Eugenia de Montijo

Eugenia de Palafox Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick or María Eugenia de Guzmán y Portocarrero, better known as Eugenia de Montijo (Granada, May 5 1826-Madrid, July 11, 1920), was a Spanish aristocrat and empress consort of the French as wife of Napoleon III. She was XII Countess of Baños and XIX Countess of Teba.

Biography

Early Years

María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox-Portocarrero de Guzmán y Kirkpatrick was born in Granada, at Calle Gracia number 12, on May 5, 1826. Eugenia was the second daughter of Cipriano Palafox y Portocarrero-Idiaquez, XIII Duke of Peñaranda, Count of Montijo and Teba and grandee of Spain, son of Felipe Antonio de Palafox Croy, who knows also used the surname Guzmán by inheritance from Inés de Guzmán, Countess of Teba. He was a liberal soldier and politician, a Freemason and a Frenchman who fought in the Spanish War of Independence alongside José Bonaparte. His mother was Enriqueta María Manuela KirkPatrick de Closeburn y de Grevignée, a Spanish aristocrat daughter of Scotsman William KirkPatrick, an exile in Spain in his youth for supporting the House of Stuart in its dynastic claims, who was consul of the United States in Malaga, and the Belgian Marie Françoise de Grevignée.

She came into the world, on that date in which Granada suffered a major earthquake that presided over the moment of early delivery a couple of weeks due to the scare of the earthquake, in a tent set up for the case outside the palace in where the family resided, for fear of a fatal collapse, so Eugenia had her first vital experience on a land that cracked as a greeting before the first breaths of her life and, as she herself would say later, under a tree in a grove of laurels and cypresses. Random was her birth, as random was her life; archetypal Granada lady that she never used the last name Guzmán as her father, although she was proud of her ancestry with Alonso de Guzmán, better known to history as Guzmán el Bueno.

Youth

Eugenia portrayed next to her sister Francisca, about 1836.

In 1835, Eugenia was sent to France to study at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and then at the Gymnase Normale, Civile et Orthosomatique, where she received a profound Catholic formation that would accompany her until the end of his life. In 1837 she had a short and unpleasant stay at a boarding school in Bristol, in the southwest of England.

The circumstances are certain that, when she was 12 years old, an old gypsy from the Albaicín in Granada approached her to read the lines on her hand and predicted that she would become queen. Ten years later, already in Paris, Abbot Brudinet, who exercised the pastoral ministry along with palmistry, saw an Imperial Crown in the same hand. Curious esoteric coincidences, which would come, over the years, to confirm predictions of youth.

When she was already a girl, great intellectuals of the time passed through the family home, enlightened travelers who brought news of the events of the most rancid and refined Europe. Large parties were offered to which diplomats, writers, musicians, bullfighters and great celebrities of the time attended. Among them was the novelist Juan Valera, who left in a letter a curious description of the 21-year-old girl in 1847:

It is a diabolical girl who, with a childish, screaming, fussing and makes all the mischiefs of a six-year-old boy, being at the same time the most fashionable Miss of this villa and cut and so short of genius and so commanding, so fond of the gymnastic exercises and the incense of the good young knights and, finally, so adorablely ill educated, that you can almost-maybe ensure that your future husband will be martyr of this heavenly creature, nobiliary and above all very ricious.

But more transcendental was his relationship with another writer, the French Prosper Mérimée, who became a regular at the meetings held at the family home and soon became a special friendship with the adolescent Eugenia, with whom he changed Impressions about the customs and stories of a Spanish people accustomed to discussing their passions in an uncontrolled way, both in love and in war. In one of those conversations, Eugenia told him about the romance starring a cigarette woman, a Spanish bullfighter and a soldier, a story and a passion that Mérimée knew how to argue in her novel Carmen, the work that gave her the immortality, and on which the famous opera of the same name by Georges Bizet was later based.

Over the years, the friendship of both Eugenia's mother and her own with the writer influenced Mérimée to be named Senator of France in 1853, and there is no doubt that the social and political weight of the Empress was decisive in such an envied appointment.

