The Late Duke of Parma, Fortune of £8,000,000

A telegram from Lucca (says the Milan correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph on November 17) reports the death, last night [November 16] from heart disease, of Prince Robert of Bourbon, son of the Duke Charles III, of Parma, who was murdered in 1859. The Dukes of Parma were dispossessed in 1854 after the war of unification. Prince Robert, who was born in 1848, was twice married, and had 21 children, of whom 20 are living. The child who died, Princess Marie Louise, was the first wife of Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria.  Prince Robert leaves a fortune of £8,000,000.

The death of the Duke of Parma carries us back to one of the decisive historic dates of the last century. It recalls the year 1859, when Italy, with the help of Napoleon III laid the foundations of her national unity. Sardinia four years earlier had joined England and France in the Crimean War; the House of Savoy had already become predominant in the land. Cavour, Italy's Bismarck, had planned with Napoleon the campaign against Austria; in the war that followed in 1859 the victories of Montebello, Majenta, and Solferino had been won, and Italian independence of Austria was accomplished. With the outbreak of hostilities the rulers of Parma, Tuscany and Modena fled before the gathering storm, never to return. A year later Sicily and Naples joined Sardinia, and Italian unity was complete.

One of these exiled rulers was the Duke, now deceased. Then a boy of 11, his mother having acted as Regent after the death of his father, Charles III, who fell by, the hand of an assassin, Antonio Carra in March, 1854, Duke Robert being only six years old.

His Royal Highness Robert Charles Louis Marie de Bourbon, son of Duke Charles III, and of Louise, nee Princess de Bourbon-Artois, had by his two marriages the largest family of any Prince in Christian Europe. His first wife, whom he married in Rome on April 5, 1869, was Marie Pia, of the Sicilian Bourbons. This lady, who died in September 1882, had nine children, the eldest of whom was the late Princess Marie Louise, who was the wife of Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and died in January 1899. By his second wife, Princess Maria Antonia. Infanta of Portugal – one of the six beautiful Braganza sisters – he had 12 children, all of whom survived. Of this numerous family, only one son and one daughter have married – Prince Elie, who four years ago espoused the Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, and his eldest sister, the Princess of Bulgaria, already referred to.

The late Duke was described by those who knew him as "an amiable and pleasant man, full of kindliness, and a most devoted husband and father." Politically, he was a thorough Bourbon, who never gave up the hope of one day again taking his place among European Sovereigns. Up to almost the end he had held to the belief, cherished with at least equal earnestness, that he would live to see the temporal power restored to the Papacy. -  The West Australian,  Wednesday, 1 January 1908 

Read also:

Robert I and his 24 Children: The Story of the Last Duke of Parma

The Fortune of Robert, Duke of Parma and the Inheritance Issue that Split a Huge Family