Greetings gentle reader. Sorry it�s been so long since my last column-thought I�d take a little time off from producing a monthly column for 3 years straight. Before I begin I would like to state as my own personal opinion regarding Princess Diana�s memorial service today, that Parker Bowles should never have been invited to attend in the first place. It would have been a colossal insult to Diana to have the woman who caused her so much grief sitting there as some special guest, gloating in public. Why William and Harry keep trying to force her acceptance on the public is beyond me. You may not agree but as far as the Jester is concerned that manipulator should have been unceremoniously pushed out of Prince Charles� life decades ago. Her selfish scheming to cheat up and stay there whatever the cost to others� lives is something the Palace seems perfectly happy to let her get away with. Why? It�s wrong. Always has been-always will be She�ll never be any queen of mine. I am pleased that the Queen�s sober second thought-even if a tad late-finally put a stop to that nonsense.

Okay-now that I�ve had my say are you ready for a little light autumn reading? How about a good romance story? Well, this is sort of a romance. This column begins a 3-part series about a particularly fascinating love affaire. It stars a woman who went from teenage Princess Bride craving love, to high rank in the glittering court of a despotic Napoleon, through the brief but chaotic Restoration of the French monarchy, to a cherished career in international politics in post-Georgian England. She is known to history as the Duchess of Dino.

My February column introduced you to an Edwardian-age Frenchwoman who used her beauty and uninhibited personality to raise herself from the grimy Parisian underworld to European royalty, and then to a life dedicated to helping those with nothing. This story will make your acquaintance with another young woman, born a century before, who began as a minor royal but raised herself with intelligence and total dedication to become the right hand of one of Napoleon�s greatest Ministers, and then a major influence in Restoration Europe herself.

Peter Berin, Duke of Courland (a small duchy in northern Prussia) was on his third wife. The first two had put up with his extreme mood swings and nasty personality long enough to give him three daughters between them, and then divorced him. Anne of Medem, born in 1761, was from a very old and wealthy Courland family. The 19-year-old thought marrying a real duke was a great opportunity. In 1786, Peter bought the huge estate of Sagan, about 100 miles southeast of Berlin. It came with the hereditary title of Duke of Sagan. Frederick II of Prussia wanted Peter to live among his people so badly that he changed the succession rules so that the title could be passed down to both male and female lines.

But the Courland government was getting more than annoyed at Peter, who had been neglecting his duties for years. Since the feudal overlord of Courland was King Stanislas of Poland he decided to send his Polish wife to the Diet in Warsaw to appease him. At only 66 Peter was worn out and this move was seen not only the end of his marriage, but also the abdication of the rest of his responsibilities. For the next ten years Anne ran free, virtually carrying on like he didn�t exist. Sucking up to one Count Alexander Batowski to get his support in the Diet was a pleasurable and successful campaign for Anne. The negotiations took over a year and she didn�t return home until well into 1791. In May of the following year Russia invaded Lithuania and then Courland. Peter and Anne threw what they could carry into his carriage and bailed to Prussia, Batowski right behind them. The Count was installed as a semi-permanent guest in the ducal palace. Dorothea was born August 21, 1793. But was she Peter�s daughter?

By then the 69-year-old Peter was practically senile, he accepted the child. Anne installed Batowski in her estate in Saxony, and thereafter spent her winters at Sagan with Peter and the girls, and the summers with Batowski and Dorothea. Courland was sold to Russia�s Empress Catherine and now Peter had tons of money to spend on Sagan: great hunting parties, massive banquets, entertainers and the greatest performers from Germany and Italy were always on hand. Meanwhile Batowski was none too happy to be exiled up in the boonies. She tried hard to give him everything he wanted but finally Anne couldn�t stand the whining and took another lover-Baron Gustave d�Armfeld, professional soldier.

