Caroline Bauer Explained

Caroline Bauer (29 March 1807  - 18 October 1877[1]) was a German actress of the Biedermeier era who used the name Lina Bauer.

Biography

Caroline Philippina Augusta Bauer (German: Karoline Philippine Auguste Bauer) was born in Heidelberg, Germany to Heinrich Bauer and Christiane Stockmar. Her siblings were Lottchen, Karl and Louis.

She was during a short time in 1828-1829 the mistress of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (later King of Belgium as Leopold I). It was said that she bore a close physical resemblance to Leopold's late wife, Princess Charlotte of Wales,[2] which had been commented on by the Duke of Wellington.[3]

In mid-1829 she and her mother returned to Berlin, and she resumed her career as an actress. She competed with Charlotte von Hagn; the theatre audiences were divided into "Bauerians" and "Hagnerians". Many years later, in her memoirs published posthumously, she declared that she had engaged into a morganatic marriage with Leopold and that he had created her Countess of Montgomery.[4] There was no record of such a marriage or of the existence of such a title. There was, on the contrary, a strong denial by her cousin, the son of Leopold's secretary, baron Christian Friedrich Freiherr von Stockmar.

Her second husband was Wladyslaw Plater, whom she married in 1843.[5] Her cousin, Marie Bauer, was married to Marian Langiewicz, leader of the Polish Insurrection of 1863; they were married in Switzerland. She died by suicide in Kilchberg, Switzerland.

Literature

External links

Notes and References

  1. Ponsonby, Doris A. A prisoner in Regent's park. Chapman and Hall; 1st Edition (1961). ASIN: B0000CL5YL. Page 206.
  2. Book: Cecil Woodham-Smith. Queen Victoria: Her Life and Times. 1972. H. Hamilton. 978-0-241-02200-9. 86.
  3. Book: Public Opinion. 1885. G. Cole. 109.
  4. Book: The Nation. 1885. J.H. Richards. 257.
  5. Book: Karoline Bauer. Memoirs of Karoline Bauer: From the German. 1885. Remington & Company. 199.