Why My Dabbling Days Are Over, Daily Telegraph

Travelling with Francesca von Habsburg is a little like stepping into the eye of a tornado. After three days of non-stop meetings in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, even the most world-weary observer is captivated by her cause, a foundation called ARCH (Art Restoration for Cultural Heritage) which restores art works wrecked in wars around the world.

Francesca recently gathered a group of supporters in Dubrovnik to see the city's restoration following Serbian bombing during the 1991-92 war and to celebrate her foundation's 10th anniversary.

"I still reel in disbelief when I recall the tragedy," she says. "The international community stood by and watched a five- month siege of a city which, at the time, was bursting with refugees, who had been cut off from water and electricity."

Francesca, 43, could not stand by. She started to go to the war zone in 1991, the first of many visits to help monitor the fate of destroyed paintings and altar pieces. She managed to win the trust of community leaders, who had refused United Nations advice to evacuate the city, preferring to stay put to protect their Renaissance art treasures.

Italian restorers were imported by Francesca to work with the Croatian conservation institute and local artists and architects. ARCH introduced different restoration techniques, started research and donated $80,000 of technical equipment - a part of the more than $600,000 so far invested in the project.

The human investment has been immeasurable: experts have forged close links, while Francesca has made close friends and is clearly admired for her input and loyalty. In other ways, Dubrovnik has proved a fateful place for the former Baroness Francesca von Thyssen, daughter of the legendary art collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, known for his world-famous art collection housed in Madrid. Francesca, called "Chessie" by her friends, not only found her life's work through ARCH, she also found her husband.

"I wanted to go to Croatia, and it was impossible to get visas. A mutual friend called me, and said: 'I know this guy who goes there all the time — he can help you'. So he called Karl, who gave me a lift there, and we became friends." Karl von Habsburg, Archduke of Austria, proposed to Francesca in the Kapuzinergruft, the Habsburg family crypt in Vienna: "'We're standing in the room where Empress Zita is buried, and he turns to me and asks: 'How would you like to be buried in here?"' Francesca remembers.

"So I said: 'I thought you had to be a member of the Habsburg dynasty to qualify', and he replied: 'That's what I mean'. That's the way he asked me to marry him. Very romantic." They were married in 1993, and live in Salzburg with children, Eleonore, Ferdinand and Gloria.

Karl and Francesca would be the emperor and empress in waiting if the Habsburgs still ruled an empire. They resemble a central European version Of Charles and Di in happy times. Francesca, a devout Catholic who converted in 1992, has come into her own after her wild younger days, when she was living in London and known for giving brilliant parties, wearing outrageous outfits and dating exotic men.

"My experience had been to dabble in modelling, dabble in acting, dabble in music and she says. photography," "When things got difficult, I moved on." She met the Dalai Lama in 1985 and travelled with him, later curating an exhibition on Tibetan art at the Villa Favorita, her father's estate in Lugano, Switzerland. The encouragement she received while doing this work helped her to focus her talents and she is now a formidable campaigner and fundraiser.

Karl, 40, is Francesca's counterpoint, calm and reassuring; they are a persuasive double-act when hosting functions, such as the dazzling gala dinner in Dubrovnik, a Renaissance feast with fire-eaters and jesters in the 14th-century fort Lovrijenac. They describe their partnership as running parallel in the same direction. Von Habsburg, a former MEP and Austrian chairman of the Pan-European movement, says his wife’s interests are “more cultural, mine more political, but we share the same goal”, which he describes as working for “unrepresented nations and peoples” in central and eastern Europe.

Francesca acknowledges that his family has given her great security, unlike her own, which is making headlines due to a long-running legal battle her father is waging against his eldest son, Georg, known as Heini Junior. '"The Habsburgs are very protective and supportive. In my own family, everyone was always busy bashing each other."

The lawsuit was initiated by the Baron in 1999 in Bermuda, where the family trust is based. He alleges that his son, his eldest child by his first wife, defaulted on annual payments to him. The lawsuit has attracted widespread attention due to the vast sums of money and the characters involved. The Thyssen-Bornemiszas are one of Europe's richest dynasties, and the Baron is a man of extremes, with a £1.7 billion fortune, a great art collection, four ex-wives and five children.

A fleet of British lawyers is now residing semi-permanently in Bermuda to settle the dispute, generating millions of pounds in fees in the process. The last judge presiding over the case resigned in April, following a dispute about his contract; the English high court judge Sir Gavin Lightman is expected to take over in the next few days.

Heini Junior, who lives on his own in Monaco, has been successfully managing the family fortune since 1983. As one of Francesca's guests in Dubrovnik, he arrived with his mother, Princess Theresa zu Furstenberg, the Baron's first wife. wife. He is clearly fond of his half-sister, and was also friendly with another guest, Francesca's mother, Fiona Thyssen, the former Scottish model Fiona Campbell-Walter, who was the Baron's third wife.

“As a Scot, I believe in clans," says Fiona Thyssen, still stunning at 69. "1 worked hard to get on with Heini's ex-wives and their children, and it all broadly worked until the Spanish rock came along.”

The “Spanish rock” is Heini's fifth wife, Tita Cervera, a former Miss Spain, who married the Baron in 1983. She is alleged to be the driving force behind the lawsuit, particularly since her husband suffered several strokes.

"Heini used to be known as a great collector," Fiona says, '"and now he is a weakened man." Her daughter concurs: "There's a real loss of dignity, which I suffer from."

She adores her father, but says it has not been easy to see him, though she hopes relations might improve. “There is a lot of desire to settle on both sides. We want peace.”

Meanwhile, her new family and her work keep her more than occupied: "'My daily life revolves around upholding a certain tradition, and honouring the family I am now part of; participating, giving something back, not just enjoying a life of privilege and title."

The Habsburgs have just taken a 100-year lease on a Franciscan monastery on the island of Lopud, near Dubrovnik, which Francesca is restoring. It is a magical place that will bind her more closely to the area. Her ties are much in evidence during the highlight of the Dubrovnik tour, a visit to the Dance convent to witness the reconsecration of the reinstalled 16th-century triptych altarpiece Our Lady with Saints by Dobricevic, recently restored by ARCH.

The nuns flutter around Francesca, greeting her warmly, playing with her children, and treating her guests to vanilla biscuits and lemonade. Sister Cornelia, the former convent head, has collaborated closely with her to find the triptych's original frame, which was lost en route to an exhibition in 1986. The brief church service is very moving, and shows what impact these gestures can have.

Francesca says the recent outcry against the destruction of the fifth-century Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in Afghanistan finally signals a greater concern for cultural heritage. Her foundation has completed projects in China, Russia, Scotland and Turkey, and has ongoing ones in India, Laos, Morocco and Croatia. Her passion to restore seems to come from a need to find something she lacked in life before her marriage. “All of a sudden, I had a family around me,” she says. “I suddenly got something I had never had and always wanted. It was really wonderful.”