#irene paley

[thepaleys]

Life at Bolougne-sur-Seine - Part 1

It's clear that, until the age of eight, Natalie [Paley] grew up in an overprotected world - where tenderness and culture were inseparable. The large house in Boulogne, which had sixteen employees, was an unassailable fortress. From the guardian couple Gustave and Joséphine, to Jacqueline Theureau, the Berry governess who watched over her since her birth, without forgetting Miss White, the English teacher, all defended the little girl against attacks from the outside world. The surrounding nature itself seemed courteous and civilized. The paths were swept every morning, the flowerbeds trimmed, and the flowers watered. (...) Their life in France was the result of a painful freedom in many respects but both [Grand Duke Paul and Olga] knew what it would cost them to break the imperial rules and accepted the consequences, which explains in large part how available they were for their children. If they had remained in Russia, Grand Duke Paul, a professional soldier, would not have been able to participate so closely in their education. The fragility of his health must also be taken into account. For years, he suffered, according to his doctors, from a liver disorder - when in reality it was a stomach ulcer and he had to divide his time between rest and life in the open air. That was the reason why every morning, dressed in an old tweed cape, he took Irene and Natalie - the first was always his favourite, even if he didn't want to show it, because she reminded him so much of his wife; as for the younger one, she amused him a lot with her witty quips in the Bois de Boulogne, just a few meters from their home. When Marie, his eldest daughter, was in France, she joined their group with her old fox terrier, Martzka. At the time, deer were still seen coming out of the thickets.

Natalie Paley: Princesse en Exil - Jean-Noel Liaut

[drosera-nepenthes]

Natalie and Irene Paley

[romanovsonelastdance]

Princess Irina Pavlovna Paley, daughter of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich and wife of Prince Feodor Alexandrovich.

[thepaleys]

Marie Pavlovna the Younger recalls her visits to her father in Paris

We had seen very little of my father from 1902 till 1908, since during that time we had been children and remained in Russia with my uncle and aunt. I was married and practically grown up when I began to see him again regularly. He had been afraid that during the years we had lived apart I had grown away from him or been influenced against him. He probed carefully into the depths of my soul to see if the things he had planted there when I was a child had not been uprooted. (...)

In 1902, after his morganatic marriage and his exile, my father and his wife settled down in Paris, where they bought a house. The property they selected was situated outside the gates of the city in a fashionable suburb called Boulogne-sur-Seine. To reach it you had to drive through the Bois de Boulogne. The house, which stood in a garden, was at first not a large one, but every year something would be added to it. My father and my step-mother led in their home the life of private people, saw whom they wished, and did what they pleased. During the years I spent in Sweden, where I was forced to be constantly in the public eye, it was a rest and a welcome change to escape all formality for two or three short weeks; it was a joy also to feel, for a time at least, part of the happy household, for happy indeed it was. (...)

Here was the place at which my father always sat. He was very punctual and, if we failed to be in his study on the stroke of half-past twelve, he would go to the dining-room alone and sit down. Before lunch we had taken a walk in the Bois de Boulogne, and I had gone to my room to tidy up. When I joined him in the dining- room, he would be mildly impatient because it was bad for the Parmesan soufflé to be kept waiting. (...)

At my father's side stood his wife's empty chair, and it always remained empty until the middle of the meal. My stepmother could never be ready on time, and he had given her up as hopeless. She was either dressing, up in her bedroom, or shopping in town. After a shopping expedition she would return laden with neatly tied parcels and cardboard boxes which she flung down on a chair beside the windows. I was invariably teased about my curiosity and accused of wanting to know the contents of the parcels. Then she would settle down to a few slices of cold ham and a salad. Fearful of putting on weight, she was always starving herself at table but eating between meals. Lunch proceeded.

The little girls on either side of their governess tried to be very good. Volodia, my step-brother, made a lot of noise and asked innumerable questions; any attempt at a conversation in his presence was useless, and it was equally useless to try and silence him. (...)

At Christmas time Volodia wrote plays for his little sisters to act. A stage was rigged up in the large drawing-room with screens from the nursery. Blankets and sheets were used as curtains and hangings. The elaborate construction thus conceived would generally collapse at the most important moment and fall over the heads of the actors. For days in succession Volodia firmly schooled his sisters, who at the time were hardly more than babies.

"A Princess in Exile" - Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna Jr

[thepaleys]

Letters from Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna about her meeting with Grand Duke Paul in Bavaria, in 1903

Tegernsee, 19 August 1903

Dearest Missy!

(...) Sandra was waiting for us at at Munich and only imagine that Uncle Paul and wife were staying at the hotel! It gave me quite a turn, but we did not meet them, as we left early next morning. (...)

