OrléANS, Marion (de Bourbon) d' 1941-

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ORLÉANS, Marion (de Bourbon) d' 1941-

PERSONAL: Born September 4, 1941, in Santiago, Chile; daughter of James and Mercedes (Devia) Gordon-Orr; married Prince Thibaut Louis Denis Humbert de Bourbon d'Orléans (Comte de La Marche), September 23, 1972 (died, 1983); children: Robert Benoit Paul Henri James Marie, Louis-Philippe Albert François Marie (deceased).

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Editions André Balland, 33 Rue Saint André des Arts, 75006 Paris, France 06.

CAREER: Novelist. Comtesse de La Marche by virtue of her husband's title.

WRITINGS:

"les princes du sang" series; with husband, thibaut d'orlÉans

Un château de Bavière (title means "A Castle in Bavaria"; also see below), Editions André Balland (Paris, France), 1973.

Le Témps des aventuriers (title means "The Time of Adventurers"; also see below), Editions André Balland (Paris, France), 1973.

L'Ombre de la guerre (title means "The Shadow of the War"), Editions André Balland (Paris, France), 1974.

Le Sort des armes (title means "The Fate of the Arms"), Editions André Balland (Paris, France), 1974.

A Castle in Bavaria: A Novel (abridged and revised combination of Un Château de Bavière and Le Témps des aventuriers), translated by Helen Weaver, Simon and Schuster (New York, NY), 1975.

SIDELIGHTS: Princess Marion d'Orléans and her husband, Prince Thibaut d'Orléans, the fifth and youngest son of the current Bourbon pretender to the throne of France, used their connections to the major royal houses of Europe to create a four-volume saga that follows one fictional royal family, the Hartburgs, through the political turmoil that continent experienced in the years between World War I and World War II.

The political upheavals of November 1918 resulted in the deposition of the twenty-four reigning royal families of the German Empire, as well as Emperor Karl I of Austria-Hungary and King Nikola I of Montenegro (later part of Yugoslavia). The Russian Emperor Nikolai II had already been toppled from his throne some eighteen months earlier, and the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet VI would follow suit within four years. Also affected were the many German and Austrian nobles who did not possess sovereign status, but who still occupied the highest rungs of society. These highborn princes suddenly found themselves being blamed for the devastation of World War I, and for the severe economic depression that followed in 1929.

In the Orléans' novels, the Hartburgs, former grand chamberlains and political advisers to the elderly Ludwig III, last king of Bavaria, have branches naturalized in England (the earls of Hardcastle), Austria, and France. This places them in four major capitals in postwar Europe, making them perfect observers of the European political scene. The story begins in the final days of World War I, on November 7, 1918, with Prince Gottfried von Hartburg advising the old king, his boyhood playmate, that the socialist revolutionaries gathering in the streets of Munich are indeed serious, and that they threaten not only the monarch's seat of power, but also his life as well. By evening the throngs of people in the streets have exceeded one hundred thousand, and by the following day, Kurt Eisner has deposed the monarchy and erected a socialist republic. The king and his children flee to the countryside, where they will be better protected.

Meanwhile, Prince Gottfried's eldest son and heir, Prince Ruprecht, is with Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II at army headquarters, where Ruprecht witnesses the vacillation of the emperor over his decision about whether or not to abdicate. Finally, Wilhelm receives word that his last chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, has taken the ultimate step on his own, leaving him with no choice but to flee with his family to the safety of the Netherlands. In Austria, Ruprecht's younger brother, Prince George von Hartburg-Daranyi, provides a firsthand account of the devolution of the Austrian monarchy into chaos and communist revolution. In each of these scenarios, the Hartburgs represent the conservative status quo, except for the absent Princess Maria Radzinski, Prince Ruprecht's wife, who abandons her family and runs off with revolutionary painter Frederic Rosen, by whom she ultimately bears an illegitimate child.

The second novel in the series advances the timeline to the beginning of the Depression era, with the forces of National Socialism (the Nazi Party) on the rise in Germany. Le Témps des aventuriers ends with the death of Prince Gottfried in 1929. The third novel, L'Ombre de la guerre, deals with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, and the effects of his pernicious philosophy and political tyranny on western and central Europe. The final book in the series, Le Sort des armes, puts the Hartburgs into the maw of World War II.

In all of these books, the sections which seem truest to life are those dealing with the titled families of Europe at the close of World War I. Clearly, Prince Thibaut and his wife visited the palaces, castles, and settings described, and knew something of the relationships involved. Both the Bavarian and French royal families, being Catholic, have intermarried at various times in the past two centuries. For this reason, A Castle in Bavaria and its French-language sequels remain interesting reading as a study of princely life by the royals themselves.