Prince Constantin Radziwill (1850-1920) was born into an important aristocratic Polish-Lithuanian family. He had numerous royal titles and bloodlines as well as a surfeit of prime European real estate, but not much cash in the bank. Consequently, he married a wealthy woman whose family made a fortune in prestigious upper-class gambling, including the establishment of the Casino de Monte-Carlo and the Hotel de Paris with the royal family of Monaco.
Although married with children, Radziwill's homosexual activity was widely known (an open secret), and he was infamous for employing 12 strapping house boys (known as "footmen", ahem...), to whom he awarded extravagant gifts of jewelry. As well, he was a close friend of writer Marcel Proust, the French influencer who was himself conflicted over his own sexuality, i.e. a practicing homosexual who was homophobic in many of his writings.
Over the centuries the Radziwell family was on a par with royalty. They owned 23 palaces, over 400 towns, in excess of 2,000 estates, and more than 10,000 villages. Evidence of their cultural influence was the fact that they hosted Beethoven, Goethe, Paganini and the like. The Radziwill Palace in Warsaw now serves as the Presidential Palace of the Republic of Poland.
The Radziwill family held influential musical salons at their various properties in Vienna, Paris, Warsaw, Vilnius, Berlin, etc. The family supported pianist-composer Frederic Chopin financially, and the pianist was a frequent house guest of Antoni Radziwill, himself an accomplished cellist. Chopin dedicated compositions to the Radziwills and gave piano lessons to Antoni's daughter Wanda.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis
had a brother-in-law who was a Radziwill. Prince Stanislaw Radziwell was married to Jackie's "socialite" sister, Lee, with whom he fathered two children. Their Swiss-born son Anthony, a broadcast journalist, served as best man at the 1996 wedding of his cousin John F. Kennedy Jr and Caroline Bessette. Tragically, Anthony (1959-1999), the nephew of former First Lady Jackie Kennedy, died of cancer at the age of forty.
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