Prince Alexis Karageorgevitch

Who he was

Prince Alexis Karageorgevitch (Serbian Aleksa Karađorđević, 10 June 1859 – 15 February 1920) was the elder son of Prince George Karageorgevitch (1827–1884) and Sarka (Sara) Anastasijević, daughter of the Serbian statesman and banker Miša Anastasijević. His younger brother was the painter and writer Bojidar. He was born five months after his great-uncle Alexander Karageorgevitch was forced to abdicate as Prince of Serbia in 1858, and grew up in exile in Paris. His grandfather and namesake, Alexis Karageorgevitch (1801–1830), was the eldest son of Karađorđe Petrović, founder of the dynasty, and the older brother of Alexander. (Wikipedia, "Prince Alexis Karageorgevich", citing the family genealogies.)

On the death of his father in 1884 Alexis became head of the senior branch of the house and a claimant to the Serbian throne, but he was never the only one: his cousin Peter, Alexander's son, advanced a rival claim and was elected King Peter I in 1903, after which Alexis publicly gave up his own. He fought in the First Balkan War (1912) and was president of the Serbian Red Cross until the retreat through Albania. He died at St. Moritz and is buried in the cemetery of St. George in Geneva. (Wikipedia, same article.) The same article says he was the one lover the courtesan Laure Hayman is supposed to have really loved; the diary does not mention this.

Marie and Alexis

Summer 1879: first appearances. Alexis appears for the first time on 9 August 1879, in Paris, in the party that goes to the circus with Marie, Berthe, Blanc and Bichinsky (086.0036). The diary does not say when or how they were introduced, so the older statement that she met the brothers at Dieppe is not exactly what it records: at Dieppe (mid-August) she makes a likeness of him, "très ressemblante et très vite, en une heure" (086.0088, 16 August), and spends the days at the races, the casino and the beach with Alexis, Da Costa and Hecht (086.0138, 086.0160). On 29 August he makes her a "déclaration d'amitié". Back in Paris he turns up in the Bois with his new horse and carriage and is taken into theirs (086.0215, 5 September).

Winter 1879–80: the circle of the Karageorgevitch brothers. In the autumn he dines at the Bashkirtseffs' (086.0406, 21 October; 086.0621, 3 December, with Robert-Fleury, Julian, Bojidar and Berthe), and on 11 December goes with Bojidar, Blanc and "la Princesse" (their mother) to the Variétés. On 16 December he guides Marie on the ice at the skating rink (086.0667). The most extended passage is the charity fête of the Paris press for the flood victims of Murcia on 18 December 1879 (086.0670–086.0738): Marie takes his arm and they stay together all evening, "nous nous tutoyons", running about with his friends; she teases him until he sits in the part of the "respectueux enfant" ("par où ?", 086.0676), and the next day admits she would rather have kissed Alexis than the man she is fixed on (086.0739). By 21 December she knows that he had a serious attachment at seventeen to a Mlle de Sampieri, married a year before (086.0762). She finds him "bien élevé", pleasant and a little dull; the friendship is easy and teasing, not a romance.

1880: quarrel with the family; marriage thoughts. In May 1880 the Bashkirtseffs are on bad terms with the princess and Bojidar after a ball and "l'histoire de Berthe", in which Alexis had spent the night running between the parties to reconcile them (088.0134, 9 May); Marie exempts him from the family's "insolent" stares at the theatre (088.0132). On 13 June 1880, weighing a suitor with the title of a Romanian prince against the alternatives, she writes that she would prefer Alexis, "légitime prétendant au trône de Serbie après son père" (the claim to legitimacy is Marie's own, 088.0728), but also that "Alexis ne m'a pas demandée ... il n'aurait jamais osé" (088.0729). The rival suitor in that passage is probably Soutzo.

1880–81: Paris winter. After the break of 1880 he returns to the house on 14 December (090.0377), helps Bojidar to nail up canvases and hangings in Marie's new studio on 28 December (090.0483) and is a regular dinner guest. On 24 February 1881 Marie dresses him as a woman for a joke at home (the trousers will not button on her) and the four of them, the princess among them, go to the Folies-Bergère (091.0184–091.0187). Marie says he finds her "épatante" (091.0136). On 3 March 1881 the princess talks of marrying off "cette canaille d'Alexis", whom she says will ruin them: Marie notes that he is a gambler, a hunter, mad about horses, "un Serbe parisien" with perhaps fifty thousand francs to come on his father's death, and decides that a rich, rational Frenchman would be a safer match, or Géry (091.0231–091.0239). She describes him in the same days as "un gentil, joli et jeune garçon très nul". On 2 March he introduced his friend the pianist Dusautoy (091.0215).

August 1881: model for a painting. Marie planned a picture on an election-poster subject (a grocer's boy, a workman laughing at a man with a briefcase, a fop, a Bonapartist hat); on 11 August she needs Alexis to pose "le gommeux" ("sans lui pas de tableau", 092.0384, 092.0403). He and Bojidar return on 24 August, both enthralled by Sarah Bernhardt (093.0022). The diary does not say whether the picture was finished.

1882–83: the marriage plan. In May 1882 she learns that Alexis, Bojidar and their mother have made up with Soutzo after saying he had slandered them (095.0055). On 26 December 1882 she writes that she would have married him if his family reigned in Serbia: his mother wants her to choose "Alexis ou Bojidar", but they will not have fifty thousand francs a year each (097.0293). On 15 March 1883, the day her large canvas for the Salon is finished, she notes that the household has "suddenly noticed" that Alexis is of a princely house, that his cousin Peter may soon be king of Serbia (the Russians will overthrow Milan), and that she should marry him (098.0505). Two days later she concedes it for a moment and then rejects it: she would first have to be received at the Russian embassy, and "j'aime bien mieux un mariage serbe mais après l'ambassade" (098.0523); on 30 March: "si seulement il avait cinquante mille de rente, ça se ferait" (098.0626). He still comes to dinner, helps her in small ways (099.0259, 30 April: she sends him to fetch the architect from her conversation with Bastien-Lepage) and is among the guests on 23 May 1883 (099.0558). On 11 October 1883 Mme Gavini and her family want her to marry him (101.0568). She never does.

Portraits and images

Marie drew a quick likeness of Alexis at Dieppe on 16 August 1879 (086.0088); it is not known to survive. No painting of him is catalogued.

Related entries

Sources