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Eugénie de Montijo

Doña María Eugenia Ignacia Augustina (French: Eugénie) was born on 5 May 1826, in Spain. She was the daughter of Don Cipriano de Palafox y Portocarrero and his wife, María Manuela Enriqueta Kirkpatrick of Closbourn y de Grevigné.


 Eugénie grew up and was formally educated in Paris and briefly attended a boarding school in Bristol to learn English. In 1839, after the death of her father, she returned to Madrid. In Spain, Eugénie grew up into a headstrong and physically daring young woman, devoted to horseback riding and a range of other sports. She was very interested in politics, and became devoted to the Bonapartist cause, under the influence of Eleanore Gordon, a former mistress of Louis Napoléon.

 She met Louis Napoléon after he became president during the Second Republic. Her beauty attracted him and he tried to seduce her. What is the road to your heart?, he asked. She simply answered Through the chapel, Sire. After he became Emperor, he announced their engagement and, on 30 January 1853, they married at Notre Dame.

 Eugénie faithfully performed the duties of an Empress, entertaining guests and accompanying the Emperor to balls, opera, and theatre. She travelled to Egypt to open the Suez Canal and officially represented him whenever he travelled outside France. She strongly advocated equality for women; she pressured the Ministry of National Education to give the first baccalaureate diploma to a woman.

 After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Eugénie remained in Paris as Regent while Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial travelled to join the troops at the German front. When the news of several French defeats reached Paris on 7 August, it was greeted with disbelief and dismay. Napoleon III proposed returning to Paris, realizing that he was doing no good for the army. The Empress responded by telegraph, Don't think of coming back, unless you want to unleash a terrible revolution. They will say you quit the army to flee the danger. The Emperor agreed to remain with the army. The army was ultimately defeated and Napoleon III gave himself up to the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan. The news of the capitulation reached Paris on 3 September, and when it was given to the Empress that the Emperor and the army were prisoners, she reacted by shouting at the Emperor's personal aide, No! An Emperor does not capitulate! He is dead!...They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn't he kill himself! Doesn't he know he has dishonoured himself?!

 When the Second Empire was overthrown after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the empress and her husband took permanent refuge in England, and settled at Chislehurst, Kent. After the deaths of her husband and son, her health started to deteriorate. The Empress died on 11 July 1920 during a visit to her native Spain.

Eugénie de Montijo
Franz Xaver Winterhalter
(1853)
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