Agustín Fernando Muñoz y Sánchez

Agustín Fernando Muñoz y Sánchez (Tarancón, May 4, 1808 – Le Havre, September 13, 1873), I Duke of Riánsares, Great of Spain, I Marquis of San Agustín and I Duke of Montmorot in France, was a Spanish soldier, knight of the Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece and second husband of the queen regent María Cristina de Borbón-Two Sicilies.

Family

Baptized in the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Tarancón, on May 6, 1808, he was the son of Juan Antonio Muñoz y Funes, I Viscount of Sabiñán and later I Count of Retamoso, knight of the Order of Santiago, administrator of the Real Cortijo de San Isidro in Aranjuez, and his wife Eusebia Sánchez y Ortega, paternal grandson of Francisco Javier Muñoz y Carrillo de Torres (son of José Muñoz y Navarro and his wife Manuela Carrillo de Torres y Frías) and his wife Eugenia Dorotea Funes y Martínez (daughter of Manuel Funes y Burgo and his wife Manuela Martínez) and maternal grandson of Gabriel Antonio Sánchez y Ordóñez (son of Gabriel Sánchez y Muñoz and his wife Yomar Ordóñez) and his wife María Francisca de Ortega y Campos (daughter of Lorenzo de Ortega y Toledo and his wife María de Campos).

Fernando Muñoz Sánchez's parents were tobacconists from Tarancón, later ennobled by the queen. In December 1833, Queen María Cristina, shortly after two months of the death of Fernando VII, made a trip to La Granja, "during which she declared herself to Fernando Muñoz, a twenty-five-year-old bodyguard, son of some tobacconists from Tarancón, and proposed marriage.

Marriage and offspring

He began his career as a body guard. The then queen governor, María Cristina de Borbón, mother of Queen Isabel II and widow of Fernando VII, declared her love for him on December 18, 1833 in the royal estate of Quitapesares, near the Royal Site of La Granja de San Ildefonso.. They secretly contracted a morganatic marriage in the royal palace of Madrid on December 28, 1833 and had five sons and three daughters:

• María de los Desamparados Muñoz y Borbón, I condesa de Vista Alegre (1834 - 1864)
• María de los Milagros Muñoz y Borbón, I marquesa de Castillejo (1835 - 1903)
• Agustín María Raimundo Fernando Longinos Muñoz y Borbón, I duque de Tarancón grande de España, I vizconde de Rostrollano y pretendeiente a king of Ecuador (1837 - 1855)
• Fernando María Muñoz y Borbón, II Duke of Great Riánsares of Spain, II Duke of Tarancón grande de España, II Marquis de San Agustín, I Count of Casa Muñoz, II Viscount of Rostrollano, I Viscount of the Alborada and II Duke of Montmorot in France
• María Cristina Muñoz y Borbón, I marquesa de la Isabela, I vizcondesa de la Dehesilla (1840 - 1921)
• Juan María Muñoz and Borbón, I count of remembrance, I vizconde de Villarrubio (1844 - 1863).
• Antonio de Padua Muñoz y Borbón (1842 - 1847)
• José María Muñoz y Borbón, I conde de Gracia, I vizconde de la Arboleda (1846 - 1863)

Noble titles

Low-ranking military man, sergeant, belonged to the Palace service. Due to the secrecy of the first wedding, they officially celebrated it with the express consent of Queen Elizabeth II on October 12, 1844. In June 1844 he was named grandee of Spain and the Duchy of Riánsares was established to grant him the title. The day after the official wedding he was named lieutenant general and senator for life. His stepdaughter Queen Elizabeth II granted him the degree of knight of the Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece. He later acquired the title of 1st Marquis of San Agustín and, Already in exile in France with María Cristina, Louis Philippe I of France named him I Duke of Montmorot Peer of France and awarded him the grand cross of the National Order of the Legion of Honor.

Businessman

He was the promoter of multiple businesses together with María Cristina for almost four decades, including the clandestine trade in African slaves, the production of sugar and the construction of the railroad on the Peninsula.

The marriage between Fernando Muñoz and Cristina de Borbón operated in Madrid, Paris, London and Havana from 1835 to 1873, the year of the husband's death. On September 14, 1844, he established the firm 'Agustín Sánchez y Cía.' in Paris, together with Antonio Juan Parejo, who represented the economic interests of the Queen Regent. Although they were also dedicated to promoting the railway in the Principality of Asturias (1854) and the current Valencian Community, the African slave trade was the main source of profits, with which they earned a great fortune. These slave practices were developed clandestinely for more than three decades, since trafficking had been abolished in the peninsula since 1837. In addition, the Muñoz-Borbón couple took part in several sugar mills in Cuba, then a Spanish overseas province, investing in the sugar business. extraction of sugar from slave labor. They also did business with the politician and slave trader Julián Zulueta.

The family maintained different residences in the country and abroad: the Royal Possession of Vista Alegre in Carabanchel, the Remisa Palace on Paseo de Recoletos just to the left of the current Palace of the Marquis of Salamanca, the Remisa Palace in Carabanchel, the House-Palace of Retamoso in Tarancón, the Palace of the Duke of Riánsares also in Tarancón, the Palace-Hermitage of Riánsares on the outskirts of Tarancón, the Real-Deleite of Aranjuez, the Palace of las Rejas or Palace of the Queen Mother, in front of the Senate, the House-Palace on Carretas Street, given to her sister Alejandra and where today a bingo is located, the Belinchón Palace near Tarancón, El Plantío de Remisa in the municipality of Majadahonda, the Palazzo Albinoni in Rome today Palazzo dei Drago, the Villarrubio Palace, which the Infanta María de la Paz de Borbón would later buy and finish in Cuenca, the Finca de Santa María de la O in Villarejo de Fuentes, the Château de la Malmaison in Paris (what had become of Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais), the Vaud residence in Switzerland or the bombed Villa Mon Désir in Le Havre in the Second World War along with the Casino in addition to renting the Château d'Aygues in Normandy to Princess Lubomirska. The extensions of farms, mills and large agricultural holdings were located mainly in the province of Cuenca, in Asturias and in Madrid.

Muñoz lacked political ambition, even rejecting the crown of Ecuador, which the authorities of that country intended to establish. Together with his brothers the 2nd Count of Retamoso and the 1st Marquis of Remisa – father-in-law of his brother Jesús – he managed to do business with the Rothschild family, the Laffitte banking family and the 1st Marquis of Salamanca.

Patronage

The Duke of Riánsares naturally assumed his role as patron and paid Fortuny a lifetime pension. In addition, the art collections of the Duke of Riánsares and his brothers, the Count of Retamoso and the Marquis of Remisa, are defined by Pascual. Madoz and in them numerous classical painters are represented such as Velázquez, Murillo, Zurbarán, Tiépolo, Lucas Jordán, Tintoretto or Goya.

There are several buildings that have survived to this day, ordered to be built by the Duke of Riánsares and his wife as well as by various members of his family that constitute a very representative legacy of romantic nineteenth-century civil architecture. He was host to Alexandre Dumas in 1846, as the French writer tells in From Paris to Cádiz.

Exile

He had to go into exile with his wife, the queen mother. He died five years before Maria Cristina in her home of exile in Le Havre. He is buried in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Riánsares, in Tarancón along with his deceased infant nephews, the Muñoz Remisas.