" . . . American newspapers published articles on how American millionairesses might snare Old World noblemen for husbands and one such article in 1886 even listed 27 noble British bachelors who might be available. By 1904 more than 20 daughters of American robber barons had become European princesses. By 1915 the number of such American heiresses transformed into European princesses was 42. Even more American daughters of wealth had become duchesses, countesses, marchionesses, and whatnot. In 1914, 60 British peers and 40 sons of peers were married to American heiresses." (The Great Strike of 1877: 32)
" . . . It seems as though the royal world of a princess Clara had so heartily desired in 1889 was not at all what she expected – or wanted. She even cautioned other American women not to fall into the same trap that she had stumbled into – that of marrying only for a title: “Few American-bred women could feel themselves really happy in the high European, especially Continental, society”. Simply put, Clara wanted her life of freedom in America back. . . ." (Crowns, Tiaras, & Coronets)
" . . . It seems as though the royal world of a princess Clara had so heartily desired in 1889 was not at all what she expected – or wanted. She even cautioned other American women not to fall into the same trap that she had stumbled into – that of marrying only for a title: “Few American-bred women could feel themselves really happy in the high European, especially Continental, society”. Simply put, Clara wanted her life of freedom in America back. . . ." (Crowns, Tiaras, & Coronets)
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| Clara Ward Princesse de Caraman-Chimay, c1905 |
(1873-1916)
Princesse de Caraman-Chimay.
American socialite.
Daughter of:
Eber Brock-Ward (Capt.) & Catherine Lyon, niece of Senator Benjamin Wade.
"Clara Ward was the daughter of an American shipping and lumber tycoon who died when she was 18 months old, leaving the family a $6 million fortune, or around $130 million today. As she grew up, between her wealth and her voluptuous figure, she was the perfect glamour girl for Victorian times." (New York Post)
"Clara Ward was the daughter of an American shipping and lumber tycoon who died when she was 18 months old, leaving the family a $6 million fortune, or around $130 million today. As she grew up, between her wealth and her voluptuous figure, she was the perfect glamour girl for Victorian times." (New York Post)
"Clara Ward was another such American princess. She was born in 1873 to Captain Eber Ward, Michigan's first millionaire, who gained his wealth in shipping and the lumber industry and who was known as 'King of the Lakes.' Upon his death in 1874 he left his family an estate valued at six million dollars, with Clara receiving a lifetime annuity of $50,000 per year. When Clara turned 15 her mother sent her to an elite finishing school in London. She soon met the Belgian Prince Joseph de Caraman-Chimay, who owned a crumbling chateau and was $100,000 in debt. He quickly proposed to Claram who was reputed to be as beautiful as she was wealthy, and she accepted. They married on May 20, 1890, in Paris. Clara's mother paid for a lavish wedding, in which Clara stunned everyone in her gorgeous $10,000 wedding gown. Thus, at age 17, Clara Ward, of Michigan, became Princess de Caraman-Chimay, of Belgium." (The Great Strike of 1877: 32)
"When Clara met Prince Joseph de Caraman-Chimay, son of a Belgian foreign affairs minister, he was about $100,000 in debt and owned a crumbling chateau in desperate need of repair. He was not, it appears, a handsome man. He was 15 years older than Clara, and his personality barely merited a mention in event the most gossipy newspaper reports about the couple. But he had a title, and that's what mattered. He proposed, and the two were married in Paris on May 20, 1890. Clara, wearing a $10,000 dress, was only 17 years old; she had just become Princesse de Caraman-Chimay, one of only a handful of American women to gain a royal title. . . ." (Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings)
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| Clara Ward & Rigo Jancsi 1900s |
