Leopold and Wilhelmine

The second instance of a prince who stooped to wed is that of Leopold Ferdinand Salvator, eldest son of Ferdinand IV., claimant to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, an Archduke of Austria and royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia. Leopold gave up all rank, his commission in the Austrian army, the Order of the Golden Fleece and sundry other honors on December 29, 1907, and became plain Leopold Wolfling in order to marry Wilhelmine Adamovics, a dancer on the Vienna stage and the daughter of a small official in the postoffice service. This marriage did not prove fortunate. Frau Wolfling became attached to a fanatic sect in Switzerland known as the Ascona Anchorites or Ascona Naturists, who practiced vegetarianism and danced, it is said, in the sun in a minimum of attire. The ex-Prince himself tried it for a while, but tired of it – also of his wife’s temper, he said – and obtained a divorce. It is said that he has married since, in Zurich, Maria Magdalena Ritter, an untitled native of Silesia. Wilhelmine Adamovics made three attempts to kill herself on the 7th of last month and she is now confined in a lunatic asylum.

Town Talk (San Francisco), Vol. 16, 4. April 1908, Nr. 814 S. 14. Online