Peter died in 1800. His eldest daughter got Sagan and the title Duchess of, with plenty left over to ensure all his daughters got a major inheritance. Seven-year-old Dorothea also got a large baroque palace in Berlin, which eventually became the Russian embassy. After the funeral Anne, Batowski and Armfeld spent 24 hours straight in protracted and emotional discussions regarding the terms of Batowski�s departure. Finally Batowski tore up the marriage contract he�d had with Anne, threw it into the fireplace, and then the three dined happily enough-Batowski now relieved of the enormous financial burden Anne would have been to him. But while her three now very wealthy older sisters went about Europe attempting to find titled husbands Dorothea was left to the not-so-tender mercies of her half-crazy English nanny. She had no pleasures of any kind, or given any education. Her mother just didn�t find her worthy of attention. Until Armfeld proved to her that Dorothea wasn�t stupid, by teaching her to read and write in one week, Anne never noticed that perhaps her daughter might have some value after all.

With a new German governess, and an Italian former monk as teacher (former tutor to Poland�s Prince Adam), Dorothea began her education in earnest. Abbė Piattoli had known her mother and helped her in Warsaw when he was Secretary to the King. He�d been jailed by the invading Russians. Fortunately Adam was now great friends with Tsar Alexander, and convinced him to set his former teacher free. In 1802 he arrived in Berlin to the joy of Anne. He and Dorothea took to each other at once. Regina Hoffman had fallen in love with a young man and after following him to Paris only to have him die before the wedding, became a Catholic and went into a convent. However just before her final vows she had sober second thoughts. Deciding she didn�t have a real conviction after all she headed to Poland, and became governess to a princess. However the princess�s father was soon thrown in jail and she was off to find another job, happily scooped up by Anne. These two fought over who would have the greatest influence on her education, but practical Doro took what she needed from each.

In 1806 Prussia went to war with France. In September the Prussian army invaded Saxony and in October Napoleon tasted victory at Jena. The King and Queen decamped to Danzig. Anne was already in St. Petersburg on business, leaving Dorothea alone with Regina. On her way to join the King, Queen Louise had stopped in and urged Dorothea to follow her. The French were coming and they�d probably be burned out! When they arrived in Danzig, all the affected European crowned heads were fighting over places to sleep-even in the stables. So it was off on a long winter journey to Courland, and her ancestral home at Mittau.

She found the place and its inhabitants below par, but was received by its society because it had once housed the exiled future Louis XVIII, and Hoffman was old friends with the King�s current favourite the Duke of Avaray. Anne on the other hand had been a supporter of Napoleon; there had even been a rumour that she was hoping for Napoleon�s divorce in favour of herself. Fortunately, Dorothea was no republican, and as Avaray was on the lookout for a wife for Louis�s nephew (and second son of the future king Charles X), Hoffman began having dreams for Dorothea.

Dorothea was heading down the road to support of Prussian independence while Anne was all for Napoleon running all of Europe. Once the war was over Dorothea, aged 14, and no longer dependent on her mother for money, set off with Hoffman back to Berlin. All along the way her anger at the French army for the destruction it had left behind burned in her. Berlin was occupied. She took her Confirmation on Good Friday, 1808, refusing to learn the catechism. After that Anne decided they should return to her estate in Saxony. Promised her own household there Dorothea consented. The secret object was to find her a suitable husband. Dorothea, however, had already had her heart set on the unseen Prince Adam, 23 years her senior.

Though they�d never met 15-year-old Dorothea just knew he was the man of her dreams. Adam was a Polish nationalist and Anne was afraid that would not go down well with the Russian overlords. Piattoli had been encouraging both of them privately, but Adam was not so sure about the age difference. In 1807, while passing through Mittau on business, Adam finally met Dorothea. He told her later he�d been impressed- she was enchanted. Adam�s mother the Empress kept telling him this match was not good enough for him. Anne kept telling her this upstart Pole was not good enough for her. While Adam prevaricated Dorothea enjoyed the attentions of many other prospective princes and dukes, although she knew they were only interested in her fortune.

