#sophie in bavaria duchesse dalençon
After having been betrothed to Ludwig II, King of Bavaria, Sophie Charlotte married the Duke of Alençon. Her life and its ending may be summed up in these few words: “ She died as nobly as she lived.“
She perished, burnt alive in the terrible catastrophe of the Bazar de la Charité in Paris, in May 1897. The cinematograph was at that time a novel institution, and the operator, with inconceivable clumsiness, set fire to a room above the one in which the bazaar was held. The ceiling was all in flames before any attempt was made to clear the hall. There was a horrible struggle, in which the strongest had the advantage. However, among the men whose brutal selfishness seems to have stifled all chivalrous feeling, there were a few who thought of the Duchess. They hastened to her help, imploring her to escape, even trying to drag her away by force; but she refused. “I shall stay to the last,” she replied. “Save the others first.” Some Sisters of the Order of S. Vincent de Paul would not leave her, determined to sacrifice their lives also, if need be. The Duchess remained standing; the Sisters knelt round her, praying. As the fire drew close to her she loosened her magnificent hair, which covered her like a cloak. And it was so that those who survived the disaster saw her for the last time.
Laurent, Lea (1916).Our Lady Of Belgium (translation by Elisabeth M. Lockwood)
ON THIS DAY, IN 1897, SOPHIE CHARLOTTE, DUCHESS OF ALENÇON (NEÉ DUCHESS IN BAVARIA), DIED IN THE FIRE OF THE BAZAR DE LA CHARITÉ. She was the youngest daughter of Maximilian, Duke in Bavaria, and his wife Princess Ludovika of Bavaria, and therefore a sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. She was briefly engaged to her cousin King Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1867, however the King had no interest in marriage at all and eventually called it off. Less than a year later Sophie married Ferdinand d'Orléans, Duke of Alençon, a grandson of Louis Phillipe, the last King of the French. They had two children, Louise and Emmanuel.
In the later years of her life Sophie did plenty of charity work. The Bazar de la Charité was an annual charity event held in Paris since 1885, in which many different items were sold. The tragic accident that set the place on fire in May 1897 took the lives of 126 victims, many of them aristocratic women, the Duchess of Alençon being the most prominent of them. Sophie’s body was so damaged that only her dentist could identify her by her teeth (something unprecedented in France that led to a breakthrough in forensic odontology). Her remains rest in the Chapelle royale de Dreux, the traditional burial place of the members of the House of Orléans.
