Miechen made a long journey in her own train. It was battered all right--but it was hers. For the first time in my life I found it a pleasure to kiss her..." She made her way from Venice to Switzerland and then to France, where her health failed. Staying at her villa (now the Hotel La Souveraine), she died on 6 September 1920, aged 66, surrounded by her family at Contrexéville. Jewels Marie had a passion for jewels, and her collection was renowned. It included a 100 carat emerald once owned by her great-great-great-grandmother, Empress Catherine the Great and the 5 carat ruby of Josephine de Beauharnais. In 1899, she and Vladimir received a number of jewels for their silver wedding anniversary. Nicholas II of Russia and Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse) gave them “an aigrette and diadem composed of magnificent diamonds." It was reported that "the three stones of the aigrette alone are worth a fortune.” Each grand duke and grand duchess gave them a golden plate, which formed a collection of 36 plates, “the most magnificent service that can be imagined.” Marie was a major client of Cartier, and she bought many jewels from them. These jewels included an aigrette tiara with "three curving aigrette bundles, set with Indian-cut briolettes like cascades of blossom" that "evoked the illusion of dewdrops shaken from a stem” whenever they were moved, a ruby tiara, a kokoshnik tiara with a 137-carat sapphire in the center, and a large stomacher with a 162-carat sapphire. Following the Revolution, a family friend Albert Stopford rescued the jewels from her Palace safe and smuggled them out of Russia. After the Duchess's death, they were sold by her children to support their lives in exile. Queen Mary, Queen Consort of the United Kingdom purchased a Bolin tiara of diamond loops with pearl drops, later worn by Queen Elizabeth II, although the original gold frame has been replaced by Garrard with one of platinum; Her niece by marriage, Queen Marie, Queen Consort of Romania purchased a sapphire kokoshnik-style tiara by Cartier and Nancy Leeds (later Princess Christopher of Greece), the ruby parure. Some of her emeralds were purchased by Barbara Hutton. It had been rumored that some of the stones in Elizabeth Taylor's Bulgari Emerald necklace were from the Vladimir collection but this has been disproved by jeweler historian Vincent Meylan. In 2008 a collection of cufflinks, cigarette