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The little
princess’s birth came nine months after her parents’s wedding at a
historic French basilica in the south of France. While most people
know of Prince William and Kate’s wedding as the 21st
century royal love story, Felix and Claire have a love story all of
their own.
Prince Felix is second in line to the throne of Luxembourg, the
last surviving grand duchy in the world. Its monarch, Grand Duke
Henri, is Felix’s father. Luxembourg is a tiny territory with a
population of less than 500,000 people, yet its per capita GDP is
the second highest in the world, coming only after Qatar.
Prince Felix met Claire Lademacher in 2001, when he was 17 and
Claire was 16. They were both studying at the elite boarding school
Beau Soleil in Villars-sur-Ollon in Switzerland. Fortunately for
the couple, they were accepted to the same university, the
Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum in Rome, where they
studied bioethics together.
Claire Lademacher is privileged in her own right, a German heiress
born to Hartmut Lademacher, who amassed a personal fortune of 600
million Euros by investing in the software industry and founding
his own telecommunications company. Mr Lademacher owns castles in
Croatia and St-Tropez.
As Claire grew into adulthood, she became notable not only for her
beauty, but also her brains. After graduating with an undergraduate
degree in bioethics and working in publishing in New York and
Munich, Claire returned to school to pursue an academic career in
bioethics. She obtained a Master’s degree and is now a PhD
candidate at Regina Apostolorum, preparing a dissertation on the
bioethical evaluation of consent for organ donation.
Prince Felix now works as an independent consultant for a public
relations company based in Switzerland; he also has been studying
oenology in the vineyards of southern France. He and Princess
Claire now make their home at the Chateau Les Crostes in the South
of France, which is owned by Claire’s family.
Though Prince Felix’s older brother Guillame is married, he and his
wife as yet have no children. Grand Duke Henri’s third son
renounced his and his descendants’ place in the
succession upon his morganatic marriage in 2006, so
Princess Amalia is the first ‘third generation’ heir to the
throne. If her family history is any indication, little Amalia will
grow up with two parents who have supported each other in pursuing
their ambitions and dreams, and who will support her as she grows
old enough to do the same.
photo credit: James.Stringer via photopin
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