page_title: Catherine Bagration
section_title: The "Wandering Princess"
hierarchical_section_title: Catherine Bagration / The "Wandering Princess"
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Хуммель де Бурдон Карл Людвиг (1769-1840). Портрет княгини Е.П. Багратион. 1812. Коллекция Подстаницких. Копия с акварели Изабе
context_page_description: Princess Catherine Bagration née Skavronskaya was a Russian princess, married to general Pyotr Bagration. She was known for her beauty, love affairs and unconventional behaviour.
context_section_description: In the year 1805 the Princess finally broke up with her husband and went to Europe. The couple had no children. She traveled so extensively that she had a special carriage made, with an elegant ladder that allowed her to climb in and out of it comfortably. It had a bed inside, and all the luggage was placed on the outside. She called her carriage her dormez (дормез) or 'sleeper'; this was the time when she came to be known as "the Wandering Princess". Prince Bagration called her back to Russia a number of times, and sent her so many letters that even her friends tried to persuade her to go; she remained abroad, however, using the excuse that she was sick and in need of medical treatment. In Europe Princess Bagration was a great success, and became well known in court circles. She became notorious everywhere and was called le Bel Ange Nu ("the beautiful nude angel") because of her passion for revealing dresses, and Chatte Blanche ("the White Cat"), because of her unlimited sensuality. Lord Palmerston noted in his memoirs that the Princess only wore translucent Indian muslin, which adhered closely to her figure. From her mother, however, she had inherited an angelic face, alabaster white skin, blue eyes, and a cascade of golden hair. Even when she was thirty it was said she still had the skin of a fifteen-year-old.
  Her husband the Prince, however, refused to hear a word said against her, insisting that the affairs of his household were his business alone; she was his wife and he would stand up for her. Her huge expenditure on receptions and clothes belied her claims of sickness, but he remained a generous husband and continued to pay her bills. The Prince even remonstrated with the Princess's mother, who had started to get irritated by her daughter's extravagance. In 1808, a military Order was awarded to the wives of those generals who had particularly distinguished themselves in the recent war. Princess Bagration was bypassed, and the pride of her husband was wounded. He argued that Ekaterina bore his name, and that was enough: "She should be rewarded, because she's my wife ...". The Prince paid thousands of roubles for debts Princess Catherine had accumulated from living in Vienna.
  There were rumors about her connection with the Saxon diplomat Count Friedrich von der Schulenberg, a Prince of Württemberg, Lord Charles Stewart and others. Goethe met her in Karlsbad, and admired her beauty; she had just started a new romance with Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, who ended his relationship with Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich for her.  The Prince soon died in the Battle of Saalfeld, and the princess returned once more to Vienna. She then became the mistress of the very influential Prince Klemens von Metternich and had a daughter by him in Vienna on 29 September 1810, whom she named Marie-Clementine after the father, who officially acknowledged his paternity. The daughter even lived with the Metternich family from 1814 until getting married.
caption: Portrait by Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1820)
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