Emperor Maximilian of Mexico & Empress Carlota (Charlotte of Belgium)

[Silja]

No, Elisabeth did not like Charlotte. But there were few people Sisi DID like  .

[Arleen_Ristau]

Toria and Ella you have just made my day!!  Many thanks for all of this info on Charlotte and Max.  I have long thought they were the most beautiful looking couple but knew none of the details that you have posted.  What a sad and strange story.  
That is what makes this forum so GREAT...all of this lovely info!
Thanks too to Felix for starting this subject.
..Arleen

[grandduchessella]

Charlotte was born in 1840, the only daughter Leopold I and Queen Louise of Belgium. Queen Louise, his second wife allowed their daughter to be named after her predecessor, Princess Charlotte of Wales who had died in childbirth.

From her childhood Charlotte's life was filled with drama. Leopold distanced himself physically and emotionally from his family. Charlotte in turn worshiped her distant, remote father and sought in vain for his attention. She ignored all the slights and remained faithful and adoring to the end. Charlotte's mother died when she was ten.

Charlotte was a precautious and disciplined child not unlike her cousin Victoria (Princess Royal) in many respects. She was fluent in French, German and English and later on she learned Italian and Spanish. She was studious and extremely intelligent - a trait which may have contributed to her fate (again like her cousin). "She is very intelligent, which is a little tiresome," her fiancé Maximilian noted. "But I'm sure I'll get over it."

She was married at age 17 to the  Archduke Maximilian with whom she was deeply in love. He was the brother of Austria's Emperor Franz Josef and viceroy of the Italian provinces Lombardy-Venetia. Max's and Charlotte's reign as viceroys was shortlived due to the unification of Italy. Within months they found themselves without the 'jobs' for which they had been prepared.

Meanwhile, Mexico's President Benito Juarez was enraging the Pope and the European monarchs. He nationalized the property and assets of the church and had suspended payment of debts to the European powers. Napoleon III ,with the help of England and Spain, came up with the idea of invading Mexico to set up a European empire with Maximilian as its emperor. Franz-Josef would not give his consent until Maximilian renounced his Austrian title and inheritance. After numerous setbacks and mishaps which probably could be seen as bad omens with hindsight, Maximilian and Charlotte set out for Mexico. They set about establishing protocol and instituting reforms. Charlotte initiated laws for the better treatment of the native population.

The issue that plagued them was that they remained childless after several years of marriage. The mystery of their intimate life has never been resolved. From the beginning Max kept leaving his beautiful bride to go off on various trips by himself. He wrote her letters filled with longing and expressing his need for her. Yet by the time they got to Mexico they were living in separate quarters. According to the memoirs of Max's butler, towards the end of their reign they could not even tolerate to share a home. They communicated with each other through letters which, while lacking the ardent tone of earlier days, were nonetheless affectionate.  It could be that Charlotte, with a somewhat superior heir (and she was probably more forceful and intelligent) intimidated Max and turned him off of her. When apart her domineering nature lessened in memory but upon his return a certain coolness would reappear. It many respects it began to resemble Charlotte's desire for her father's affection in the face of remote behavior. Perhaps this led her to overcompensate with Max and begin a cycle where the more she tried to gain his attention, he withdrew and on and on. Whatever their life as husband and wife, Charlotte put on a happy face and pretended that everything was perfect. She even accepted the Iturbide boy that Max wished them to adopt as heir.

Their rule of Mexico was faring even worse than their relationship. Napoleon III recalled his soldiers while the US (wary of European influence so close to their border and a parallel lose of their own upon Mexico) was supporting Juarez with money and assistance.  
Charlotte went to Europe to personally plead for aid but forces were beyond stopping and while she was overseas Maximilian was captured and executed.

[SSKENDER]

Was Charlotte referred to as "HIM Empress of Mexico" until her death, or if not, what title did she refer to?
Regards

[grandduchessella]

EMPRESS CHARLOTTE IS DYING IN BELGIUM; Widow of Maximilian of Mexico, 86, Sinks Gradually From Pneumonia Attack.  
Jan 19, 1927
BRUSSELS, Jan. 18 (AP). -- The death of Empress Charlotte, widow of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, is believed not to be far off. The ravages of influenza and pneumonia have sapped the strength of this abnormally strong woman, who is 86 years of age.

TRAGEDY OF CARLOTTA AT AN END; Death Closes the Sad Story of the Bride Of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico
By MABEL ABBOT.Jan 23, 1927
AFTER sixty years of grief and madness, the final curtain fell on a great tragic romance last Wednesday, when the Empress Carlotta died at the chateau of Bouchout, near Laeken, a suburb of Brussels. Singularly enough, at the time of her death, Mexico, the country inextricably bound up with her fate, was again passing through a governmental crisis not unlike that in which she once ...

AGED LEGIONARIES HONOR CHARLOTTE; Surviving Score of Maximilian's Soldiers Escort 'Mad Empress' to Grave in Belgium. CROWDS WATCH IN BLIZZARD Royalty Sees Widow of Martyred Emperor Laid to Rest Under Mexican and Belgian Flags.  
Jan 23, 1927
BRUSSELS, Jan. 22 (AP). -- A score of Maximillan's legionaries -- all that are left of the adventurous regiment that went to Mexico to fight for him in 1864 -- today followed their empress, the tragic Chariotte, to her last resting place.