On the evening of October 17, 1808, Russian Emperor Alexander arrived for dinner at Anne�s Saxony estate of Lőbikau. Dorothea was forced out of her self-imposed seclusion. The Emperor brought only a small retinue, among them the Duke of Vicenza and a handsome French soldier named Count Edmond de Talleyrand-Pėrigord.

Edmond was the heir to his uncle�s vast fortune. Uncle Charles, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and current Grand Chamberlain to Napoleon, former priest and Prince of Benevento among other things, and a Serene Highness, was looking for a wife for Edmond. Although he had finally married himself he and his promiscuous and ditzy wife had had no children. Twenty-one-year-old Edmond was no prize exactly. His major concerns were horses, women and gambling, and how to get the best from each. He wasn�t much but he was all the Prince had. His marriage prospects in Europe were few and in France were iffy considering his current shaky relations with Napoleon. So that left Prussia, Austria and Germany. It may have been Anne�s ex Batowski, a friend of the Prince, who directed him to Dorothea.

Talleyrand had been walking a political tightrope between his boss and Tsar Alexander for some time. He finally decided that Napoleon was getting too dangerous, so knowing what Napoleon was thinking each night he wrote Alexander and told him what was going on. In return Alexander lent his support in convincing Napoleon to allow Edmond to marry Dorothea, and to convince Anne to allow it too. The next day a bored Dorothea insisted on going back to Berlin-convinced Adam would come galloping in on his white steed to rescue her there. Anne convinced her to come back in February for her birthday.

Batowski was sent in by the Prince to lay the groundwork. Prince Adam had to be eliminated from the game to get Dorothea to cooperate. Since Piattoli had been the one to promote this match he should be the one to end it. Although the old priest was close to death both he and Anne inundated him with letters demanding he convince Dorothea to give up on her heart�s desire. A confused Dorothea decided to drop in on her former tutor and find out what was really going on here. He lied and told her he hadn�t heard a word from Adam. Pretty much alone in the world-her mother distant, her sisters so much older, having outgrown the need for Hoffman and now about to lose her beloved tutor Piattoli-Dorothea was getting more than a little suspicious- all confirmed when on the night of her mother�s birthday Edmond suddenly arrived.

Horrified, she was forced to spend the evening with him. The next morning Anne presented her with two letters. One was from Tsar Alexander and the other from Talleyrand himself. Both declared how really great Edmond was and how it was her political duty to marry him. But Dorothea was not yet ready to give up on Adam. So Batowski was sent off to Piattoli. Again he convinced the old man to write a big fat lying letter, telling her that Adam was marrying somebody else. Dorothea didn�t buy it so she took off to visit him yet again. Anticipating this Anne placed an old friend of hers in his house. Piattoli weakly stuck to his story. Next day one Countess Olinska descended, with a handful of letters, supposedly just arrived from Warsaw, declaring that Adam�s upcoming nuptials were the talk of the town. A devastated Dorothea was then shoved into a room with a waiting Edmond. There she told him flat out that she was marrying him because it was her duty, but don�t expect her to ever care about him.

The sad part was Adam had finally gotten his mother�s consent. His letter to Anne was sent back, her replying that Dorothea had made other arrangements. The wedding was in six weeks. In the meantime there were a few obstacles to overcome: 1. Napoleon had to consent, and he did because even though he was displeased with Talleyrand he wasn�t that mad. 2. The Tsar had already consented, but the Prussian and German royals were horrified. 3. Her three sisters were rabid Napoleon and French haters, and Anne realized this might cut her of from a lot of her friends in German society. All poor Dorothea ever wanted was to love and be loved. But with her dreams of happiness shattered and her teenage heart broken, she must have felt that the rest of her life would bring her nothing but more misery and grief. .

Next time Dorothea faces down Napoleon himself.

PS I�m doing a little marketing survey here. Is there any interest out there in my putting some of my columns into book form? Would you buy one? Two? Let me know.

Anon.