Eugenia fell in love with all the enthusiasm of her 18 years with the Marquis of Alcañices, but she was betrayed and, believing that her life was broken, she thought of taking the habit, but the superior of the convent dissuaded her saying: «You are so beautiful that rather seems to have been born to sit on a throne.

Father's orphan in 1839, she lived between Granada and Madrid and traveled with her mother and sister through Italy, France, England and Germany until in 1850 they settled in the city of the Seine, where, induced by maternal ambition, they frequent Parisian salons, an ambition almost converted into a maternal obsession to marry their daughters to the best of palatial Europe, to the point of arousing not only palatial envy, but malevolent gossip of the coarsest purpose, rumors, excessive mockery for cruelty, which were preceded by the stories in which her mother had been the protagonist in England, where she had managed to gain access to the position of chambermaid to the queen herself, and even accusing the young woman of affairs with the lovers of her own mother, making her in turn participate in a supposedly libertine and carefree life, and dubbing her for mocking purposes as "La Senorita de Montijo" at high society meetings and dances where she began to be looked down upon.

Marriage

Recorded of 1853 on the occasion of the civil marriage ceremony of Napoleon III and Eugenia de Montijo, held on 29 January of that same year.

In one of the many social gatherings of high French lineage, on April 12, 1849, at a reception at the Élysée Palace, Eugenia was introduced to Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, cousin of Princess Matilde Bonaparte, who was spellbound before the elegant exuberance and intelligence of Eugenia, of a beauty difficult to miss, and courted her vehemently, while Eugenia avoided the siege as best she could.

The aforementioned Napoleon, nephew of the first Emperor Bonaparte, son of Louis I of Holland and Hortensia de Beauharnais, due to far-fetched circumstances in a hazardous life, would become president of the French Republic, in which he himself was seeking his second and more ambitious goal: to become emperor.

From Madrid, Eugenia was able to follow the events of her tenacious suitor who, once he was crowned emperor, repeatedly requested that the Montijos visit his Parisian properties. There, at a reception in the Tuileries Palace, where Princess Matilde lodged her with her mother, seeing her leaning out of a balcony of the Palace, next to the room next to the Chapel, the emperor approached her and, with unusual impudence, he told her that he needed to see her and asked how he could get to her, to which Eugenia, with ingenious and quick reflexes, replied:

"To the chapel, sir, to the chapel."

In the Tuileries, in his speech on January 22, 1853, before the Senate, the Legislative Body and the Council of State, the Emperor declared:

"That which has gone into the object of my preference is a high birth. French at heart, by education, and by the remembrance of the blood that his father poured out for the cause of the Empire, he has, as Spanish, the advantage of not having a family in France to which he must give honors and dignity. Given all the qualities of the soul, she will be the adornment of the throne, since, on the day of danger, she will become one of her brave advocates. Catholic and pious, she will pray to heaven the same prayers I make for the happiness of France; graceful and good, she will revive in the same position, I have firm hope, the virtues of Empress Josefina. (...) I come, gentlemen, to say to France: I would prefer a woman whom I love and respect, to an unknown woman whose alliance would have had advantages mixed with sacrifices. Without showing disdain for anyone, I yield to my inclination, but after having consulted my reason and my beliefs. "

Previously, Napoleon had been rejected by Princess Adelaide, Queen Victoria's niece, so this comment was viewed with some sarcasm from Great Britain. The newspapers of that country made comments about the union between an aristocrat of recognized lineage with a member of the Bonaparte family.

On Sunday, January 29, 1853, Eugenia dresses in pink satin and jasmine headdresses for the civil wedding at the Tuileries Palace. The marriage was registered in the Hall of Marshals (Salle des Maréchaux) at 8:00 p.m. The following morning, January 30, Eugenia de Montijo, aged 26, became the Empress of the French by consecrating her marriage to Napoleon III, aged 45, on the solemn High Altar of Notre-Dame Cathedral before the Archbishop of Paris.

