Eugénie de Montijo

"Empress Eugenie" redirects here. For other uses, see Empress Eugenie (disambiguation).
Eugénie de Montijo
16th Countess of Teba and 15th Marquise of Ardales
Eugénie; keizerin der Fransen (2).jpg
The Empress' official portrait
Empress consort of the French
Tenure 30 January 1853 – 11 January 1871
Born (1826-05-05)5 May 1826
Granada, Spain
Madrid, Spain
Burial Saint Michael's Abbey, Farnborough
Spouse Napoleon III of France
Issue Napoléon Eugène, Prince Imperial
Full name
María Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox Portocarrero de Guzmán y Kirkpatrick
House Bonaparte
Father Cipriano de Palafox y Portocarrero
Mother María Manuela Enriqueta Kirkpatrick de Closbourn y de Grevigné
Religion Roman Catholicism

Doña María Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox-Portocarrero de Guzmán y Kirkpatrick, 16th Countess of Teba and 15th Marchioness of Ardales (5 May 1826 – 11 July 1920), known as Eugénie de Montijo (French: [øʒeni də montiχo]), was the last Empress consort of the French, from 1853 to 1871, as the wife of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.


Empress Eugénie. Daguerreotype



Eugénie de Montijo, as she became known in France, was formally educated mostly in Paris, beginning at the fashionable, traditionalist Convent of the Sacré Cœur from 1835 to 1836. A more compatible school was the progressive Gymnase Normale, Civile et Orthosomatique, from 1836 to 1837, which appealed to her athletic side (a school report praised her strong liking for athletic exercise, and although an indifferent student, that her character was "good, generous, active and firm"). A short, disastrous stay, in 1837, in a boarding school near Bristol, England—where she was known as "Carrots", for her auburn hair, and from which she tried to run away, to India—completed Eugénie's formal schooling.[2] However, most of her education took place at home, under the tutelage of English governesses Miss Cole and Miss Flowers,[3] and family friends such as Prosper Mérimée[4] and Henri Beyle.[5]


Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie with their only son.


She first met Prince Louis Napoléon after he had become president of the Second Republic, with her mother, at a reception given by the "prince-president" at the Elysée Palace on April 12, 1849.[6] Her beauty attracted Louis Napoleon, who, as was his custom, tried to seduce her, but Eugénie told him to wait for marriage.[7] "What is the road to your heart?" Napoleon demanded to know. "Through the chapel, Sire", she answered.[8]



Eugénie found childbearing extraordinarily difficult. An initial miscarriage in 1853, after a three-month pregnancy, frightened and soured her.[13] On 16 March 1856, after a two-day labor that endangered mother and child and from which Eugénie made a very slow recovery, the empress gave birth to an only son, Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte, styled Prince Impérial.[14][15]

After marriage, it took not long for her husband to stray as Eugénie found sex with him "disgusting".[16] It is doubtful that she allowed further approaches by her husband once she had given him an heir.[8] He subsequently resumed his "petites distractions" with other women.

Public life



Her husband often consulted her on important questions, and she acted as regent during his absences in 1859, 1865 and 1870. In 1860, she visited Algiers with Napoleon.[19] A Catholic and a conservative, her influence countered any liberal tendencies in the emperor's policies.

She was a staunch defender of papal temporal powers in Italy and of ultramontanism. She was blamed for the fiasco of the French intervention in Mexico and the eventual death of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico.[20] However, the assertion of her clericalism and influence on the side of conservatism is often countered by other authors.[21][22]



In 1854, the emperor Napoleon III and his wife Eugénie bought several acres of dunes in Biarritz and gave the engineer Dagueret the task of establishing a summer home surrounded by gardens, woods, meadows, a pond and outbuildings.[25] Napoleon III chose the location near Spain so his wife would not get homesick for her native country.[26] The house was called Villa Eugénie, today the Hôtel du Palais.[27] The presence of the imperial couple attracted other European royalty like the British monarchs Queen Victoria and the Spanish king Alfonso XIII and made Biarritz become known.

Role in Franco-Prussian War




After the Franco-Prussian War

Empress Eugénie in mourning for her son, 1880

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 his death in 1873, and that of her son in 1879, she moved in 1885 to Farnborough, Hampshire and to the Villa Cyrnos (named after the ancient Greek for Corsica), which was built for her at Cape Martin, between Menton and Nice, where she lived in retirement, abstaining from politics. Her house in Farnborough is now an independent Roman Catholic girls' school, Farnborough Hill.[33]



Aged 88, the Empress visited Portsmouth on 6 November 1914 to inspect the gunboat HMS Thistle fitting out there during the early months of World War I.[35] She was later awarded by Britain an honorary Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) (founded 1917).

