceremony so he laughed and strode right past them to the church in the north wing of the palace followed by his valet, while the Princess blushed as he walked by.

  Horse-Drawn carriages containing the other royal guests from throughout the Principalities of the German Confederation and Europe continued to arrive and deposit their passengers. Men dressed in their finest formal evening clothes and women in expensive gowns purchased for the occasion stepped out to meet the future bride and her mother. Notable guests included the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt accompanied by the Hereditary Duke and Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt and others.

  Princess Marie’s sister, Princess Louise Amelie arrived late, as usual, nodding quickly to her mother and sister and going directly to the rooms she shared with the Princess, without saying a word. The pangs of jealousy were visibly showing on Princess Louise’s face. She and her estranged husband, Prince Gustav, son of the deposed King of Sweden were in the middle of a divorce and her mother did not look too kindly on her situation. Princess Marie’s other sister Josephine was expecting a child and could not travel to attend the wedding.

  The Chargé d'affaires for Her Royal Britannic Majesty Victoria arrived last, after all the royal guests were already in the palace. He bowed to the Dowager Duchess and her daughter, all the while observing the condition of the palace and the palace grounds. He inquired about the names and titles of the wedding guests to include in his report to the Queen of England. After he had gone, the Dowager Duchess proceeded to the church accompanied by her daughter, Karolina, Theresia and their servants.

  Their guests waited in the Knight’s Hall served drinks and hors d’oeuvres before being summoned to the palace church for the wedding ceremony. As he drank his cocktail, the Grand Duke of Baden spotted the arrival of the British Chargé d'affaires and quickly steered him to a nearby corner of the great hall.

  “Remember”, he said to the chargé d'affaires, “The British Queen has many friends in Baden if the French King should cause any problems for your country in the future”.

  The Grand Duchy of Baden and all the southern German Confederation royal rulers convinced themselves that alternating their allegiance between Great Britain and France would ensure the survival of their kingdoms. Therefore, the Grand Duke wanted to convey his support to Queen Victoria and her government while he had a moment alone with the British Chargé d'affaires.

  He mentioned to the chargé d'affaires how many of the residents in the small German Duchies and Principalities, including his own, were becoming restless after hearing about the liberal reforms taking place in France.

  “Citizen King”, he scoffed as he said the nickname applied to Louis Phillipe, King of France by the newspapers. “The King is the ruler of all of France and should be feared by its citizen. Allowing all the French taxpayers to vote, even the working man, as Louis is proposing is heresy. Only the noble citizens of France should be able to vote in the nation’s elections”, he continued fuming.

  As he was speaking, the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton entered the great hall, so he lowered his voice. He proudly told the chargé d'affaires that he would be the one giving away the bride because of the death of her father.

  He continued to discuss politics with the chargé d'affaires and asked about the British Queen’s attitude toward the Bonapartists in France. The chargé d'affaires merely gave him a blank stare and did not say anything as he was under strict orders from Queen Victoria to only observe and report.

  The Grand
Duke shrugged and predicted the bride’s cousin Louis Napoleon would declare himself Emperor soon after he regained power in France and then she will be a powerful ally for the Queen. The chargé d'affaires merely nodded, bowed and took his leave of the Grand Duke to join the other guests in the great hall.

  The chargé d'affaires spotted the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton at the other end of the great hall and hurried to present himself. The Duke was Premier Peer in Scotland and the British Queen expressly instructed him to aid the royal couple in any way he could while he attended the wedding of their son. As he approached them, he bowed and conveyed good wishes from the Queen for the pending nuptials of their son.

  The Duke nodded and requested the chargé d'affaires inform the Queen of all the European royalty in attendance, as he was acutely aware that she had scoffed at his future daughter-in-law’s royal lineage claims. The Duke turned his attention away from the chargé d'affaires and with a wave of his hand dismissed him and walked away with the Duchess on his arm to join the other guests.

  After a short wait, all of the guests in the Knight’s Hall were summoned to the palace church for the wedding ceremony.

  Newspapers throughout Europe and the British Empire reported on the wedding of the Scottish Marquess and the Princess of Baden, including The Glasgow Herald, as it was described in an article on March 6, 1843:

  “The marriage of the Marquis of Douglas and her Highness the Princess Marie of Baden, daughter of his Royal Highness Charles late Grand Duke of Baden, took place at Manheim, on Thursday the 23rd February. At half past 6 o’clock in the evening, their Royal Highnesses the Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden, the Grand Duchess Dowager Stephanie of Baden, the Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt, the Hereditary Duke and Duchess of Hesse Darmstadt and their Highnesses the Prince Emile of Darmstadt, the Duke Bernard of Saxe Weimer... the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton,...and the Hon. Henry Wellendary, her Britannic Majesty’s Charge d’ Affairs accredited to the Court of Baden and numerous other distinguished persons assembled in the state apartments of her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess Stephanie, whence they walked in procession....”