#helene dodged the bullet of becoming an empress in 1853 TWICE jjgkgk

[archduchessofnowhere]

Insane part of Helene's lore is that there had been rumors at the beginning of 1853 that Napoleon III wanted to marry her? From the Neue Passauer Zeitung:

From Munich, 13 Jan, one writes to the ‘Fstr. Postztg.’ As several papers from Paris recently reported that the Emperor intended to marry a Bavarian princess, which could only mean the Duchess Helene, the eldest daughter of Duke Max in Bavaria, born on 4 April 1834, it caused quite a stir that this princess danced the first tour, namely the polonaise with the French envoy, at the court ball last night. Whether the above news deserves some credence, however, we will leave for the time being.

About a week later Napoleon announced his engagement to Eugenia de Montijo, so the news indeed didn't deserve much credence after all.