Her husband, a Protestant, had found no difficulty in securing a divorce from her.  She was an ardent Roman Catholic, and the church stood in her way, her own relatives, who had been scandalized at her flight, being active in invoking its opposition.  She went to Rome in the spring of 1860, to press her suit at the very centre of churchly authority.  Liszt remained in Weimar awaiting word from her.  It took her more than a year to secure the Papal sanction.  Then, when everything seemed auspiciously settled and her marriage with Liszt a certainty, her enthusiasm led her to take a step which, at the very last moment, proved fatal to her long-cherished hope.

Had she returned at once to Weimar, her union with Liszt undoubtedly would have taken place.  But no.  In her joy she must go too far.  In Rome, there where the marriage had been interdicted, there where she had successfully overcome opposition to it, there it should take place.  Her triumph should be complete.

Liszt was sent for.  His last two letters to her before their meeting in Rome are dated from Marseilles in October, 1861.  The marriage was to take place October 22, his fiftieth birthday.  He writes her from the Hotel des Empereurs, himself “plus heureux que tous les empereurs du monde!” and again, “Mon long exil va finir.”  Yet it was only just beginning!

He arrived in Rome on October 20.  All arrangements for the ceremony in the San Carlo al Corso had been made.  Then, by a strange fatality, it chanced that several of the Princess’s relations, who were most bitter against her, entered upon the scene.  Of all times, they happened to be in Rome at this critical moment, and, getting wind of the impending marriage, they entered a violent protest.  When, on the evening of the 21st, Liszt was visiting the Princess, a Papal messenger called and announced that His Holiness had decided to forbid the ceremony until he could look into the matter more fully, and requested from her a resubmission of the documents bearing on the case.

To the Princess, then on the threshold of realizing her most cherished hopes, this was the last stroke.  Her over-wrought nature saw in it a Judgment of Heaven.  She refused to resubmit the papers; and even, when a few years later, Prince Wittgenstein died and she was free, she regarded marriage with Liszt as opposed by the Divine will.  A strain of mysticism, nurtured by busy ecclesiastics, developed itself in her; she became possessed of the idea that she was a chosen instrument in the Church’s hands to further its interests; and with feverish, desperate energy she devoted herself to literary work as its champion.  She had her own press, which set up each day’s work and showed it to her in proof the next.  She did not leave Rome except on one occasion, and then for less than a day, during the remaining twenty-six years of her life.