Natalia Pavlovna Paley

Biography

Princess Natalia Pavlovna Paley (Russian: Наталья Павловна Палей; 5 December 1905 – 27 December 1981) was a Russian aristocrat who was a non-dynastic member of the Romanov family. A daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, she was a first cousin of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II. After the Russian Revolution, she emigrated first to France and later to the United States. She became a fashion model, socialite, vendeuse, and briefly pursued a career as a film actress.

== Early life == She was born as Countess Natalia Pavlovna von Hohenfelsen at her parents' home, 2 Avenue Victor Hugo (now 4 Avenue Robert Schuman), in Boulogne-sur-Seine, close to Paris, France, on 5 December 1905. She was the youngest child of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia and his morganatic second wife, Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, who was of Hungarian descent. Her parents had met in St. Petersburg in 1895 when Olga Karnovich was married to an officer, by whom she had three children. Grand Duke Paul already was the father of two; his first wife, Princess Alexandra of Greece, had died in childbirth. On 9 January 1897, Olga gave birth to a son, Vladimir, by Grand Duke Paul. Olga was granted a divorce from her husband and soon left Russia to marry Paul in Livorno, Italy, on 10 October 1902. Grand Duke Paul and Olga were still vacationing in Rome when they were forbidden to return to Russia by Paul's nephew, the reigning Tsar Nicholas II. Their daughter Irina was born on 21 December 1903. In 1904, Grand Duke Paul arranged through Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria for his wife and their children to be granted the hereditary title of Count/Countess von Hohenfelsen, with a coat of arms. They settled in Paris and bought a house in Boulogne-sur-Seine that previously belonged to Princess Zinaida Yusupova. It was there that Natalia was born in 1905, completing their family. Paul and Olga employed a household staff of sixteen maids, gardeners, cooks, and tutors, and were avid art and old porcelain collectors. Vladimir, Irina, and Natalia had a happy and privileged upbringing and, for a time, were utterly protected from the outside world. Though their parents had a busy social life, the children were very close to them, and they ate their meals together, an unusual custom for children of their time and station. On Sundays, the whole family would enter the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral on Rue Daru, but they would only attend private mass with the priest who had christened Natalia.

== Life in Russia ==

In January 1912, Tsar Nicholas II forgave his only living uncle for marrying morganatically, and Grand Duke Paul returned to Russia on the occasion of the Romanov Tercentenary. He was followed later by his wife and their three children. In May 1914, the family settled in Tsarskoe Selo in a luxurious palace filled with antiques and objects of art. In Russia, Natalia became close to her maternal grandmother, her half-sisters, and half-brothers. Three months after they had settled into their new life, World War I began. During the war, the German title of Count/Countess von Hohenfelsen was deemed inappropriate due to anti German sentiment, so in August 1915, Nicholas II created the title of Prince/Princess Paley. This was the name by which Natalia, her full siblings, and their mother would be known from then on. The same month, Natalia's brother, Prince Vladimir Paley, joined a regiment. Though he was in poor health, Natalia's father, Grand Duke Paul, ignoring his doctor's advice, left to take command of a Guards regiment in 1916.

As a child, Natalia was gay and animated, described as having a turned-up nose, pink cheeks and beautiful blonde curls. Her childhood was described by her older half-sister in her memoirs:"The girls revered their brother and greatly admired him. Volodia took advantage of this to make them carry out all his desires. In rehearsing them in the plays he wrote he worked them mercilessly for hours on end. Highly flattered by his attention his sisters endured patiently all his rudeness, his scoldings, even his slaps. He often made them cry, yet they always took up a new play with the same enthusiasm and did not in the least appreciate it when I or some other grown-up tried to protect them from Volodia's arbitrary tyranny."At the fall of the Russian monarchy in February 1917, instead of leaving the country, Grand Duke Paul and his wife, not seeing the dangers ahead, decided to stay in their luxurious estate amid the upheaval. As Tsar Nicholas II and his family were sent to internal exile in Siberia, Natalia and her family remained in their palace under increasingly deteriorating conditions after the Bolshevik rise to power in October 1917. By early January 1918, they could no longer afford to heat their large Tsarkoe Selo palace, and they were forced to move to an English dacha at Tsarkoe Selo that belonged to Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich. Their former home was expropriated and turned into a museum, while Lenin himself rode in their car.

In March 1918, the revolution tightened its grip. All male members of the Romanov family, including Natalia's brother Vladimir, were ordered to register at Cheka headquarters, and shortly after they were sent away into internal Russian exile. They never saw Vladimir again. He was executed by the Bolsheviks, along with several other Romanovs relatives, on 18 July 1918, one day after the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family at Yekaterinburg. Grand Duke Paul, who was too ill to travel, initially escaped the fate of his son. He was arrested on 30 July and sent to Spalernaia prison, where he would remain for most of his incarceration. In desperation, Olga left her two youngest daughters, Irina and Natalia, aged 14 and 12, under the care of their English governess, moving with her daughter Marianne Pistohlkors to be closer to her husband's prison. Irina and Natalia, accompanied by their governess, were allowed to pay two visits to their father. The sisters lived alone with the servants until October, when Grand Duke Boris's dacha was expropriated, and the sisters were evicted. Natalia and Irina were forced to move to Petrograd with their mother and their half-sister, Marianne. Worried about her daughters, Olga, with the help of a few remaining friends, organized Irina and Natalia' escape. In early December, the girls left their mother and took a streetcar to the train station of Ochta. After a four-hour trip in a cattle wagon, they jumped into the snow and took a horse-drawn sleigh. Finally, they walked for miles in the frigid night air. After thirty-two hours of traveling, they reached Terijoki, the Finnish frontier. On arriving there, they continued their journey to Vyborg. Taken to a sanatorium in Ranha, they anxiously awaited their parents' arrival. Their father never made it. Grand Duke Paul was killed in January 1919 and tossed into a heap along with the bodies of other victims. The following month, Princess Olga joined her daughters in Finland.

== Life in France ==

Once in exile, Princess Paley and her daughters moved to Sweden, where they stayed until the spring of 1920. They eventually settled in exile in France. They sold their townhouse at Boulogne-sur-Seine and bought another in one of the upper-class neighborhoods of Paris in the 16th district. With her few remaining jewels, Princess Olga bought a villa in Biarritz, on the Atlantic coast, where the family would often gather in the future. Later, she would sell her house and buy a smaller one in Neuilly. Princess Natalia and her sister were sent to a boarding school in Switzerland, but Natalia was unable to mix with the other pupils. As she confessed later in a fashion magazine interview, she felt,