This is an [almost] entirely flighty post about a European noble. Since we've watched a couple royal weddings already this summer, we're in the mode, and I wanted you to know that another many be on the horizon:
One of Spain's richest women, the 85-year-old Duchess of Alba, has announced she will marry a civil servant 24 years her junior in early October at a private family ceremony.
If you click to see the picture attached to that piece, you'll understand why I had to dig further. Age 85 -- really? There is plenty more, from her vast titles and history found here, to a story that explains the opposition to the match:
Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, a spectacularly colourful member of Spain's bizarre celebrity clique, has never been camera shy. With her piping, querulous voice and eye-popping outfits, the duchess is constantly in the public eye at society weddings and bullfights featuring her ex-son-in-law Francisco ("Fran") Rivera Ordóñez, a popular torero from a distinguished bullfighting family.
Since the death of her second husband seven years ago, she has enjoyed a close relationship with an old family friend, Alfonso Diez Carabantes, 58, and wants to marry him. "It's true that I planned to marry. We were both full of enthusiasm for the idea," the duchess told Hola! magazine this month. Plans for a secret ceremony were apparently well advanced before the family found out by chance. Backed, it is said, by King Juan Carlos, they vetoed the match.
Some gossip columnists hint that Mr Diez is little more than a carpet- bagger battening upon a frail old woman estranged from her children. Others say it's bit much if Spain's top aristocrat can't choose her own partner for her twilight years.
Beyond idle gossip (yes, I'm coming close) the real point to this item is the nearly-frivolous level to which marriage seems to have descended at all levels of society. In fact she made no bones of the fact that the fourth of her six children was fathered through an adulterous union. And her second husband was an ex-Jesuit priest. And all six of her children are divorced. And several of her grandchildren were conceived out of wedlock, and...
It's rather interesting that she was begged by her children to act with more propriety, since they can see how ridiculous it looks. Fearing that they were more concerned about their inheritance, she settled that issue earlier:
Spain's fabulously rich Duchess of Alba has signed away her enormous wealth, string of palaces, priceless works of art and vast swathes of Spanish real estate to marry for love at 85, Spanish media has reported.
Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, a regular subject of gossip in Spain's glossy magazines and said by Guinness World Records to have more titles than any other royal on the planet, wants to marry a humble civil servant 25 years her junior.
The duchess has divided her fortune between her six children to convince them that her suitor is besotted with her rather than her money and the kinds of possessions that are considered national treasures, reports said.
Is it any wonder that Europe is wandering in a dark veil of confusion? That it's utterly post-Christian? Rank becomes farce when such grandees are so far from their true vocation.
Thankfully, Spain saw something of more substance this month, when pilgrims from around the world came to celebrate the only communion that matters: aligning our wills with the sovereign will of God. For all her money, for all her treasures, for all her titles, for all her culture, perhaps the Duchess of Alba could stop to ask herself why they slept in the fields, braved the heat, and endured the storm. She seems to have provided such scandal that the choices are increasingly clear to the young. May graces be shed on Spain, their royal family, and all who seek to live with integrity.
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