Pauline de Metternich

Pauline
Princess von Metternich
Portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1860
Spouse(s)	Richard von Metternich
Issue Princess Sophie von Metternich Countess Pascalina Antoinette von Metternich - Sandor Winneburg Countess Klementina Marie von Metternich - Sandor Winneburg
Father	Count Moritz Sándor
Mother	Leontine von Metternich
Born	(1836-02-25)25 February 1836 Vienna, Austrian Empire
Died	28 September 1921(1921-09-28) (aged 85) Vienna, Republic of Austria

Princess Pauline Clémentine Marie Walburga von Metternich - Winneburg zu Beilstein (née Countess Sándor de Szlavnicza; 25 February 1836 – 28 September 1921) was a famous Austrian socialite, mainly active in Vienna and Paris. Known for her great charm and elegance as well as for her social commitment, she was an important promoter of the work of the German composer Richard Wagner and the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. She was also instrumental to the creation of the haute couture industry.

Pauline was born in Vienna into the Hungarian noble family of Sándor de Slavnicza. Her father, Count Móric Sándor (1805–1878), described as "a furious rider", was known throughout the Habsburg empire as a passionate horseman. Her mother, Princess Leontine von Metternich-Winneburg (1811–1861), was a daughter of the Austrian state chancellor Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich (known as the architect of the Concert of Europe). It was at his home in Vienna that Pauline spent almost her whole childhood.

In 1856, she married her uncle, Prince Richard von Metternich (1829–1895), whereby her grandfather Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich also became her father-in-law. The couple lived a happy conjugal life, despite Richard's frequent love-affairs with actresses and opera prima donnas. Their first child was Sophie (born 1857); her second daughter, Pascaline (b. 1862), married Count George of 'Waldstein', an insane and alcoholic Czech aristocrat who was said to have murdered her in delirium in Duchcov (today in the Czech Republic) in 1890. Her youngest daughter, Clementine (b. 1870), was badly injured by her dog as a child and decided never to marry due to her scarred face.

Pauline accompanied her husband, an Austrian diplomat, on his missions to the royal Saxon court in Dresden and in 1859 to the imperial French court in Paris, where they lived for more than eleven years until the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71. She played an important role in the social and cultural life of both Dresden and Paris, and, after 1871, Vienna. Pauline's regular travels between, and extended stays in, Paris and Vienna, permitted her to act as a cross-cultural transmitter of the many trends that interested her in music, political ideas, and sport. She was a close friend and confidante of French Empress Eugénie, and, with her husband, was a prominent personality at the court of Emperor Napoleon III. In 1860 she introduced fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth to the Empress and thus started his rise to fame.