An insider’s gossipy, tell-all account of pre-revolutionary royal life, full of scandals, rivalries, and affairs, among the great dynasties of Europe.
In the wake of World War I, a series of revolutions ended the reign of Europe’s last great royal families. Much has been written about how these dynasties—the Romanovs of Russia, the Hapsburgs of Austria, and the Hohenzollerns of Germany—helped shaped the events of their own demise. But in Secrets of Dethroned Royalty, Princess Catherine Radziwill pulls back the royal curtain to reveal a sordid, personal portrait of greatness in decline.
A Polish-Russian aristocrat, Princess Catherine Radziwill had a famous penchant for scandal. First published in 1920, Secrets of Dethroned Royalty is a candid collection of events and anecdotes, all recounted as only she could tell them.Catherine Radziwill was a Polish-Russian aristocrat. Born in St. Petersburg as Ekaterina Adamovna Rzewuska, a member of the House of Rzewuski, she came from a Polish family of warriors, statesmen, and notable writers; including Catherine’s great-great-grandfather, Wacław Rzewuski; her uncle, Henryk; and her aunts, Ewelina, wife of Honoré de Balzac, and Karolina, who kept a literary salon in Paris. Radziwill was a prominent figure at the Imperial courts in Germany and Russia but became involved in a series of scandals. She combined her love for the luxury of the courts, social life, gossip, and intrigue with her literary talent, and wrote two dozen books on European royalty and the Russian court, including Behind the Veil at the Russian Court (1914) and her autobiography It Really Happened (1932).