friendly relations with the communists: her sister Ileana did the same in the hope of putting her eldest son, Archduke Stefan of Austria, on the throne. For these reasons, the two princesses then received the nickname of "Red Aunts" of King Michael I. Last years Despite her links with the Romanian Communist Party, Elisabeth was forced to leave the country after the proclamation of the Romanian People's Republic, on 30 December 1947. The new regime gave her three days to pack her belongings and the Elisabeta Palace was ransacked. However, before she went into exile, the princess had time to burn her archives in the domain of Banloc. On 12 January 1948 she left Romania with her sister Ileana aboard a special train provided by the Communists. The Scanavi family accompanied them, but both princesses lost much of their property after being expelled from the country. Elisabeth settled firstly in Zurich and then in Cannes, at the Villa Rose Alba. In France, she met a handsome young seducer and would-be artist named Marc Favrat. Having fallen in love with the young man, the princess wished to marry him and asked her cousin, Frederick, Prince of Hohenzollern, to bestow a title on him, but Frederick refused. The princess then decided to adopt her lover; which she did three months before her death. She died at her home on 14 November 1956. The body of the princess was transferred to the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen crypt, the Hedinger Kirche of Sigmaringen. Archives Young Princess Elisabeth's letters to her grandfather, Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, are preserved in the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family archive, which is in the State Archive of Sigmaringen (Staatsarchiv Sigmaringen) in the town of Sigmaringen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Ancestry Arms and monogram Notes References Bibliography Queen Marie of Romania, Însemnari zilnice, vol. 3, Editura Historia, 2006 Hannah Pakula, The Last Romantic: A Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania, Weidenfeld & Nicolson History, 1996 John Wimbles, Elisabeta of the Hellenes: Passionate Woman, Reluctant Queen - Part 1: Crown Princess, Royalty Digest, vol. 12#5, no 137, November 2002, pp. 136–144 ISSN 0967-5744 John Wimbles, Elisabeta of the Hellenes: Passionate Woman, Reluctant Queen - Part. 2: Crown Princess, Royalty Digest, vol. 12#6, no 138, December 2002, pp. 168–174 ISSN 0967-5744 John Wimbles, Elisabeta of the Hellenes: Passionate Woman, Reluctant Queen - Part. 3: Exile at Home 1924–1940, Royalty Digest, vol. 12#7, no 139, January 2003, pp. 200–205 ISSN 0967-5744 John