So it seems that the newspaper accounts referred to her as Empress or former Empress.

[Robert_Hall]

As is so often the irony of history, the "mad" Empress saw her "mal France" defeated and restored and her "ungrateful Austria/Germany" simply defeated.
Her legacy does now enjoy a romantic revival, as opposed to undeserved ridicule.
Bette Davis did a classic job on her in "Juarez", always remembered as listening to "La Paloma"  on a balcony scented with tropical flowers, ever sad. [cooka-ka-roo-ka-koo]

[TampaBay]

Excellent Movie!!!  All Royal lovers should own a copy.

TampaBay!!!

[bluetoria]

Juarez is rather an intriguing character. He had educated himself & risen from very humble origins as a native American & had high ideals for the Mexican people. As I understand it, he was almost like an early communist or at least an extreme socialist (but I may be mistaken) & it was one of his own contacts who, after they hadbeen overthrown by the French, actually pleaded with Maximilian to go to to Mexico, assuring him that he could do a great deal of good there.

Maximilian didn't really stand a chance in Mexico. His more liberal ideas & determination to grant religious freedom upset the French, the Papal authorities & the right-wing Mexicans; at the same time his status as Emperor upset Juarez & his friends. After Maximilian had been captured, many of Juarez's supporters pleaded with him to spare the Emperor's life, but he refused. What became of Juarez afterwards?

But here is a more interesting suggestion which adds to the mystery of what grandduchessella wrote of the rumours of Charlotte giving birth to an illegitimate child. There is a suggestion that 1866 she was having an affair with a Belgian officer - Colonel Alfred van der Smissens - who was the presumed father of her alleged child. The French claimed that she miscarried the child in 1866. Others claim he was Maxime Weygand, the French General who 'handed over' France to Hitler in 1940. This would make General Weygand 74 years old at that time.

Does any one know more about Maxime Weygand, please, to explain why it was rumoured that he was Charlotte's son?

 

[grandduchessella]

I don't know where the rumors started but he apparently refused to confirm or deny them. He was born in Belgium but that's the only link I've found so far. Anyone whose read a bio of Charlotte may know more.

Weygand was born in Brussels in 1867. He was educated in Marseille and Paris before joining the military academy at Saint-Cyr. He graduated in 1887 and was posted to a cavalry regiment. He later became an instructor at Saumur.

At the outbreak of WW I he was a Lt Colonel on the staff of Joseph Joffre but in August 1914 he became chief-of-staff to General Foch. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1916 and Major General in 1918. He remained on Foch's staff when Foch was appointed Supreme Allied Commander. In 1918 he served on the armistice negotiations and actually read them out to the Germans at Compiegne in the famous railway carriage.

After WW1 his career continued to flourish and he was briefly sent as an advisor to Poland in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet war, trying unsuccessfully to aid the Polish cause. He was elected a member of the Academie Fracaise in 1931. He served as high commissioner in Syria and as Inspector-General of the army from 1931 until his retirement in 1935. He was recalled to active service by Daladier in August 1939 to head the French forces in the Middle East as WW2 loomed.

By May 1940 the military campaign in France was such a disaster that the Supreme Commander (Gamelin) was fired and Weygand replaced him. After an unsuccessful attempt to halt the German advance he favored an armistice within a month.  

In the Vichy cabinet, he was Minister for National Defence from June to September 1940 and then Delegate-General of the North African colonies. His anti-German actions led to his dismissal in November 1941 and the next year, following the Allied invasion of N. Africa, Weygand recommended that France resume the war and was promptly arrested. He remained imprisoned until May 1945 when he was liberated by the Americans. He returned to France, he was held as a collaborator  but was released in May 1946 and cleared in 1948. He died in 1965.

[bluetoria]

Thank you for all these details about him, grandduchessella. So it seems the only certainty is that he was born in the same year that Charlotte allegedly gave birth...but then I suppose millions of other people were born that year too.  :-/
He certainly lived to a grand old age.
Thanks for finding all that out and posting it!  

[Arleen_Ristau]

Can anyone tell us more about what happened to Maximillian's illig. son?  A good friend of mine said that he was shot by the French for spying for Germany and Austria during WWII.  But I have no details.
..Arleen

[felix]

Max's  illegitimate was, Sedano y Leguizano,His Mother died shortly after Max's execution. On 10 10 1917, Like his Father.He  faced a firing squad. He die at 51 for spying for  Germany. Happy in the end,for the French called him at execution"Sedano,son of the  Emperor Maximilian of Mexico"

[tea_rose]

  I found it so haunting as the ever more tragic references to Charlotte would creep up in the Queen V/Vicky letters. She outlived  nearly all of the people who commented on her breakdown--I always found it so melancholy to think of her living on and on thinking Max would be returning to her. Catherine Gavin who wrote "The Snow Mountain" (novel about Olga) also wrote one about Carlota and Max: "The Cactus and the Crown."  I read it when I was a child--no adult bookshelf was safe from me!  

[TampaBay]

Did Charlotte die wealthy?

If so where did the money come from?

[felix]

I may be wrong,but I think she died very wealthy.I dont know how her Austrian relatives were involved.She was the first princess of Belgiam. The Kaiser had his army bypass her ,so she didnt know what was happening.