Tegernsee, 28 August 1903

Well, I saw Uncle Paul alone for an hour at Munich. I had great emotions but it went off well. He talked nearly the whole time himself, was evidently pleased to see me and no disagreeable words passed between us, nor did he ask me to see his wife. He could not stop repeating how happy she made him and how ideal a woman she was. They are going to spend the winter at Paris and she is expecting! I cannot say how sorry I felt for him, though he tried to look jolly and pleased. A lost man, a lost man!

Tegernsee, 4 October 1903

Well, the séjours of our guests are coming to an end and all went off peacefully and in a satisfactory way. Uncle Paul left on Friday for Paris, where they spend the winter, Serge and Ella leave today for Darmstadt, but the children remain with us for another week. It was a struggle to get them all in and naturally with the amount of luggage and servants they bring, my poor house had the look of an hotel and no tidiness possible! (...)

I can really say that this interview, which frightened me at first, turned out ever so much better than I expected. Uncle Paul became quite himself again and seemed pleased to be amongst us. The children are nice, well behaved and very simple and natural. The little girl is a most reasonable small person and one can very well talk with her. She is not pretty, rather small and stumpy and awkward, I don't think she will ever get really pretty. The boy is sweet and has quite a different type, more refined and in the style of his father when he was a boy. Uncle Paul had to tell them, that he expected another baby soon, which was a blow to them and I believe they cried a good deal about it. But before us they were always self-possessed.

"My Dear Mama", Diana Mandach

[thepaleys]

Irène (de Russie) L'an mil neuf cent trois, le vingt deux décembre à deux heures trois quarts du soir, acte de naissance de Irène, du sexe féminin, née le vingt deux décembre courant à quatre heures et demie du matin, au domicile de ses père et mère, fille de Son Altesse Impériale Monseigneur le Grand Duc Paul de Russie âgé de quarante deux ans, et de Olga Valérianovna, âgée de trente huit ans, mariés, domiciliés Avenue d'léna, 11. Dressé par Mons. Victor Bridault, adjoint au maire, officier de l'Etat civil du seizième arrondissement de Paris, sur la présentation de l'enfant et la déclaration faite, le père absent, par Olga Karnovitch, âgée de soixante dix ans, sans profession, domiciliée à Saint-Pétersbourg (Russie), ayant assisté à l'accouchement, aieule de l'enfant, en présence de Hortense Judlin, âgée de trente huit ans, institutrice, domiciliée avenue d'léna, 11 et d'Alexandre Efinovitch, âgé de trente-sept ans, capitaine de cavalerie de la Garde, attaché à l'Ambassade Impériale de Russie à Paris, domicilié avenue d'léna, Hôtel d'léna, témoins qui ont signé avec la déclarante et nous après lecture.

Irène (of Russia) - In the year one thousand nine hundred and three, on the twenty-second of December at two thirty-four in the evening. Birth certificate of Irène, of the female sex, born on the twenty-second of December at half past four in the morning, at the home of her father and mother, daughter of His Imperial Highness Monseigneur the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, aged forty-two, and of Olga Valérianovna, aged thirty-eight, married, residing at Avenue d'léna, 11. Drawn up by Mons. Victor Bridault, deputy mayor, registrar of the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, as the father was absent, the presentation of the child and the declaration was made by Olga Karnovitch, aged seventy, without profession, residing in St Petersburg (Russia), who attended the birth, grandmother of the child, in the presence of Hortense Judlin, aged thirty-eight, schoolteacher, residing at avenue d'léna, 11 and Alexandre Efinovitch, aged thirty-seven, captain of cavalry of the Guard, attached to the Imperial Russian Embassy in Paris, residing at avenue d'léna, Hôtel d'léna, witnesses who signed with the declarant and us after reading.

Birth certificate of Princess Irina Pavlovna Paley, who was registered under the name Iréne of Russia at a time when her mother still hadn't been granted the title of Countess. She was registered by her maternal grandmother and Alexander Effimovich, her father's aide-de-camp. 20 years later, when she married Prince Feodor Alexandrovich, it was also Effimovich who walked her down the aisle, in the absence of her father, Grand Duke Paul, who had been murdered four years earlier.

At the beginning of winter, as we were settling down in the Governor General’s palace in Moscow, my father announced by letter the birth of his daughter, Irene. Later, I learned that my father wanted me to be the godmother of my little stepsister, but my uncle, whom he was obliged to consult, would not hear of it.

"Education of a Princess" - Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna Jr.

[theprincesshelena-blog]