Princess Stéphanie of Belgium

Princess Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte of Belgium was born 21 May 1864, second daughter of King Leopold II. At sixteen she married Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria in Vienna, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and bore one child, Archduchess Elisabeth Marie. The marriage frayed quickly: Rudolf, politically disillusioned, took multiple lovers and gave Stéphanie a venereal disease that left her infertile. In 1889 he and his mistress Mary Vetsera were found dead at Mayerling, an apparent pact. Eleven years later she married Count Elemér Lónyay, a Hungarian nobleman of lower rank, forfeiting her place in the House of Habsburg but finding happiness. She published her memoirs in 1935 under the title "I Was Going To Be Empress," disinherited her estranged daughter in 1944, and died of a stroke 23 August 1945 in a Hungarian abbey where she'd fled the Red Army.