The photograph was taken in February 1951 on a foggy winter day. Otto von Habsburg and his fiancée, Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen, are buying a book at a bouquiniste, a second-hand bookstore on the banks of the Seine.
The silhouette of the Notre-Dame looms in the background. In his novel about the cathedral in Paris, Victor Hugo wrote, “Architecture will never again be the social, the collective, the dominant art. The great epic, the great monument, the great masterpiece of mankind will never again be built; it will be printed.” In his tale, set at the dawn of the modern age, the author of the Romantic era envisioned the triumph of knowledge in print over faith manifested in skyward soaring cathedrals.
For Otto von Habsburg, faith and knowledge were inseparable. However, he also understood that only through good human relations and a secure family background would one gain the ability to navigate the affairs of life. The former Crown Prince, who at the time was following the developments of the Cold War with mounting concern and determination, carried a photograph of his betrothed in his wallet—Regina would have turned 100 on the feast of Epiphany in 2025. Their marriage and growing family provided a secure foundation and framework throughout Otto’s lifelong endavours.