With the link, one of the most outstanding and interesting periods in the history of France began, with a popular couplet turned into a lament that from Spain said:

Eugenia de Montijo, what a pity, sorrow, that you leave Spain to be Queen. By the plains of France, Granada leaves, and the waters of the Darro by the Seine. Eugenia de Montijo, what a shame...

The imperial family photographed around 1858. On the left, the Emperor Napoleon III; sitting on the right, the Empress Eugenia, and on his side, his son, Prince Napoleon Eugenio Luis.

From the first moment and showing off her persevering character, she gives the first sign of trying to win over a French people who do not want her, and from the very atrium of the Notre-Dame cathedral she leaves the arm of Napoleon III, turns to the thousands of Frenchmen who are watching her and, wearing on her head the diadem that had belonged to her two predecessors, Josefina and María Luisa, bows making an elegant bow of submission to her people. In an instant, the assembled French turn from genteel indifference to enthusiasm, and cheers break out everywhere.

It was one of those acts of courtesy and dedication that would make her famous, with which the common people began to love her in a fraternal feeling, later harangued by another act of the new French empress when she donated the six hundred to charity thousand francs that the municipality of Paris gave her as a wedding gift for jewelry, with which an asylum for poor girls was founded that bears her married name, Eugenia Napoleón. The same generosity of hers was with an amount of 250,000 francs donated by her husband, Napoleon III. The Emperor and his wife took the imperial carriage that had brought Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais to Notre-Dame Cathedral on their coronation day. Eugenia wore a white satin dress and a diadem of diamonds and sapphires.

Although Eugenia was not born a princess, she soon knew how to rise to the occasion. No one missed the princess of royal blood that she had wanted so much anymore.

The newlyweds honeymooned at the Château de Villeneuve-l'Étang, in Marnes-la-Coquette, in the heart of Saint-Cloud, where the Empress wanted to occupy the rooms of Queen Marie Antoinette. Meanwhile, the Countess of Montijo, mother of the Empress, was preparing to return to Spain, since her stubborn mission was already accomplished.

In December 1854, she suffered an abortion and, despite her husband's constant infidelities, she became pregnant again shortly after, only to suffer another abortion. The continuous adventures of the emperor irritated the empress, more than because of jealousy of her, because of the scandal, which Eugenia could not accept because of the principles of her Catholic upbringing and because she identified her loyalty with her honor.

Difficulty conceiving, she was advised by Queen Victoria on a trip to the UK:

“Look, Eugenia, why don’t you use certain postures that will come very well for your subsequent pregnancy?... why don’t you try to put some cushions this way in your lumbars, so maybe you’re lucky.”

Eugenia took a good note, tried it and was right. After the affair with the cushion, Eugenia became pregnant. On March 16, 1856, after a long and painful labor, she gave birth to her only son, Napoleon Luis Eugene Juan José Bonaparte, who received the title of imperial prince.

To celebrate the prince's birth, Napoleon III announced a new amnesty for the outcasts on December 2. At the same time, 600,000 Parisians (one in two inhabitants) made gifts to the Empress. On the morning of March 17, a salute of one hundred shots announced the birth to the entire country. The emperor decided that he would be the godfather and empress godmother of all legitimate children born in France (that is, those born within the marriage of their parents) on that day, March 16, which amounted to 3,000.

The Empress thus fulfilled her main mission. She had given her husband a son and the empire an heir. The child was born on a day of triumph, a Palm Sunday. What the happy mother liked the most was that this much-desired child was not only a son of France, but also a son of the Church and godson of Pope Pius IX; the high priest's blessing hung over his cradle.

On the following July 17, the emperor wrote to Plombieres-les-Bains the provisions relating to the regency, which he entrusted to the empress.

