Eugénie de Montijo
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María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick, Countess de Teba, who became Empress Eugénie (May 5, 1826 – July 11, 1920) was Empress Consort of France (1853-1870), the wife of Napoleon III, emperor of the French.
The last Empress of the French was born in Granada, Spain to Don Cipriano de Palafox y Portocarrero, 1785-1839, Count de Teba, Count de Montijo, marquis de Algava and duke of Peñaranda, a grandee of Spain, and his half-Scottish, half-Spanish wife, María Manuela Kirkpatrick, a daughter of the Scots-born William Kirkpatrick, who became U. S. Consul to Málaga and later operated a wine bar.
Eugenia's older sister, María Francisca de Sales, a.k.a. Paca (1825-1860,) who inherited all the family honours, married the Duke of Alba in 1844. Until her own marriage in 1853, Eugénie variously and confusingly received the courtesy titles of countess of Tenda or countess of Montijo, but all family titles were legally inherited by her elder sister, through which they passed to the House of Alba.
Eugénie de Montijo, as she became known in France, was educated in Paris, at the fashionable convent of the Sacré Cœur, where she received an indelibly Catholic training. When Prince Louis Napoléon became president of the Second Republic she appeared with her mother at the several balls given by the "prince-president" at the Elysée Palace, and it was there that she met the future emperor, whom she wed on January 30, 1853, not long after he had been rebuffed in his attempts to marry Queen Victoria's teenage niece, Princess Adelaide von Hohenlohe-Langenburg.
In a speech from the throne on January 22 he formally announced his engagement, saying, "I have preferred a woman whom I love and respect to a woman unknown to me, with whom an alliance would have had advantages mixed with sacrifices." The so-called love match was looked upon with some sarcastic comment in the United Kingdom. The Times wrote, "We learn with some amusement that this romantic event in the annals of the French Empire has called forth the strongest opposition, and provoked the utmost irritation. The Imperial family, the Council of Ministers, and even the lower coteries of the palace or its purlieus, all affect to regard this marriage as an amazing humiliation..." A 26-year-old Spanish countess, of legitimate title and ancient lineage, the British newspaper implied with ill-concealed mirth, was not considered good enough for the Bonaparte family, (only two generations removed from obscurity in Corsica).
On March 16, 1856, the empress gave birth to an only son, Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte, styled Prince Impérial.
By her beauty, elegance, and charm of manner she contributed greatly to the brilliance of the imperial regime. She had a very close relationship with Princess Pauline de Metternich, wife of the Austrian ambassador in Paris who played an important role in the social and cultural life of the imperial court. When the empress wore the new cage crinolines in 1855, European fashion followed suit, and when she abandoned vast skirts at the end of the 1860s, at the encouragement of her legendary couturier, Charles Worth, the silhouette of women's dress followed her lead again. Eugénie's aristocratic elegance, splendour of dress and legendary jewels are well documented in innumerable paintings, especially by her favourite Franz-Xaver Winterhalter. Her interest in the life of Queen Marie Antoinette sparked a fashion for furniture and interior design in the neoclassical style popular during the reign of Louis XVI of France.
As she was educated and very intelligent, Eugénie's husband usually consulted her on important questions, and she acted as Regent during his absences in 1859, 1865 and 1870. Eugénie's influence countered any liberal tendencies in the emperor's policies. She was a staunch defender of papal temporal powers in Italy and an ultramontanist.
When the Second French Empire was overthrown after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the empress and her husband took refuge in England, and settled at Chislehurst, Kent. After his death in 1873 she moved to Farnborough, Hampshire and to a villa she had built at Cap-Martin near Biarritz, where she lived in retirement, abstaining from all interference in French politics.
The former empress died in July 1920 at the age of 94, during a visit to her relatives, the Dukes of Alba in Madrid, in her native Spain, and she is interred in the Imperial Crypt at Saint Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, with her husband and her son, who had died in 1879 fighting in the Zulu War in Africa.
Her deposed family's friendly association with England was commemorated in 1887 when she became the godmother of Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (1887-1969), daughter of princess Beatrice, who later became Queen consort of Alfonso XIII of Spain, although it is never explained how the passionately Catholic Eugénie ever became the godmother of an Anglican princess.
A century later, the second daughter of the present Duke of York, born in 1990, was named Princess Eugenie.
The Empress has also been commemorated in space; the asteroid 45 Eugenia was named after her, and its moon, Petit-Prince, after the Prince Imperial.
Titles from birth to death
- Doña Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina Palafox de Guzmán Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick (from birth till her father's death)
- Her Excellency Doña Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina Palafox de Guzmán Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick, 9th Countess de Teba (from her father's death till her wedding)
- Her Majesty The Empress of the French (1853–1870) as well as Her Majesty The Empress-Regent during several times (including Italian, Crimean and Franco-Prussian wars)
- Her Majesty Empress Eugénie of the French (1870–1920)ar:أوجيني
de:Eugénie de Montijo es:Eugenia de Montijo fr:Eugénie de Montijo it:Imperatrice Eugenia di Montijo hu:Eugénia császárné nl:Eugénie de Montijo ja:ウージェニー pl:Eugenia (cesarzowa francuska) ru:Евгения (императрица Франции) sv:Eugénie av Frankrike