Principality of Reuss-Gera
The Counts Reuss, with their respective capitals and Residenzen at Gera, Schleiz, Lobenstein, Köstritz and Ebersdorf, were all elevated to the title of prince (Fürst) in 1806.When Prince Heinrich XXVI Reuss (1857–1913) married Countess Viktoria von Fürstenstein (1863–1949) in 1885, under the strict marriage rules then enforced by the Reuss dynasty, although he was but a younger son of a minor ruling family, their children were not allowed to bear the dynasty's princely title.They were, instead, designated "Counts of Plauen", although they remained in the line of succession to the two thrones of Reuss[2] The Fürstensteins lacked Uradel status: Viktoria's paternal grandfather, Pierre-Alexandre Le Camus (1774–1824), son of a minor noble French notary living in Martinique, rose to become foreign minister in Jerome Bonaparte's Kingdom of Westphalia, was ennobled there in 1807 and made a count of the Kingdom of France in 1817).[verification needed][3] When the German Empire collapsed at the end of World War I, the reigning Prince Reuss lost his crown along with all the other monarchs whose realms were within Germany.[2] Under German law the title has been allowed only as part of the surname since 1919, thus the name "Heinrich Ruzzo Prinz Reuss."