"(Article 2) - If the lesser Emperor ascends to the Throne without the Emperor's father having prepared the Regency of the Empire by public act before his death, the Empress Mother is Regent and has the custody of her younger son. "

Semblance

Madame Carette, who will later be his reader, describes the living reflection of his seduction:

“It was rather high, its features were regular and the very delicate line of the profile had the perfection of an old medal, with a very personal charm, a little strange even, that made it not possible to share it with any other woman. The forehead, tall and straight, narrowed towards the temples; the eyelids, which she went down frequently, followed the line of the eyebrows, thus keeping her eyes quite close to each other, which constituted a particular feature of the empress's physiognomy: two beautiful eyes of a vivid and deep blue surrounded by shadow, full of soul, energy and sweetness (...) The shoulders, the chest and the arms remembered the most beautiful statues. The waist was small and rounded; the hands were thin; the feet were tiny. Nobleness and much grace on the porte, a nata distinction, a light and gentle walk (...)”

Thanks to her beauty and elegance, Eugenia contributed significantly to the charm emanating from the imperial regime. Her way of dressing was praised and imitated throughout Europe. Her interest in the life of Queen Marie Antoinette expanded neoclassical fashion, a very popular style during the reign of Louis XVI.

The empress's legendary elegance greatly influenced the world of fashion. Named after the Empress, the Eugénie hat is a style of women's hat tilted and falling over one eye; the brim is sharply folded on either side in the style of a horsemanship ornament, often with a long ostrich feather. The hat was popularized by film star Greta Garbo and by the 1930s were "hysterically popular".

He was the most decorated person in all of France, with 20 decorations and noble titles.

Political influence

The Empress Eugenia, photographed in 1856.

Eugenia was an educated and intelligent woman. The successive abortions and the difficult birth of her son, the imperial prince, distanced her from social and political life, but her character and her desire to lead an active life accelerated a tedious recovery, and she began to take an active part in French politics..

Eugenie decided to take an active part in the politics of the Second Empire. A fervent Catholic, she opposed her husband's policy regarding Italy, and defended the powers and prerogatives of the pope in said country.

Eugenia was not really a stateswoman who in some way gave primordial part to the wars, but she assumed them with the responsibility that every leader or ruler assumes, and with the necessary integrity to take charge of them. the negative eventuality and the suffering of defeats, as well as the joy of victories.

Eugenie was the instigator of the French invasion of Mexico, in support of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, which was a disaster, not only because of the thousands of lives lost by the French army, but also because of the execution of Emperor Maximilian. The empress saw in the intervention in Mexico the possibility of establishing a Catholic power in North America, cutting off the path of the Protestant United States and facilitating, through a kind of "domino effect", the appearance of other conservative monarchies and Catholics, ruled by European princes in Central and South America. This episode caused great anguish and grief for the Empress, since she was directly blamed for the fatal outcome.

On the other hand, she lived with joy with her husband the French victory in the Crimean War in 1856.

During the Franco-Prussian War, which ended the following year with the defeat at Sedan, the influence of the Empress was decisive in advising Napoleon III against Prussia, which had crushed the Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire a few years earlier in the Austro-Hungarian War. -Prussian, all against the prudence advised by Prime Minister Émile Ollivier.

Eugénie held the regency of the empire on three occasions: The first of these, during the Italian campaigns in 1859, when the emperor intervened in support of the Count of Cavour, minister of Piedmont, in the war of unification of Italy, where He was opposed to supporting the Savoyard unification of Italy, believing that it would imply the diminution of the power of the Pope. The second, on the occasion of a stay of the emperor in Algeria in 1865 and the third, in the last moments of the Second Empire, already in 1870.

In 1869, he embarked on a state trip to Istanbul. The Beylerbeyi Palace, on the banks of the Bosphorus, welcomes him during his stay during which he visits, among many other places, the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate and the Saint-Benoît High School. This trip would mark Franco-Turkish relations for many years.

The Empress was a fundamental part of the construction of the Suez Canal, and had an exceptional political and social role when she attended, after the trip to Istanbul, as the highest representative of France at its inauguration, on November 17 from 1869 aboard the ship L'Aiglon. The inauguration of the canal was attended by the main European monarchs, including Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, who will be impressed by its beauty. The creator and builder of this brilliant engineering work was her second cousin Fernando de Lesseps, who was not an engineer but a diplomat, but with an engineering vocation. Although relations between Eugenia and Lesseps had never been good, the latter thanked him for his presence for the honor that the Empress of France was present at the Canal inauguration ceremonies.

