The Stéphanie of the prince theory is a figure of private maternal grief, secretly suffering the knowledge that her child had been taken from her and hidden. The historical Stéphanie de Beauharnais was a woman who managed a complex political life in difficult circumstances for over five decades. The gap between those two figures is part of what makes the theory so difficult to evaluate: it depends on attributing private beliefs and private knowledge that cannot be documented.
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## The Countess of Hochberg: The Alleged Architect
The other woman at the center of the Baden prince theory is Louise Caroline von Hochberg, the Countess of Hochberg, whose alleged motive is what gives the theory its structural coherence.
Louise Caroline was the morganatic wife of the previous Grand Duke of Baden, Charles Frederick, who died in 1811. A morganatic marriage is a legal arrangement in which the wife and children do not inherit the rank and titles of the husband. The Countess of Hochberg’s sons by Charles Frederick were therefore not in the line of succession in the same way that Charles, the new Grand Duke, and his heirs were.
The theory holds that if Charles and Stéphanie had no surviving heir, the succession would eventually pass to or through lines connected to the Countess’s sons. This gave her a dynastic motive to prevent the survival of a legitimate heir. The theory’s mechanism — the substitution of the dying infant for the living one — required access, resources, and willingness to commit what would have been an extraordinary crime.