The Wandering Princess: 11 Facts About Princess Hélène of Orléans, Duchess of Aosta

Princess Helene of Orleans. Image: Wikimedia Commons

1. Princesse Hélène Louise Henriette d'Orléans was born on June 13, 1871 at the York House in Twickenham, England. She was the eighth child of Prince Philippe of Orléans and his wife Infanta Maria Isabel of Spain.

2. Hélène, just like her two elder siblings, was born in exile as her family was deposed in 1848.

3. After the law of banishment was repealed, her family repatriated to France in June of 1871, taking up residence at the Hotel Fould on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. They served as guests of Hélène’s uncle, Henri, Duke of Aumale, whose fortune was not confiscated in 1852. A close friend of her parents, Maria Brignole-Sale dei marchesi di Groppoli, Duchess di Galliera, also offered the family the ground floor and gardens of the Hôtel Matignon on the Rue de Varenne. Before her father was yet again exiled in 1876, the princess and her siblings, together with their tutors and governesses, stayed at a two-story town house on the nearby Rue de Babylone, which was built by Maria especially for the children.

4. The second banishment had Hélène’s family travelling to Scotland then to East Sheen, England before moving in the Stowe House in Buckingham, England.

5. Princess Hélène was considered a great beauty during her time, with one source saying that the French royal was “the personification of womanly health and beauty… a graceful athlete and charming linguist”. Because of this, her parents expected her to marry an heir to a throne.

6. While in Scotland, 16-year-old Hélène met the 23-year-old “Eddy” or Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, eldest son of the future King Edward VII and grandchild of Queen Victoria. They fell deeply in love with each other, with Eddy calling the princess “an angel upon earth” and his “beloved one”, however their difference in religion thwarted what would have been a great love story. Though Hélène offered to convert to Anglican and Eddy expressed his resolve to renounce his succession rights, the relationship never progressed further as the already relenting Queen Vitoria found out Hélène’s father did not countenance the marriage. Prince Albert Victor seemed to have never moved on from the heartbreak as his tomb at Windsor Castle had a bead wreath with the name “HELENE” written on it.

7. Hélène married Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, 2nd Duke of Aosta, and second in line to the Italian throne, on June 25, 1895. The union produced two children—Prince Amedeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta, and the future King Tomislav II of Croatia.

8. In order to escape the boring court life and her unhappy marriage with the Italian prince, she Hélène would frequently set off for Africa, trips that would last up to ten months each time. She travelled to Congo, Nile, and a lot of places in East Africa. She even crossed the Sahara! These adventures made her known as a big-game hunter. She wrote about her trips on Harper’s Weekly, and went on to publish a number of travel books complete with photographs she had taken herself. In 1913-1914, she traveled the whole world and published a separate book about it.

9. Following Prince Emanuele Filiberto’s death in 1931, she married her second husband, Colonel Otto Campini, in 1936

10. She trained as a nurse and eventually cared for wounded soldiers aboard hospital ship Memfi during the Italo-Turkish War, and also became the head of Italian Red Cross nurses. Her wartime service did not go unnoticed as she was awarded the Insignia of a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, the French Croix de Guerre, the Romanian Regina Maria Cross, and Italian Silver Medal for bravery. She is credited for improving sanitary conditions in military hospitals and for professionalizing the role of women nurses.

11.  Hélène died on January 21, 1951. She was 79 years old. She was laid to rest at the Basilica dell'Incoronata Madre del Buon Consiglio in Naples, Italy.