Pauline de Metternich

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Pauline Clémentine de Metternich, née countess Sándor de Slawnitze, (February 25, 1836 in Vienna - September 28, 1921 in Vienna) was a famous Viennese and Parisian socialite of great charm and elegance. She was an important promoter of the work of the German composer Richard Wagner and the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana.

[edit] Life

Princess Pauline de Metternich was born into the Hungarian noble family of Sándor de Slawnitza. Her father Moritz Sándor, described as "a furious rider", was known throughout the Hapsburg empire as a passionate horseman .Her mother Leontine de Metternich was a daughter of the Austrian chancellor Metternich. It was at his home in Vienna that Pauline spent almost her whole childhood.

In 1856 she married Prince Richard Metternich, a son of chancellor Metternich so they were a husband and a wife and an uncle and a niece simultaneously. They lived a happy conjugal life (despite his frequent love-affairs with actresses and opera prima donnas). They had three daughters.

Princess Pauline accompanied her husband, an Austrian diplomat, on his missions to the Royal court in Saxony and then the Imperial court in Paris where they lived for almost eleven years (1859 till 1870).

She played an important role in the social and cultural life of Dresden and Paris, and after 1870 Vienna. She was a close friend and confidante of French Empress Eugénie, and the Princess and her husband were dominant personalities at the court of Emperor Napoleon III´s. She introduced the fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth to the Empress and thus started his rise to fame.

Princess Metternich was an ardent patron of music, and became a leader of fashionable society. Whether in Paris or Vienna, she set the latest social trends. She taught French and Czech aristocrats to skate and ladies to smoke cigars without fear of their reputations. She was acquanted with many composers (e.g. Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Charles Gounod and Camille Saint-Saëns) and writers (e.g. Prosper Mérimée andAlexandre Dumas, père) and was in correspondence with them. Furthermore, she tried to popularise the music of Wagner in Paris and that of Czech music composer Bedřich Smetana in Vienna.

She organised amateur home performances of abridged versions of many famous operas, including Wagner´s Der Ring des Nibelungen. She took part both as a stage director and singer.

As a child, Princess Metternich was an eye-witness to the revolution of 1848 in Vienna and later in 1870 she remained at the side of Empress Eugénie de Montijoin Paris during the Franco-Prussian War . She later helped the Empress escape from Paris to Great Britain.

In her private life, Princess Metternich suffered several crises and disasters. Her second daughter Pascaline married Czech aristocrat, insane and alcoholic count George of Waldstein who was said to murder her in delirium in Duchcov (today in the Czech Republic) in 1890. Her youngest daughter Clementine was badly injured by her dog, when she was a child. She decided never to marry due to her scarred face.

She died in Vienna in 1921. She lived through the glory and fall of the Austrian and French Empire and was believed to be a living symbol of these two lost worlds.

Her most famous portrait was painted by French impressionist Edgar Degas In fact, they never met. Degas created it according to a photograph. The portrait is situated in the National Gallery, London.

[edit] Legacy

Pauline de Metternich was a notable patron of temporary arts. She made friends with music composers Richard Wagner (he dedicated her a piano composition) and Franz Liszt and helped them. It was her who organised the Parisian premiere of Wagner´s opera Tannhäuser in 1861. The failure of the project (the production was closed after three runs) became a celebre opera fiasco and one of the greatest music scandals of the 19th century. Nevertheless, she went on and spread the music of Wagner and other nowadays famous composers. One of her proteges was the leading Czech musician of that time, Bedřich Smetana whom she introduced to music circles of Vienna and Paris. Thanks to her Smetana´s comic opera The Bartered Bride was produced in Vienna in 1892, to noted popular acclaim.

Her regular stays in Paris and Vienna caused that she became a social and cultural transmitter of many cultural phenomena (sports, music, politic ideas what she was very keen on etc.).

She wrote two books of memoirs. The first one, Gesehenes, geschehenes, erlebtes, in German, in praise of her grandfather chancellor Metternich and father Moritz Sándor, the second one, Éclairs du passé in French, recollectign the times of the court of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie de Montijo (she recollects the Wagner episode of Tannhäuser in Paris etc.). Both of them were published posthumously in the 20s of the 20th century.