Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Comtesse Stéphanie de Lannoy

For a biography of Stéphanie de Lannoy have a look at our more recent post "The Future Hereditary Grand Duchess".

If you frequent the websites of the various Luxembourgish newspapers, you probably already know what is going on today; if not you can look at Wort, Tageblatt, L'essentiel and RTL or just read on...

Point de Vue
has published an article about the (alleged) woman of the Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume's heart, Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy. Her name has been floating around in royal watching circles for a few weeks now and the rumour seemed more substantial than the other name tossed around.

The Lannoy-family is from old Belgian nobility and named after the city of Lannoy in Northern France where they reigned once upon a time; they are counts of the Holy Roman Empire. Stéphanie is the youngest of eight children of Count Philippe de Lannoy, son of Princess Beatrice of Ligne, and Alix della Faille de Leverghem. It is said that they met through their Ligne connection [genealogy check: the current Prince of Ligne is the cousin of Grand Duke Henri] at a ball at he Château de Beloeil; I suppose it was the the big birthday party for Princess Alix of Ligne and Princess Louise of Stolberg-Stolberg that took place in 2006. The party was surely attended by Princess Alexandra and Guillaume's cousins Archduke Imre and Archduchess Marie-Christine of Austria, as well as Princess Marie-Gabrielle of Nassau and Princess Maria-Anunciata of Liechtenstein.

Just to clear it up as it is usually one of the main criticism when royals date nobles or vice versa, I haven't had the time to dig too deep into her family tree but Guillaume and Stéphanie are not closely related; I could imagine though that there is some kind of relatedness when you go back far enough.

Stéphanie is three years younger than the Hereditary Grand Duke. Apart from French (and English I suppose) she is fluent in German and Russian. Now living in her family's home in Brussels, Stéphanie studied German Philology in Louvain-la-Neuve before getting her masters degree from a university in Berlin.

There is no official confirmation of the relationship between Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy; it is merely speculation of Point de Vue about the girlfriend Guillaume mentioned in his birthday interviews. Nevertheless, I do think there might be some substance to it. We will probably only know for sure if and when they get officially engaged. After an inquiry by Wort, the cour grand ducale stated, not unsurprisingly, that "We do not comment on rumours."

If Stéphanie is not the woman in Guillaume's life, the Cour should state that. Because, if she is not involved they are leaving the poor young woman to deal with all of this attention and gossip for no reason! That is absolutely cruel, unprofessional and simply unacceptable. If that is the case then Guillaume, his family and their staff should feel ashamed of themselves for allowing someone to experience undue burden through no fault of their own. Basically, if she is not the girl in question then the cour grand ducale, the grand ducal family and Guillaume need to reevaluate how they deal with other human beings. Is it acceptable to allow another person to experience such a stressful situation knowing that you have the power to simply end it? Nay, I say. It's okay to protect the woman in question but you can't simply sit by and allow every other woman to have their life tossed upside down.

Note: The last paragraph was added by TGD (aka Luxarazzi/Mlle. Sunshine Awesome) and does not necessarily represent the opinion of Sydney.

7 comments:

  1. Dont you think that stephanie de Lannoy look very similar to the girl siting nex to felix in this video   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeFmkcGVQvw (0:37)

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  2. Yes, it's her. The picture was taken at the wedding of Princess Xenia Galitzine and Alberto Matta in 2007.

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  3. I hope Guillaume takes his sweet time in choosing a mate.  Please don't just pick the first suitable noble girl to come along.  I think he can do better and I think he should just wait and not be pressured into something that is so serious.

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  4. Like every "real Belgian" she speaks French (and German and Russian) but not the language of the majority of people in Belgium which is Flemish (or Dutch). Typical!

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  5. At first I like her but now I'm starting to hate her.I don't know why.

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