Chapter 15 – Traité by Dom Calmet

First published in Paris in 1752, Traité is the fruit of thorough scholarly research, worth reading even today. 

In Chapter XLV, the living-dead Henry Count of Salm, buried in the Abbey of Haute-Seille, caught my attention; I remembered the Habsburgs having been distantly connected with his family. Beginning with Christina of Salm (1575–1627), Marianne’s great-great-great-grandmother, I had to go back along the line to the 13th century to find a potential candidate for the case. In 1228, a son of Henry III Count of Salm (+1246), also called Henry, being fatally ill, made a donation to the Abbey for his recovery. The donation did not help and he died the same year. He was survived by his young son (before 1228–1294), who inherited the title from his grandfather as Henry IV.

However, this is nothing but pure speculation. I have no evidence that the prematurely deceased Henry had anything to do with his namesake buried in the Abbey. However, if this was him, a direct bloodline over sixteen generations exists from him to Marianne.