Princess Marie de Solms
(1833-1902)

Born in Ireland in 1833, her father was Sir Thomas Wyse, the British plenipotentiary at Athens, and her mother was Laetitia Bonaparte, daughter of Lucien Bonaparte. Educated in Paris, in 1848 she married a rich Alsatian by the name of Solms, but her cousin Napoléon III, at that time still only the Prince-President, refused to recognize her, and she was exiled from Paris in 1852. Her husband died shortly afterwards, and calling herself the ‘Princesse de Solms,' she spent her time in various fashionable places around Europe, while dabbling in literature. She published Les chants de l’exile in 1859, and some novels. Eugène Sue and Françoise Ponsard were prominent among those who attended her salon. In 1863, she was married again, this time to the Italian politician Count Urbano Rattazzi (1808-1873). After Rattazzi’s death, she married (1877) a Spaniard named Luis de Rute. She died in Paris in February 1902.