They practically did not speak to each other, but the sovereign warmed up the coldness of treatment, with the diplomatic praise of the work, before all the international authorities present at the event. Among the festivities of the inauguration was the singular first performance, on the banks of the Nile, of Verdi's famous opera, Aida, considered an exceptional and unique episode.

The archives of the Ministry of the Emperor's Household, under Napoleon III, which largely evoke the interventions of Empress Eugénie, particularly in the social and artistic field, are kept in the National Archives of France in the subseries O/ 523.

Although her political and personal detractors said of her that she acted with excessive arrogance, the truth is that she carried out her work with exceptional political skills.

1858 attack

The empress photographed in the mid 1860s.

Shortly after the birth of their son, the emperors survived an assassination attempt by Italian revolutionary Felice Orsini, the son of a former officer of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Russian campaign, who had joined a secret society called Carbonery., more specifically to a group called the Italian Conspiracy of the Children of Death, whose purpose was Italian independence from Austria and the ideal of liberalism.

Orsini was convinced that Napoleon III was the main obstacle to Italian independence and the cause of anti-liberal reactions in Europe, so he planned his assassination with the logic that with the death of the emperor, France would have a revolt and the Italians could also explode in a revolution. He went to Paris in 1857 to conspire against the emperor.

At the end of the same year Orsini visited England where he contacted the gunsmith Joseph Taylor, whom he asked to make six copies of a bomb designed by himself, the Orsini bomb; which would explode on impact and used mercury fulminate as the detonator for the explosive charge. The bomb was tested in Sheffield and Devonshire with the consent of the French radical Simon Bernard. Satisfied, Orsini returned to Paris with the bombs and contacted other conspirators such as Giuseppe Pieri, Antonio Gómez and Charles DeRudio.

On the afternoon of January 14, 1858, as the Emperor and Empress were on their way to the Rue Le Peletier theatre, the forerunner of the Opéra Garnier, where they were to see the opera titled William Tell, de Rossini, Felice Orsini and two other accomplices named Antonio Gómez and Charles DeRudio launched two bombs, of which the first exploded where the coachman was, next to the carriage, the second damaged the horses and broke the windows of the imperial carriage and the third under the carriage itself and seriously injured a policeman who came to help.

8 people were killed and 142 injured, but the emperors were unharmed and continued on to the theater without losing their composure. The emperors were hidden from them the extent of the attack as far as the victims are concerned and, once in the theater, they were received with enthusiasm and adherence.

Orsini himself was left dazed and wounded in the right temple. He tended to his wounds and returned to his inn, where the police arrested him the next day.

The assassination attempt greatly increased the popularity of Napoleon III and Eugenia.

Great Patron

During the period of the Second French Empire, the field of arts and letters was subject to censorship. The return to the moral order preached by the Church and supported by the Empress Eugenia, was one of the concerns of the regime.

Great protector of culture, as a cultured woman, she protected writers and artists of the time, considerably increased the splendor of a rancid, decadent Court and almost always hostile towards her person.

In the cultural life of the court and of France, the Empress participates in the creation of the Napoleon III style, based essentially on the inspiration, or even the copy, of the styles of the past. Among others, she supports Winterhalter, Waldteufel, Offenbach, as well as her old friend Mérimée, general inspector of historical monuments, who in 1853 would be named senator of France, and who was then commander and grand officer of the Legion of Honor.

She was a promoter of the haute couture industry in France with its most relevant pioneer, Charles Frederick Worth. During the Second Empire and under the influence of the aforementioned couturier Charles Frederick Worth, the hoop skirt was abandoned at the end of the 1860s in favor of the more comfortable bustle. As for accessories, the Empress herself has a penchant for the luxury house Maquet, where she buys leather goods and orders her letterhead.

In addition, she founded asylums, orphanages, hospitals, and without any compunction about herself, she personally visited and helped those suffering from contagious diseases in miserable neighborhoods. Likewise, she supported the investigations of Louis Pasteur, which would end in the rabies vaccine.

