Was Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar born a prince?
Klemens von Metternich
Born into the House of Metternich in 1773 as the son of a diplomat, Metternich received a good education at the universities of Strasbourg and Mainz. Metternich rose through key diplomatic posts, including ambassadorial roles in the Kingdom of Saxony, the Kingdom of Prussia, and especially Napoleonic France. One of his first assignments as Foreign Minister was to engineer a détente with France that included the marriage of Napoleon to the Austrian archduchess Marie Louise. Soon after, he engineered Austria's entry into the War of the Sixth Coalition on the Allied side, signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau that sent Napoleon into exile and led the Austrian delegation at the Congress of Vienna that divided post-Napoleonic Europe amongst the major powers. For his service to the Austrian Empire, he was given the title of Prince in October 1813. Under his guidance, the "Metternich system" of international congresses continued for another decade as Austria aligned itself with Russia and to a lesser extent Prussia. This marked the high point of Austria's diplomatic importance and thereafter Metternich slowly slipped into the periphery of international diplomacy. At home, Metternich held the post of Chancellor of State from 1821 until 1848 under both Francis I and his son Ferdinand I. After a brief exile in London, Brighton, and Brussels that lasted until 1851, he returned to the Viennese court, this time to offer only advice to Ferdinand's successor, Franz Josef. Having outlived his generation of politicians, Metternich died at the age of 86 in 1859.
Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels
Although he was the landless, younger son of a younger son of a minor German prince whose realm had been mediatized in 1806, Friedrich's 1834 marriage to Luise Auguste Stephanie Beyrich was considered below his princely station and had to be conducted morganatically. In 1837 his mother became queen consort of Hanover. Shortly before her death in 1841 his step-father, King Ernest Augustus, a member of the British royal family, succeeded in pressuring Friedrich to make a monetary arrangement with his wife and three children for a "de facto" royal annulment. Luise and Marie (born 1835, married Wilhelm Bähr), Karl Louis (1837-1918, married Wilhelmine Gantenhammer), and Melanie (born 1840, married Karl Heil), were ennobled in the Grand Duchy of Hesse under the name "von Schönau" on 25 March 1841. The family was further ennobled in 1912 with the surname "von Schönau de Solms".