PRINCESS WORTH £4,000,000.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 13 April 1907, Page 4

PRINCESS WORTH £4,000,000.

DEATH OF TIIE BEST HATED WOMAN IN EUROPE. VIENNA, Eel). 17. Princess Clementine of Ruxe-Coburg, the mother of Prince Eerdiuaud of Bulgaria, who was once the must hated woman in half the Chancelleries of Europe, died here yesterday in iter ninetieth year. She had snil'ered niueh from the severity of the weather, mid was on her way to Mcnloue when she grew worse. It is currently reported that her fortune amounts to at least £4,000,000. of which £2,000,000 is believed to be deposited in Coutts' Bank, London. Of late years the Princes*, whose ambitious were boundless, spent enormous sums of money in Bulgaria iu order to make her soil popular.

I Princess Clementine was the only surviving daughter or' the Krench 'King, Louis L'hilipin*, and she plotted and schemed Cur the greater pari of her lift! to place tin? Jhirbons once more 011 (lie throne of France. Shu was born in Paris when her cousin Louis XVII!., was reining in the place id Napoleon, and was married lo Prince August of Coburg in I S i;i. During the early part of her life she saw her relatives driven from the thrones of Naples and France, ami she attempted to repair Ibis by marrying others lo the great reigning fatuiliesoi Jiuropc. It was by her efforts that laor son Ferdinand was made Prince of ttulgaria m 18S7, and she persuaded the Czar into recognising him some years ago. Her father provided her with a large dowry, and hot' husband was a wealthy man. With this joint property she speculated largely, and her judicious investments made her one of the wealthiest princesses in Ft 1 rope. 'l'd h<;r, money was only a means of rehabilitating the fallen fortunes of her family, for she had none of the vanities of most women similarly placed. It was the great financial power she exerted, and the ease with which >ln- could provide money for llu: furtherance of her schemes that made her so uatcd by European scutesmen. She leaves one surviving daughter and three sons, the Archduchess Joseph of Austin, Priin-e Philip of Coburg, Prince August of Coburg. and Prince Ferdinand ot JJulgaria - seventeen grandchildren,, and eight great-grandchildren, The Courts of Sa\e-Coburg-(!otha, Prussia. Austria, Bulgaria, .Bavaria, Portugal, Italy ynd Spain will be thrown into mourning by her death.