It also promotes the cause of women. The Empress personally intervened on behalf of Julie-Victoire Daubié for the signing of her high school diploma, she got Madeleine Brès to enroll in medical school, as well as the award of the Legion of Honor to the painter Rosa Bonheur, first woman to hold this distinction.

Fall of the Empire and exile

The Empress Eugenia mourns for her son, 1880.

In September 1870 the Franco-Prussian War ended, culminating in the disaster of the Battle of Sedan, in which the French army was captured along with the Emperor. The emperor, who would later be released, was a prisoner in the Wilhelmhöhe castle, converted into a prison.

This event caused the emperor to be dethroned, and Eugenia's spirits decreased as did her illusion, seeing how all those people in whom she had trusted abandoned her and her family into an uncertain hasty exile in England. She was able to leave France thanks to her American dentist, Dr. Evans. In an almost epic journey that lasts 12 hours on a 15-meter yacht, in the middle of a great storm, she arrives in England.

She settled with her son on the Camden House estate in Chislehurst, Kent, where the Emperor joined her after being dismissed by the Assembly. It was at Camden House where the emperor's health worsened with a kind of abdominal pain, and he finally died on January 9, 1873, without his son, who was studying at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, being able to reach time.

On the death of the emperor, Eugenia retired to a villa in Biarritz where she lived away from the affairs of French politics.

His beloved son, a young man of considerable talent, characterized by an unimpeachable private life and great likability, seemed destined to be a formidable pretender to the French throne in the event of an imperial restoration, yet determined first to make a career in the army, he joined British troops marching to South Africa as a volunteer artillery officer, taking his great-uncle's sword with him during the Anglo-Zulu War and in an ambush by the Zulus on June 1, 1879, he fell off his horse while fleeing with his detachment and died at the age of 23, shot down after a brief fight with his pursuers.

The death of her son in 1879, together with that of the emperor in 1873 and that of her sister Paca de Alba in 1860 due to tuberculosis, meant that life no longer had any interest for the empress.

When he returned to England in 1880 after visiting the sites of his son's martyrdom, he still had forty years to live. Forty years she dressed in rigorous mourning.

Genealogically related to the House of Alba, she occasionally stayed at the Palacio de Liria in Madrid, at her Quinta de Carabanchel and at the Palacio de Dueñas in Seville. Some of her belongings, such as paintings and furniture, passed into the hands of the Albas, such as a portrait of her painted by Winterhalter and another by Goya, La Marquise de Lazán . During her stays in Spain, her visits to the queen consort Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg were frequent, of whom she was godmother at baptism and a close friend of hers.

Death and Burial

One of the latest photographs of the empress, made at the Palacio de Liria, in Madrid, 1920.

Having to somehow fill the void of living without purpose, in 1885 he moved to Farnborough, Hampshire to a stately residence that he would convert into a museum of the Napoleonic dynasty, alternating his residence there with stays in his villa “Cyrnos” (the ancient Greek name for Corsica), which had been built in Biarritz. There he lived in retirement, refraining from all interference in the politics of France, but his health began to deteriorate.

Her doctor recommended stays in Bournemouth, a place that was, in Victorian times, famous as a spa. During one of her visits, a gardener lit hundreds of small candles in the parks of Bournemouth to illuminate the path Eugenia followed towards the sea at night. This event is still commemorated annually with the lighting of candles in those gardens each summer.

In 1920 he traveled to Spain to put himself in the hands of the doctor Ignacio Barraquer to undergo a cataract intervention, an operation that was a complete success. He read Don Quixote effortlessly and wrote in the margin of a page of the immortal novel: «¡Viva España!». This cry from her heart was addressed to the Spanish doctor who had just rescued her from the darkness. Eugenia's joy was immense, although she would last a short time. Her imagination was a volcano, but her body buckled under the weight of almost a century of existence.

She was preparing to return to England, when on the evening of July 10, 1920, she felt suddenly unwell. The empress herself died of an attack of uremia at half past eight in the morning the next day, July 11, 1920, at the age of 94 in the Palacio de Liria in Madrid.

His body was immediately transferred by train to Paris, accompanied by a retinue that included the Duke of Alba, the Duke of Peñaranda, the Duchesses of Tamames and Santoña, and the Count of Teba. The coffin was received at the Austerlitz station by the Murat princes, the Spanish ambassador and members of the French and Spanish nobility who paid homage to him for more than three hours. Later the body was transferred to Le Havre and Farnborough in the custody of the Spanish diplomat Carlos de Goyeneche. The Empress was buried in the Imperial Crypt of Saint Michael's Abbey in Farnborough, England, next to her husband and her son, who had died in Africa.

Legacy

Eugenia Empress Sepulchre at St Michael Abbey in Farnborough, England.

Empress Eugenie lived long enough to see other European monarchies fall after World War I, including the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies. She bequeathed her possessions to several of her relatives: her properties in Spain went to the grandchildren of her sister Paca de Alba; her home in Farnborough, for the Bonapartist heir designated by her son before his death, Prince Victor Bonaparte; and Villa Cyrnos for Princess Letizia of Aosta, the latter's sister. The rest of her assets were divided into lots for said relatives, with the exception of 100,000 francs destined for the Reims Cathedral Repair Committee.

The Empress's Jewels

Crown of the Empress Eugenia, exhibited at the Louvre Museum.

Diadema of the Empress Eugenia, exhibited at the Louvre Museum.

The Empress had one of the most important jewelry collections of her day. Beginning with the wedding rings that she commissioned from the French house Chaumet, which also made other marvelous sets for her, some of which can be seen today in the Louvre Museum in Paris, Catalina Granger recalls that her purchases in general are close to the enormous sum of 3.6 million francs, of which about 200,000 francs went to the purchase of works of art for his personal collection.

Auction

To meet the needs of her exile in England, the sovereign organized a jewelery sale at Christie's on June 24, 1872 at 8:00 p.m. in King Street, London, where a crowd curious she meets as the newspapers announce the sale for several weeks (the catalog only said 'a part of beautiful jewels belonging to a lady of quality', but the name of the owner was known to all). The sale consisted of 123 lots: diadems, necklaces, bracelets, fans, etc. Among the pieces, two rows of large fine pearls and, above all, an extraordinary set of diamonds and emeralds stood out. For the sale, a total of 1,125,000 francs of the time were obtained.

American jeweler Charles Lewis Tiffany, who had previously acquired the Crown Jewels of France, bought most of the Empress' jewels to later sell them to American high-society ladies.

Most of them would later be acquired by the Brazilian Aimée de Heeren, who collected jewelry and at the same time took an interest in the life of the empress.

The two women were considered the two "queens of Biarritz", as they spent the summer on the Basque coast, the empress at the "Villa Eugenia", nowadays the Hôtel du Palais that Napoleon III ordered to be built in 1854, the building has the shape of an "E" capital letter - and Aimée de Heeren in the villa "La Roseraie".

Empress Eugenia also owned a magnificent collection of Colombian emeralds, and given their exceptional quality, it is likely that some of the 25 emeralds sold were in Donnersmarck's jewelry collection. In fact, the German industrialist Prince Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck (circa 1900) ordered, probably from the Parisian jeweler Chaumet, an excellent diadem for his wife, Princess Katharina, composed of 11 exceptionally rare, drop-shaped, heavy-weight Colombian emeralds. plus 500 carats.

Recovery of jewels for the Louvre

The Louvre Museum has been working for several years to try to collect the Crown Jewels of France, with the help of the Society of Friends of the Louvre, since the State sold them between May 12 and 23, 1887.

In popular culture

The Empress has also been commemorated in outer space: the asteroid 45 Eugenia was named after her, and her moon, Petit-Prince, after the imperial prince.

The Empress Eugenia Archipelago in the Sea of Japan was named in her honor.

She was honored by John Gould, who gave the scientific name Ptilinopus eugeniae to the white-headed fruit dove.

Named after the Empress, the Eugenia hat is a style of headdress that is draped dramatically over one eye, with the brim bent sharply on either side, in the style of a riding headdress, and often with a long feather of ostrich leaning back. This hat was popularized in the 1930s by movie star Greta Garbo. However, much more characteristic of the true style of the Empress was the paletot Eugenia, a women's coat with flared sleeves and a button closure at the neck.

The Spanish-French film Imperial Violets, from 1952, is inspired by her life, as is the Spanish film Eugenia de Montijo, from 1944. On the other hand, she appears in the 1939 American feature film Juárez, in which Gale Sondergaard played Empress Eugenie as a ruthless monarch delighted to aid her husband Napoleon III in his plans to control Mexico. The film Suez, also from 1939, recounts the construction of the canal of the same name. Tyrone Power plays Ferdinand de Lesseps, Loretta Young plays Eugenia de Montijo and Leon Ames plays Napoleon III.

Numerous artists performed songs about her:

• "Eugenia de Montijo", by Concha Piquer;
• "Eugenia emperatriz", by Rocío Dúrcal;
• "Eugenia de Montijo", by Marujita Díaz.

Other data

"N" monogram by Napoleon III on the facade of Opera Garnier in Paris. The "E" is for Empress Eugenia.

• Eugenia, already converted into a empress, ordered some architects and gardeners of his court to remodel the castle of Arteaga, a building of his ancestors in the province of Vizcaya (Spain) and also restored the castle of Belmonte (Cuenca) owned by the Marqueses de Villena.

• He frequently used the name of Guzmán, instead of those of Palafox Portocarrero and Kirkpatrick, for being the owner of the majorazgo founded in 1463 by Doña Inés de Guzmán on the dominion of Teba, elevated to county in 1522 by Carlos V. His nephews, the sons of his sister Francisca and the Duke of Alba, used the second surname of Portocarrero.

• Under his auspices he was cultivated in a finca of Baños de Rioja (La Rioja), of which he owned, a vineyard that still exists with the name of The Empress.

• Thanks to her it became very popular the holiday in Biarritz when in 1854 he built the Palace on the beach today known as Hôtel du Palais.

• Known for linking his name to the town that would hold the head of the county of his same name, in Montijo, Spain. His father, Cipriano Palafox and Portocarrero, inherited the County of Montijo and the Lord of Moguer, among many other titles; later the county passed to his sister, María Francisca de Sales Portocarrero. Eugenia would never hold the title of Countess of Montijo.

Noble titles

In addition to being empress consort of the French, she was in her own right:

• XVIII Marquesa de Ardales
• XVIII Marquesa de Moya
• IX Marquesa de Osera
• XIX Countess of Teba
• IX Countess of Ablitas
• XI Countess of Baths
• XI Countess of Mora
• X Condesa de Santa Cruz de la Sierra
• X Vizcondesa de la Calzada
• XVII Baroness de Quinto

Treatments

• 1826-1839: Doña Eugenia Palafox Portocarrero de Guzmán y KirkPatrick.
• 1839-1853: Her Excellency Mrs. Doña Eugenia Palafox Portocarrero de Guzmán y KirkPatrick, XVI Countess of Teba
• 1853-1870: Your Imperial Majesty the empress of the French (for some regent empress periods)
• 1870-1920: Your Imperial Majesty the Empress Eugenia of France.

Honors and dignities

• Lady Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of San Carlos (Second Mexican Empire).
• 475o Dama de la Orden de las Damas Nobles de la Reina María Luisa (Reino de España).
• First class Lady of the Order of the Starry Cross. (Astro-Hungarian experiment)
• Lady Grand Honorary Cross of the Most Excelent Order of the British Empire (United Kingdom).
• Golden Rose of Christianity (Pontifical States).

Predecessor: Last title held by María Amelia de Borbón-Dos Sicilias Queen of the French

Empress Consort of the French 30 January 1853 – 11 January 1871

Successor: Abolited Monarchy

Ancestors