2. Rigo Janczy, a Hungarian Roma violin player, mar 1898, sep 1900
3. Giuseppe "Peppino" Ricciardo, an Italian tourist agent, mar 1904, div 1911; and
4. Abano Caselato, a.k.a. Signore Cassaiota, her chauffeur.
"Like so many courtesans, the Princess died very young (only 43), but unlike most the names of her lovers (other than Leopold II and her four penniless husbands) are completely unknown. They must have been quite wealthy, though; despite her enormous expenses, steep alimony and lack of visible income after about 1906, she left a fortune of $1,124,935.96 in cash and about $50,000 in real estate (over $23 million in 2012 dollars). Ironically, her will dated to just after her marriage to Ricciardi and she had never changed it after their divorce, so he inherited a third of her estate (her two children got one-third each). In a way, she was like the Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian of her time: a wealthy sex symbol with no discernible talent who parleyed her highly-publicized sex life into a career as a model and 'reality star'." (The Honest Courtesan)
"Like so many courtesans, the Princess died very young (only 43), but unlike most the names of her lovers (other than Leopold II and her four penniless husbands) are completely unknown. They must have been quite wealthy, though; despite her enormous expenses, steep alimony and lack of visible income after about 1906, she left a fortune of $1,124,935.96 in cash and about $50,000 in real estate (over $23 million in 2012 dollars). Ironically, her will dated to just after her marriage to Ricciardi and she had never changed it after their divorce, so he inherited a third of her estate (her two children got one-third each). In a way, she was like the Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian of her time: a wealthy sex symbol with no discernible talent who parleyed her highly-publicized sex life into a career as a model and 'reality star'." (The Honest Courtesan)
Her lovers were:
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| Leopold II of Belgium @Real Life Villains Wiki |
"King Leopold II was the king of the Belgium from 1865 to 1909. He led the first European efforts to develop the Congo River basin, creating the Congo Free State in 1885. Belgium annexed it as the Belgian Congo. in 1908. History would judge Leopold II as particularly brutal ruler of the Congo. International gossip had it that his involvement with his cousin’s wife, Clara Ward Chimay, ended the Chimay marriage. x x x Clara, beautiful princess Chimay, attracted the attention of her husband’s cousin, King Leopold II and the newspapers of the day and international gossip spoke of an illicit affair. Princess Clara wrote a letter that was read at her divorce hearing in which she said, "I am going to quit the prince for fear of a scandal, perhaps of a tragedy.'" (Clara Ward Chimay - Gilded Age Princess @ Women of Every Complexion and Complexity)
" . . . Elisabeth looked down on 'dollar princesses,' although she now counted just such a specimen in her immediate family, her brother Jo having married Clara Ward, the daughter of a Michigan steel and timber tycoon, a year earlier. Jo's new bride spoke loudly, dressed badly, and wore too much rouge. Yet to Elisabeth's vexation, Clara not only considered herself a great beauty but somehow caught the eye of none other than King Leopold II of the Belgians, and was openly carrying on an affair with him. . . If the king of the Belgians could fall for a common American wimp like her sister-in-law, then anything was possible." (Proust's Duchess)
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| Rico Janczi & Clara Ward c1905 |
1) Rigo Janczy (1858-1927)
Lover in 1896.
Hungarian Gypsy violinist.
"All this raucous living put her on a collision course with a scandal involving the affections of a Hungarian gypsy fiddler named Rigo Janczy on that November night in 1896. A diminutive man with a massive handlebar mustache and much-pomaded hair, Rigo was not classically handsome. The Chicago Tribune sneered that he was a 'monkey-faced brute,' and a Scottish newspaper wrote that 'he is said to be pock-pitted, of small stature, and everyone wondered what she saw in him.' He was also already married. None of that mattered to Clara. The first night she saw Rigo, she turned from her husband to smile at him and never looked back. Ten days later, according to Rigo, the pair ran off together 'like gypsies' in the dead of night. The press went crazy---papers across Europe, Britain, and America carried news of the princess's flight." (Princesses Behaving Badly)
"Ward married a Belgian prince named Joseph de Caraman-Chimay, and while she soon became a media darling, her popularity worked against her, as the obvious public affection of King Leopold II 'made her a social pariah,' since he ignored other women in her presence, including his queen. Escaping to party in Paris, she and her husband went to a fashionable nightclub one evening where she met a Hungarian gypsy fiddler named Rigo Janczy, a small man with a handlebar mustache whom the press later described as 'pock-pitted' and 'a monkey-faced brute.' Nevertheless, 'the first night she saw Rigo, she turned from her husband to smile at him and never looked back,' and the new couple ran away together 10 days later, eventually having each other’s faces tattooed on their biceps. They partied across Europe and the U.S., with newspapers covering their every move. When her husband was granted a divorce, Ward’s own lawyer described her as a 'fiery untamed steed' with a 'wild, savage, eccentric nature.'” (New York Post)
