Princess Hélène of Orléans

Princess Hélène of Orléans (; 13 June 1871 – 21 January 1951) was a member of the deposed of France and, by marriage to the head of a cadet branch of the Italian royal family, the Duchess of Aosta. Although her hand in marriage was sought at various times for the heirs to the thrones of the United Kingdom, the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire, no such marriage or alliance materialized.

Family

Hélène was the third of eight children born to Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, and Infanta Maria Isabel of Spain. Her father was a grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of the French, and had been heir-apparent to the throne from 1842 until the exile of the dynasty in 1848. Like her two elder siblings, she was born in exile at York House, Twickenham, shortly before the law of banishment against the dynasty was repealed. Repatriating to France at the end of June 1871, the family took up residence in Paris at the Hotel Fould on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, as guests of their uncle, Henri, Duke of Aumale, whose wealth and properties in France had not been confiscated in 1852, unlike those of the other Orléans princes.

Potential matches

Most of Hélène's siblings had married well, including Amélie, Queen of Portugal, Philippe, Duke of Orléans (who married Archduchess Maria Dorothea of Austria) and Isabelle, Duchess of Guise, and Hélène's parents had hopes that she would marry an heir to a throne. Those hopes were fanned by the fact that Hélène was considered a great beauty for the day,

Relationship with the Duke of Clarence

Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale ("Eddy") was the eldest son of the future Edward VII and grandson of then reigning Queen Victoria. During the spring and summer of 1890, Eddy and Hélène were allowed to become acquainted at the homes of Clarence's sister Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife in Sheen and in Scotland, On 29 August, Clarence obtained permission to meet alone with his grandmother at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and brought Hélène with him. Marriage to a Catholic would have entailed constitutional forfeiture of Eddy's claim to the British throne, pursuant to the Act of Settlement, but Hélène offered to become an Anglican. When Queen Victoria expressed surprise at Hélène's offer, Hélène wept and insisted that her willingness to do so was for the sake of love. Moved by the couple's desperate plea for her help, Victoria agreed to support them but warned that she thought there were many obstacles likely to render success unlikely. This included her expectation that Hélène's father would not consent to his daughter's change of faith. In 1892, while travelling in Egypt with her brother Philippe, Hélène met Ernst Gunther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, who decided that he would marry her, to the fury of his sister, the German Empress Augusta Victoria. German diplomatic pressure put an end to Ernst Gunther's hopes, which were probably fruitless in any event as Hélène showed no interest in his advances. Later, family members pushed for a marriage with the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Although the Emperor Franz Joseph did not favour the match he said that he would not oppose it, and Franz Ferdinand himself did not say no but deferred a decision. In the meantime, he met his future wife, Countess Sophie Chotek, and never considered Hélène again.

Marriage and children On 25 June 1895, at the Church of St. Raphael in Kingston upon Thames, Hélène married Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, 2nd Duke of Aosta (1869–1931).

War-time nurse When the Italo-Turkish War broke out, Hélène trained as a nurse and went aboard the hospital ship Memfi, where she cared for wounded soldiers and those suffering from disease. During World War I, Hélène became the head of the Italian Red Cross nurses and spent much of her time on or near the front lines. She was remembered for greatly improving sanitary conditions in the military hospitals and elevating and professionalising the role of women nurses. For her service, Hélène was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for bravery, the Romanian Regina Maria Cross, the French Croix de Guerre, and the Insignia of a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire. Her war-time diary was later published with an introduction by Benito Mussolini to aid the Italian Red Cross.

Legacy She was described in Infanta Eulalia's 1915 memoirs:

She is a somewhat masculine type of woman, and spends a great deal of her time in Abyssinia. She leaves her husband and two boys and, with no companion except an elderly Englishwoman, sets out on a hunting expedition. She is lost in the heart of Africa for months, and then suddenly reappears and settles down to the humdrum life of her palace. But soon she hears again the call of the wild, and is away once more. What she does in Abyssinia nobody knows, if one excepts the elderly Englishwoman. The country seems to have cast a spell on her, and she cannot resist its fascination.

Ancestry