
'Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld' in her adulthood.
'Juliane Henriette Ulrike, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duchess in Saxony' (b.
Coburg,
23 September 1781 - d. Elfenau, near
Berne,
Switzerland,
15 August 1860), was a German princess of the ducal house of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (after
1826, the house of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha).
She was the third daughter of
Franz Frederick Anton, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and
Countess Augusta Caroline Reuss of Ebersdorf.
King Leopold I of the Belgians was her younger brother, whilst
Queen Victoria of United Kingdom was her niece.
The
Empress Catherine II of Russia chose her to be the bride of her second grandson, the
Grand Duke Constantine. Juliane, who was not yet fifteen years of age, took the name of Anna Feodorovna in a
Russian Orthodox baptismal ceremony and married Constantine (who was only seventeen years old at the time) in
St.Petersburg on
26 February 1796. The Empress died nine months later, on
6 November.
The marriage was totally unhappy. Constantine, a raw and immature boy, made his young wife intensely miserable. After three years, in
1799, Anna left her husband and returned to
Coburg. Shortly thereafter, however, she returned to Russia in an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile. In
1801, Anna, who had become involved in several frivolous intrigues, was sent home permanently to
Coburg.
On
28 October 1808 Anna gave birth to an illegitimate son, named
''Eduard Edgar Schmidt-Löwe''. The father of this child possibly was Jules Gabriel Emile de Seigneux, a minor French nobleman. Eduard was enobled by his mother's younger brother,
Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and assumed the surname ''von Löwenfels'' by decree on
10 January 1818.
Later, Anna moved to
Berne,
Switzerland, and gave birth to a second illegitimate child in
1812, a daughter, named
''Louise Hilda Agnes''. Her father was Rodolphe Abraham de Schiferli, a Swiss surgeon, professor and Guard of Honor (French:''Cavalier d'Honneur'', German:''Oberhofmeister'') of Anna from
1812 to
1837.
Two years later, in
1814, Constantine tried to get her to return to him but her firm opposition prevented this attempt from succeeding. That year, Anna acquired an estate to the banks of
Aare River and gave it the name of ''Elfenau''. She spent the rest of her life there.
Finally, on
20 March 1820, after nineteen years of separation, her marriage with the Grand Duke Constantine was formally annulled. He remarried two months later and died on
27 June 1831. Anna survived her former husband for twenty-nine years.
Later, her son Eduard married his cousin Bertha von Schauenstein, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke Ernst I, and had descendants who are still alive. Her daughter Louise married Jean Samuel Edouard Dapples in
1834 and died three years later in
1837 at the tender age of twenty-five.