Catherine Radziwill

Catherine Radziwill was a Polish-Russian aristocrat. Born in St. Petersburg as Ekaterina Adamovna Rzewuska, a member of the House of Rzewuski, she came from a Polish family of warriors, statesmen, and notable writers; including Catherine’s great-great-grandfather, Wacław Rzewuski; her uncle, Henryk; and her aunts, Ewelina, wife of Honoré de Balzac, and Karolina, who kept a literary salon in Paris. Radziwill was a prominent figure at the Imperial courts in Germany and Russia but became involved in a series of scandals. She combined her love for the luxury of the courts, social life, gossip, and intrigue with her literary talent, and wrote two dozen books on European royalty and the Russian court, including Behind the Veil at the Russian Court (1914) and her autobiography It Really Happened (1932).