Princess Maria de Los Dolores of Bourbon-Two Sicilies - Marriage and Later Life

Marriage and Later Life

In Paris, Princess Dolores met a wealthy Polish aristocrat Prince Augustyn Józef Czartoryski, 13th Prince Czartoryski, Duke of Klewan and Zuków, son of Prince Adam Ludwik Czartoryski and his wife Countess Maria Ludwika Krasińska. They were married on 12 August 1937 in Ouchy, Switzerland.The couple settled in Kraków, Poland where Dolores’s husband took over the running of the Family Museum. Their lives were disrupted with the Second World War. In September 1939 with the Invasion of Poland bombs fell on Kraków, Prince Augustyn and Princess Dolores, who was pregnant, decided to leave the country and move to Spain. In their escape, they were picked up by the Gestapo and put under arrest. It was through the intervention of the Spanish ambassador in Berlin that they were released.

After reaching Paris, Princess Dolores and her husband moved permanently to Spain. They settled in Seville where Princess Dolores gave birth to a son: Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski (born 2 January 1940). Her husband, meanwhile was very active in the Polish resistance. In 1943 the couple bought a rural property in Dos Hermanas which they called it Garden of the Princess, the farm was self-sufficient for the subsistence of the family. The couple had a second son also born in Seville, Prince Ludwik Piotr Czartoryski (13 March 1945 - 3 May 1946), but the child died of only thirteen months.

At the end of the war, the properties of the Czartoryski family were nationalized by the Polish government and the family decided not to return to Krakow, for fear of the Soviet occupation. Prince Augustyn was in poor health, the troubles and tribulation of the war took a toll on his life and he died on 1 July 1946, aged thirty nine. The deaths of both her youngest son and her husband only two months apart in 1946 deeply affected the Princess, who was left a widow with a six year old child.

Princess Dolores continued living in in Seville, Spain. Four years into her widowhood, she fell in love with Carlos Chias Osorio (born at Barcelona 26 Feb 1925), an ex seminarist, teacher and preceptor of her son Adam. He was fifteen years her junior. They married on 29 December 1950 in Seville. Their union produced no children. Carlos Chias Osorio quickly became well liked in Dos Hermanas and in spite of the age disparity the marriage was a happy one. The couple lived in Seville until 1958. After the death of Princess Dolores mother, in April that year, they moved to Madrid. In the following decades, the princess and her husband lived in Madrid with simplicity. She died in Madrid on 11 May 1996.