06/01/2025
Louise of Austria, Crown Princess of Saxony, 1902
These photographs were taken during the year when Louise escaped from Saxony and caused the so-called “first scandal of German nobility in the 20th century”, by having an affair with André Giron, her children’s French tutor
Born Archduchess of Austria, she was the second daughter of exiled Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Alice of Bourbon-Parma. Despite being a Habsburg, Louise’s upbringing was rather informal. At the age of 21, she married the Crown Prince Friedrich August of Saxony in 1891, and the couple had 7 children. However, due to her lack of etiquette that led to the discontentment with her in-laws, as well as rumours of her affair with her children’s Frenchtutor in 1902, Louise’s marriage was dissolved by her father-in-law, King George, without the consent of the couple. Her youngest daughter, Princess Anna Monika Pia, who was born a year after the divorce, remained by her mother’s side until, in 1907, being located by her father, now King Friedrich August III, and was forcefully separated from her mother and brought back to the Dresden court for upbringing. It happened shortly after Louise’s wedding with Italian musician Enrico Toselli
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