The former empress died in July 1920, aged 94, during a visit to her relative the Duke of Alba, at the Liria Palace in Madrid in her native Spain, and she is interred in the Imperial Crypt at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, with her husband and her son, who had died in 1879 fighting in the Zulu War in South Africa. She left her possessions to various relatives: her Spanish estates went to the grandsons of her sister, the Fitz-Jameses (Dukes of Berwick and Alba), the house in Farnborough with all collections to the heir of her son, Prince Victor Bonaparte, Villa Cyrnos to his sister, Princess Laetitia of Aosta. Liquid assets were divided into three parts and given to the above relatives, except the sum of 100,000 francs bequeathed to the Committee for Rebuilding the Cathedral of Reims.[citation needed]



The Empress has also been commemorated in space; the asteroid 45 Eugenia was named after her,[36] and its moon, Petit-Prince, after the Prince Imperial.[37]

She had an extensive and unique jewelry collection, most of which were later owned by the Brazilian socialite Aimée de Heeren.[38][39] De Heeren collected jewelry and was fond of the Empress as both were considered to be the "Queens of Biarritz"; both would spend summers on the Côte Basque. Impressed by the elegance, style and design of the jewelry of the neo classical era, in 1858 she had a boutique in the Royal Palace under the name ‘Royale Collections’.


In popular culture

Named for the Empress, the Eugénie hat is a style of women's chapeau worn dramatically tilted and drooped over one eye; its brim is folded up sharply at both sides in the style of a riding topper, often with one long ostrich plume streaming behind it.[40] The hat was popularized by film star Greta Garbo and enjoyed a vogue in the early 1930s, becoming "hysterically popular".[41] More representative of the Empress' actual apparel, however, was the late nineteenth-century fashion of the Eugénie paletot, a women's greatcoat with bell sleeves and a single button enclosure at the neck.[42]

In the 1939 film Juarez Eugenie was portrayed by Gale Sondergaard as a ruthless monarch, glad to help her husband in his scheme to control Mexico.

Titles from birth to death

Coat of arms of the Empress
  • Doña María Eugenia Ignacia Augustina Palafox de Guzmán Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick (May 5, 1826, from birth until her father's death)
  • Her Excellency Doña María Eugenia Ignacia Augustina Palafox de Guzmán Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick, 19th Countess of Teba (1839, from her father's death until her wedding)
  • Her Imperial Majesty The Empress of the French (1853–1870) as well as Her Imperial Majesty The Empress-Regent during several periods (including the Italian, Crimean and Franco-Prussian wars)
  • Her Imperial Majesty Empress Eugénie of France (1870–1920)



Film portrayals

See also


  1. ^ []
  2. ^ Kurtz 1964, pp. 16-18.
  3. ^ Kurtz 1964, p. 17.
  4. ^ Kurtz 1964, pp. 13 et seq..
  5. ^ Kurtz 1964, pp. 18 et seq..
  6. ^ Kurtz 1964, p. 29.
  9. ^ Kurtz 1964, p. 50.
  10. ^ Kurtz 1964, pp. 55-59.
  11. ^ Duff 1978, pp. 83-84.
  12. ^ Kurtz 1964, pp. 45-52.
  13. ^ Duff 1978, pp. 104-105.
  14. ^ Duff 1978, pp. 126-129.
  15. ^ Kurtz 1964, pp. 90, 94.
  18. ^ Louis Napoléon Le Grand. pp. 204–210. 
  21. ^ Kurtz 1964.
  22. ^ Filon 1920.
  23. ^ Duff 1978, p. 191.
  25. ^ Hôtel du Palais: Merimée.
  26. ^ Prince & Porter 2010, p. 678.
  28. ^ Milza, 2009, pg. 80-81
  29. ^ Milza, 2009, p. 81
  33. ^ Farnborough Hill school website
  34. ^ Bournemouth Visitors Directory 2 February 1881
  35. ^ Log of HMS Thistle []
  38. ^ The Marguerite Necklace of Empress Eugenie and Aimee de Heeren
  39. ^ Aimee de Heeren wearing the Marguerite Necklace
  42. ^ Calasibetta, p. 93.


External links

Eugénie de Montijo
Born: 5 May 1826 Died: 11 July 1920
French royalty
Title last held by
Marie Amalie of the Two Sicilies
as Queen of the French
Empress of the French
30 January 1853–11 January 1871
Monarchy abolished
Titles in pretence
Title last held by
Marie Louise of Austria
Empress of the French
11 January 1871 – 9 January 1873
Reason for succession failure:
Empire replaced by Republic
Title next held by
Clémentine of Belgium
Spanish nobility
Preceded by
Cipriano de Palafox y Portocarrero
Countess of Teba
Succeeded by
Eugenia María Fitz-James Stuart
Marquise of Ardales
Succeeded by
Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart