Princess Maria Maximilianovna of Leuchtenberg

Princess Maria Maximilianovna of Leuchtenberg, also known as Princess Maria Romanovskya, Maria, Princess Romanovskaja, Maria Herzogin von Leuchtenberg or Marie Maximiliane (16 October 1841 – 16 February 1914) was the eldest surviving daughter of Maximilian de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg and Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia. She married Prince Wilhelm of Baden. The couple's son, Prince Maximilian, was Germany's last Imperial chancellor.

Family and early life

Maria's father Maximilian de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg had traveled to St. Petersburg, eventually winning the hand of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Nicholas I's eldest daughter. Maximilian was subsequently bestowed with the style Imperial Highness and given the title Prince Romanowsky.

As the daughter of a Russian grand duchess, Maria ("Marusya") and her siblings (Nicholas, Eugen, Eugenia, Sergei, and George) were always treated as grand dukes and duchesses, bearing the styles Imperial Highness. After their father's death in 1852, their mother morganatically remarried to Count Grigori Stroganov two years later. As this union was kept secret from her father Emperor Nicholas I (and her brother Emperor Alexander II could not permit the union, preferring instead to feign ignorance), Grand Duchess Maria was forced into exile abroad. Alexander stopped to put on an overcoat before climbing into his carriage, when a man quickly aimed a pistol at him; only the swift action of a man named Komissaroff, who knocked the man's hand up in the air, saved the emperor's life. On 11 February 1863 in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, she married Prince Wilhelm of Baden.

They had two children: Princess Marie of Baden (Baden, 26 July 1865 - Baden, 29 November 1939); married Friedrich II, Duke of Anhalt. Prince Maximilian of Baden (Baden, 10 July 1867 - Konstanz, 6 November 1929); married Princess Marie Louise of Hanover (Gmunden am Traunsee 11 October 1879 - Schloß Salem 31 January 1948); As a new wife, Maria began her duties soon after marrying, for instance representing her husband's relative Grand Duchess Louise of Baden at the christening of the Prince of Leiningen's daughter. During the Franco-Prussian War, Wilhelm served with the Prussian army under the command of Wilhelm I. On 29 July, Maria and her husband stayed with Crown Prince Frederick William, and according to the prince's memoirs, "distracted us for the moment from the anxieties of the present".

Prince Wilhelm died on 27 April 1897. After his death, Maria founded a new organization, called the German Anti-Immorality Association. Its purpose was to suppress "vice among the upper classes". Maria, with the help of Grand Duchess Eleonore of Hesse and Queen Charlotte of Württemberg, set aside a fund meant to produce pamphlets persuading both female and male royal figures that their prominent roles in society meant they should be examples of moral purity. As with the court of St. Petersburg, Maria's death cast the Berlin court into mourning, disrupting planned court festivities. Dame of the Order of Louise (Kingdom of Prussia) Dame Grand Cordon of St. Catherine (Russian Empire) Dame of the Order of Olga, 1871 (Kingdom of Württemberg) Imperial Russian and Royal Serbian Honorary Award for Voluntary Assistance in War Memorial Cross for 1870/71 (Grand Duchy of Baden) Cross of Merit for 1870/71 (Kingdom of Bavaria)

Ancestry