"Clara and Jancsi met in 1896, while Rigo Jancsi played violin at a Paris restaurant, where Clara dined out with her husband, Prince Joseph. Between 1896 and 1898, newspapers wrote extensively about the marriage of the primás (first violinist) Jancsi Rigó to the Belgian countess. The cake is a celebration cake wearing Rigó Jancsi's name and in honor of the romantic love story." (Wikipedia)
" . . . Around 1900 gypsies began to appear everywhere in France. One of them, called Rigo, with smouldering eyes and enormous whiskers, carried off Clara Ward, a splendid American woman who had just married the Prince de Chimay. The ex-princess appeared in a figure-hugging costume beside her lover on the state of the Follies Bergere. There was a terrible scandal." (La Belle Epoque: An Essay: 112)
" . . . Around 1900 gypsies began to appear everywhere in France. One of them, called Rigo, with smouldering eyes and enormous whiskers, carried off Clara Ward, a splendid American woman who had just married the Prince de Chimay. The ex-princess appeared in a figure-hugging costume beside her lover on the state of the Follies Bergere. There was a terrible scandal." (La Belle Epoque: An Essay: 112)
"The violinist was Rigó Jancsi (born Johann Rigó in Székesfehérvár) who had traveled in England, France and Germany before he met the love of his life. He found Princess Klara, née Ward, daughter of a Detroit millionaire in the Paris restaurant during the 1896 Christmas season. They traveled through Europe, including a stay in Rijeka before coming to Székesfehérvár to visit his parents who were dirt poor. All of Hungary was scandalized by the love affair and the Caraman Schimay family did everything they could to undermine the relationship. But Princess Klara divorced Prince Josef and Rigó divorced his wife. They became Hungary’s beautiful couple in 1905, sometimes requiring police protection from the crowds who surrounded them. They often stayed at Nemzeti Szálló, a hotel still standing in Blaha Lujza tér. Rigó and Klara settled in a castle in Egypt where she taught him to read and write. But, she turned out to be fickle. When they went back to Paris on a visit, she fell in love with a Spaniard and lost her passion for Jancsi. In the end, she married an Italian, Ricciardi, who was a mere stationmaster of the Vesuvian Railway. The only remnant of this romance is Sütemény Rigójancsi. Today, more than 170 cukrászdas in Hungary sell about 32,000 pieces of Sütemény Rigójancsi every year." (Balettka)
An adventuress ready to bolt: "Rigo Jancsi, the Hungarian cake named for a Gypsy violinist, is literally the stuff of legend. Dazzling stories surround it, but few details of its creation are known. What is certain, however, is that this luscious torta (cake) was the result of an affair that began in 1896 Paris. Rigo and an American millionairess from Detroit, Clara Ward---by marriage (Belgian) Princess Caraman-Chimay---met in Cafe Paillard, one of the grand restaurants of the boulevards. Some say on that occasion, with music the food of love, the Gypsy virtuoso played his violin to irresistible effect. Others characterize the princess as an adventuress ready to bolt. Whether one or the other is the case, or both, the two ran off together, divorced their respective spouses, and, in time, married. To the European aristocracy into which Clara's husband, the Prince Caraman-Chimay, was born, the scandal was profoundly shocking. To the populace, especially that of Hungary, where Johnny Rigo was the hometown boy, he and his princess were almost folk heroes. Eventually, someone---no one knows who or exactly when---created a voluptuous cake (layers of chocolate sponge filled with chocolate cream, and glazed with chocolate) inspired by the flamboyant pair. In one version of the story, it was a pastry chief; in another, it was the Gypsy who asked for a cake that would be 'dark and ruggedly handsome like Rigo Jancsi himself, sweet as their love, and delicate as his wife.'" (The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets: 577)
An adventuress ready to bolt: "Rigo Jancsi, the Hungarian cake named for a Gypsy violinist, is literally the stuff of legend. Dazzling stories surround it, but few details of its creation are known. What is certain, however, is that this luscious torta (cake) was the result of an affair that began in 1896 Paris. Rigo and an American millionairess from Detroit, Clara Ward---by marriage (Belgian) Princess Caraman-Chimay---met in Cafe Paillard, one of the grand restaurants of the boulevards. Some say on that occasion, with music the food of love, the Gypsy virtuoso played his violin to irresistible effect. Others characterize the princess as an adventuress ready to bolt. Whether one or the other is the case, or both, the two ran off together, divorced their respective spouses, and, in time, married. To the European aristocracy into which Clara's husband, the Prince Caraman-Chimay, was born, the scandal was profoundly shocking. To the populace, especially that of Hungary, where Johnny Rigo was the hometown boy, he and his princess were almost folk heroes. Eventually, someone---no one knows who or exactly when---created a voluptuous cake (layers of chocolate sponge filled with chocolate cream, and glazed with chocolate) inspired by the flamboyant pair. In one version of the story, it was a pastry chief; in another, it was the Gypsy who asked for a cake that would be 'dark and ruggedly handsome like Rigo Jancsi himself, sweet as their love, and delicate as his wife.'" (The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets: 577)
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