Princess Viktoria of Prussia

As her mother and grandmother recommended Alexander (or 'Sandro') as a possible match, Viktoria quickly caught their enthusiasm and fell in love with him. Sandro, like his brothers, was considered exceedingly attractive, as he was lean and dashing. Viktoria on the other hand was not a pretty girl, being described by one as "a kind of wild, Scandinavian woman, with much of her mother's impetuosity and a streak of her brother Willy's eccentricity".

Though her parents wanted the couple to marry, Viktoria's grandfather, Emperor Wilhelm I and his chancellor, Otto von Bismarck were opposed to the match: they were afraid that if Viktoria married Sandro, Tsar Alexander III would be offended, as Alexander's actions in Bulgaria were irritating the Russians. As Bismarck was kept abreast of the affair by his spies, a vicious and bitter war of words was fought, but eventually, Viktoria's parents had to back down, and the young princess gave up all hope of marrying Sandro. Read Less

By this time her finances were in a precarious state, and Zoubkoff proceeded to squander much of the little money that remained on his own private amusements, rarely returning to the matrimonial home. Eventually Viktoria was obliged to call in the receivers and to sell off the contents of the Schaumburg Palace by auction, the sale being conducted by the Cologne auctioneers M. Lempertz. The sale attracted far less interest than had been anticipated, and The Times described much of the bidding as "spiritless"; it was estimated that the proceeds from the auction would have covered only one-third of her debts (which were reported to have been 900,000 marks, or £45,000 sterling). After leaving the Schaumburg Palace, she moved into a single furnished room in the Bonn suburb of Mehlem. Read Less