#anyway perhaps one one day i'll read this book fully for completionist purposes

[archduchessofnowhere]

Hello! Since you're tumblr's Marie Sophie expert, I was wondering if you've read Lorraine Kaltenbach's Le Secret de la reine soldat: L'extraordinaire soeur de Sissi and in case you have, if you recommend it. It focuses on Marie Sophie's supposed illegitimate daughter; personally I find this story hard to believe and iirc so do you, but Kaltenbach apparently visited several archives around Europe to do her research, so maybe she did find something new.

Hello! Ughh that book. I have a confession to make: years ago I started reading it because well, it's about the alleged illegitimate daughter, if the author really found something about it then it's worth reading it. But I couldn't finish it because it was so badly researched it made me loose all my patience. Kaltenbach is not a historian and it shows:

She dedicates long parragraphs to describe what was she doing and how was she feeling while "researching".

Most of her sources are just newspapers. I'm not against citing newspapers by any means but the way she did Is Not It. With no context given and taken 100% at face value.

But what made me loose it is when she finally reached to the the alleged affair and I realized her main source for it was... Marie Larisch's 1930s books. I kid you not. All that "brand new information" and "uncovering secrets" talk and she was literally just quoting Larisch's gossips as literally everyone else who ever approached the subject.

At that point I gave up and went straight to the part of the alleged daughter, Daisy de Lavaysse. Here's what I'll say on Kaltenbach's defense: this girl seems to have actually existed. She (allegedly) found her death certificate in Paris, the act of recognition by her father, and her baptism certificate in Bavaria. Now she doesn't actually show any of these documents on her book, however someone on Geneanet uploaded this picture on Daisy's page:

This is the supposed death certificate. No need to decipher the writing, this is what it says, quoted by Kaltenbach:

Lavaÿsse-Châteaubourg. Acte n° 39. L'an mille huit cent quatre-vingt- six, le 7 janvier à onze heures du matin, acte de décès de Marie Louise Élisabeth Mathilde Henriette de Lavaÿsse-Châteaubourg, âgée de vingt-deux ans et dix mois, sans profession, née à Munich (Bavière), décédée en son domicile rue des Mathurins, nº 47, le six janvier courant à neuf heures du matin, fille de Charles Felix Emmanuel de Lavaÿsse-Châteaubourg, décédé, et de mère non dénommée, célibataire. Dressé vérification faite du décès par nous, Jérémie Kastler, adjoint au maire, officier de l'état civil du 8e arrondissement de Paris, chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, officier d'Académie, sur la déclaration faite de Georges Adrien Sol de Marquein, âgé de quarante-deux ans, propriétaire, demeurant à Paris, rue de Lisbonne, n° 49, ami de la défunte; et de Henry de Gineste-Najac, âgé de quarante-sept ans, propriétaire, demeurant à Paris, avenue d'Antin, nº 18, ami de la famille, qui ont signé avec nous après lecture.

Translation:

Lavaÿsse-Châteaubourg. Act No. 39. In the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six, on January 7 at eleven o'clock in the morning, death certificate of Marie Louise Élisabeth Mathilde Henriette de Lavaÿsse-Châteaubourg, aged twenty-two years and ten months, without profession, born in Munich (Bavaria), died at her home rue des Mathurins, no. 47, on the current January 6 at nine o'clock in the morning, daughter of Charles Felix Emmanuel de Lavaÿsse-Châteaubourg, deceased, and of an unnamed mother, unmarried. Cerification of the death made by us, Jérémie Kastler, deputy mayor, civil registrar of the 8th arrondissement of Paris, knight of the Legion of Honor, officer of the Academy, on the declaration made by Georges Adrien Sol de Marquein, aged forty-two, owner, residing in Paris, rue de Lisbonne, n° 49, friend of the deceased; and Henry de Gineste-Najac, aged forty-seven, owner, residing in Paris, avenue d'Antin, n° 18, friend of the family, who signed with us after reading.

Let's assume the certificate is legitimate. Why didn't she include it on her book? Why the only picture of it is in a genealogy website and seems taken almost in a hurry?

The strongest evidence Kaltenbach does provide in her book are these two alleged pictures of Daisy she claims were on her grandmother's possesion:

Which she puts next to this picture published by Marie Larisch (left) in one of her books, with a girl that allegedly was Daisy (right):

And I'll give her this: these two pictures do seem to be from the same person.

I'm going to be nice and assume that Kaltenbach indeed found all the evidence she claims she did (because again, she does not provide any of the documents that would actually support her claims). What did she found out? That a distant relative of her had an illegitimate daughter born in Bavaria in 1863. That's it. Everything else is pure speculation. Nothing she provides proves that Marie was Daisy's mother. Absolutely nothing. She just speculates for dozens of pages, most of the time making up a story that fits nicely into what she already believed even before starting her research.

Maybe the author was genuinely onto something, perhaps Daisy was an illegitimate daughter of a member of the House of Wittelsbach. Perhaps she was Marie's daughter after all! But she clearly had no idea on how to properly investigate the subject, and because of that any sort of credibility her evidence could have became damaged. She should've delegated the research to a real historian and written a novel instead.