The empress spoke with pride of Konstantin as an enviable match for many brides in Europe, as he was the second in the line of succession to the Russian Empire.

In 1795, Empress Catherine sent her general Andrei Budberg in a secret mission to the ruling European courts, to find a bride for Konstantin.

He was attended by the Ducal court doctor, Baron Stockmar, who, once he knew the real intention of his trip, drew the general's attention to the daughters of Duke Franz.

[5] This union, in connection with the wedding of Anna's brother Leopold and Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, made the little Duchy of Saxe-Coburg the dynastic heart of Europe.

Countess Golovina recalled: The married life of Anna Fyodorovna was hard and impossible to maintain [...] in her modesty, she needed the friendship of Elizabeth Alexeievna (Louise of Baden, wife of her brother-in-law Alexander), who was able to smooth things out between the frequent quarrelling spouses...".

The father of this child may have been Jules Gabriel Émile de Seigneux,[8] a minor Swiss nobleman and officer in the Prussian army.

Eduard was ennobled by his mother's younger brother, Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and assumed the surname von Löwenfels by decree on 18 February 1818.

Later, Anna moved to Bern, Switzerland, and gave birth to a second illegitimate child in 1812, a daughter named Louise Hilda Aglaë d'Aubert.

The father was Rodolphe Abraham de Schiferli, a Swiss surgeon, professor and chamberlain of Anna's household from 1812 to 1837 and who had advised her during her first pregnancy.

[8] As de Schiferli was a married man[8] and in order to cover another scandal in Anna's life, the baby was adopted by Jean François Joseph d'Aubert,[8] a French refugee.

In 1835, Anna's son Eduard married his cousin Bertha von Schauenstein, an illegitimate daughter of Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

This was one of the few happy events in Anna's last years - she soon lost almost all the people she loved: her parents, her sisters Sophie and Antoinette, her own daughter Louise (who, married Jean Samuel Edouard Dapples in 1834 died three years later in 1837 at the age of twenty-five), her former lover and now good friend Rodolphe de Schiferli (just a few weeks after their daughter's demise), her protector Emperor Alexander I, her childhood friend Empress Elizabeth...at that point the Grand Duchess wrote that Elfenau became the House of Mourning.

In her grave was placed a simple marble slab with the inscription, "Julia-Anna" and the dates of her birth and death (1781-1860); nothing more would indicate the origin of the once Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Grand Duchess of Russia.