The Scandalous Mrs. Blackford

Description for THE SCANDALOUS MRS. BLACKFORD by Harnett T Kane with Victor Leclerc:

This is the story of Harriet Blackford, who began life as a clergyman's daughter in Philadelphia---went on to play a glittering role in the Paris demi-monde---and electrified the world with her sensational romance with a Grand Duke of Russia.

Harriet was a rebel.  Well-born with a fine Southern family background on one side and of impeccable New England stock on the other, she was widowed after an unfortunate elopement.  She then vowed she would never again submit to the genteel poverty she had known.

She moved into an elegant house on Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square with no assets but her tremendous charm and her vital beauty.  They were enough.  She soon became the toast of the rich young men of the city---and the talk of the women.  Scandalized Philadelphia whispered at the magnificence in which she lived.

Driven from Philadelphia by bitter gossip, Harriet moved on to Paris---the Paris of special brilliance before the Franco-Prussian War---and a freedom she had never known before.  Her salon was crowded with the rich, the powerful, the intellectual, and the famous courtesans of the day.  But all this ended with the grim reality of the German siege...and St. Petersburg beckoned.

St Petersburg!  City of the Tsars, of masques and balls, of furs and troikas, champagne and heady pleasures.  And here Harries met Nicholas, nephew of the Tsar, the brilliant boy haunted by the decadence of a court where Rasputin was to flourish.

Theirs was an enchanted, bewildered, love affair:  secret visits to the luxurious palaces---summer maneuvers of the Imperial Guard, where Harriet was smuggled into Nicholas' quarters disguised as an aide-de-camp---a journey to Italy, where Nicholas had a marble statue made of her---a dramatic meeting by the Volga to share Nicholas' triumph after defeating the Khan of Khiva.

But when Nicholas announced his intention of marrying his adored Harriet the Tsar's henchmen saw the way to be rid of the popular Nicholas.  Political intervention followed swiftly, then internment, and an international incident involving the diplomats of two countries.  And finally, exile, bitter end to an incredible 19th century romance as potentially disturbing to the Russian Empire as the Mrs. Simpson affair was to the British in a later time.