in 1923, when she first encountered Carol. After the divorce, Elena resumed her maiden name, Lupescu. Speculations about origins Some (e.g., Easterman, p. 81–85), suggest something mysterious about Lupescu's origins and early life, that she may have been of royal blood, an illegitimate daughter of King Carol I, and thus a cousin of Carol II. There are three main arguments: that Romanian law at the time barred Jews from owning apothecaries, and hence there was something unusual about Elena's father owning one; that it was unusual for a girl of Lupescu's parentage to be accepted at one of the best schools in Bucharest; and that it was highly unusual for a Romanian army officer to be allowed to marry someone of Jewish background. There is little merit to any of these arguments. As far as Romanian law of the time went, Nicolae Lupescu ceased being a Jew upon his conversion—there was nothing preventing him from owning an apothecary. But even before his conversion, the law could have been easily circumvented in a country as rife with corruption as Romania, especially in Iași, where Jews were close to half of the city's population. As to Lupescu's education, she was a German-speaking Catholic daughter of a Catholic mother, that is, the very student who would have been most readily admitted at a school run by German nuns. But even her being Jewish would not have necessarily constituted a major obstacle. For instance, between 1890 and 1916, Jews constituted, on average, 7% of the student body of the Lycée "Gheorghe Lazăr" of Bucharest, a boys' school described as "the school of the Romanian élite". Finally, her marriage to an army officer would not have been problematic, because neither she nor her parents were legally Jewish, and most Romanians would not have regarded her as such. That came later, during the Great Depression in Romania, when the character of Romanian anti-Semitism gradually changed and her parents' Jewish origins were stressed for political reasons. Royal mistress According to Paul-Philippe Hohenzollern, who cites Carol's diaries, she first met Crown Prince Carol (later King Carol II of the Romanians) in March 1923, when she was still married to Tâmpeanu.Two years later, in February 1925, Carol and Lupescu began a serious relationship, which endured until his death in 1953. Lupescu was described as a witty and outspoken woman, a tall redhead with milky-white skin and green eyes. Other