On This Day: Birth of Empress Carlota of Mexico

Princess Charlotte of Belgium, the woman who would become the only Empress of the Second Mexican Empire, was born 175 years ago.

She was born at the Royal Palace of Laeken as the only daughter of Leopold I of the Belgians and his second wife, Louise of Orléans, on June 7, 1840. She was baptised Marie Charlotte Amélie Augustine Victoire Clémentine Léopoldine, with Charlotte designated as the name she would be known as, after her father’s first wife, the late Princess Charlotte of Wales. She had three brothers: Louis-Philippe (who died before the age of one), the future Leopold II, and Philippe, Count of Flanders.

Her mother died when she was only ten years old, and Charlotte was thus forced to grow up at a rapid pace. She was given her own household, and an ageing governess – the Countess of Hulst – was entrusted to oversee her teenage years. The Princess was fond of reading and writing, and was described as intelligent and dutiful, with a great deal of energy, at several stages throughout her life.

Princess Charlotte became acquainted with the Austrian Archduke Maximilian, son of Archduke Franz Karl of Austria and Princess Sophie of Bavaria, during the summer of 1856. He expressed an interest in marrying the sixteen-year-old Princess, and although King Leopold preferred King Pedro V of Portugal of all his daughter’s suitors (this list also included Prince George of Saxony), he allowed Charlotte to choose her own husband. She married Maximilian the following year on July 27 in Brussels.

The newlyweds honeymooned through Europe, making their way to Milan where the Archduke was the Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia. Charlotte was quite happy living in Italy, and she took to wearing local dress. When Maximilian was ousted from his position in 1859, the couple moved permanently to their home in Trieste, Miramare Castle.

A few years later, France’s Napoleon III had initiated a takeover of Mexico after the country ceased paying interest on loans to their foreign creditors. He looked around Europe for a suitable leader he could place in Mexico, and the offer went to Archduke Maximilian. He resisted initially, but Charlotte eventually persuaded him to accept and her husband was declared Emperor of Mexico on April 10, 1864. The Archduchess’s maternal grandmother, Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily (the last Queen of the French), was hysterical about the decision, crying that “They will be killed!” should the couple go through with their Mexican ambitions. The Habsburgs were also not pleased; Maximilian’s brother, the Emperor Franz Josef, informing him he would have to renounce his rights to the Austrian throne.

However, despite these objections, Maximilian and Charlotte set sail for Mexico on April 14, having received assurance from France that they would support the new Empire – both financially and militarily. The new Emperor and Empress arrived in Veracruz on May 24 before heading to Mexico City where they planned to settle. Here, Maximilian and Carlota – as Charlotte now called herself – were welcomed warmly by the conservatives who had helped put them on the throne. They took the Castillo de Chapultepec as their residence.

The support the couple had initially received was to be short-lived, as Maximilian’s actions placed several key supporters within Mexico offside. When Napoleon confirmed his plans to recall the French troops in 1866, the Empress was determined to do right by her country even as her husband seemingly gave up. Carlota travelled to Europe in August 1866 to speak personally with the French Emperor, who after three meetings, still refused to rekindle his support for the Mexican Empire. It is said the her final meeting with Napoleon was the beginning of Carlota’s mental decline, she began to display signs of the paranoia that would eventually manifest into an emotional break-down directly after while on her way to Italy.

Once there, Carlota met with Pope Pius IX at the Vatican, though her visit was marred by her hysteria: she threw herself at the Pope’s feet, declared Napoleon was trying to poison her and demanded she spend the night in the Vatican because she was unsafe anywhere else. Her brother Philippe was dispatched from Belgium to escort Carlota back to Miramare Castle, where her Habsburg in-laws had her examined by psychiatrists and kept in seclusion in the Castle. The Empress, who had spent only two short years in her adopted Mexico, never returned there, nor did she see her beloved husband again.

Emperor Maximilian – by this stage basically abandoned in an increasingly hostile Mexico – attempted one last shot at retaining power, but the Second Mexican Empire fell on May 15, 1867. He was executed by firing squad on June 19 (it is believed that Carlota was not informed of his death until several months later).

Shortly after the Emperor’s death, his widow returned to her native Belgium, when her sister-in-law, Queen Marie Henriette, came and withdrew her from Miramare Castle and from Habsburg care. Empress Carlota lived alternatively at the Royal Palace of Laeken and Tervuren Castle until 1879, when her declining mental and emotional state saw her finally placed at Bouchout Castle in Meise for the remainder of her life. When the First World War broke out in 1914 and Belgium was invaded by the German armed forces, Bouchout Castle was protected under order of Kaiser Wilhelm II. A notice was placed on the outside of the estate stating: “This Castle is occupied by Her Majesty The Empress of Mexico, sister-in-law of our revered ally the Emperor of Austria. German soldiers are ordered to pass by without singing, and to leave the place untouched.”

Never regaining her sanity, Empress Carlota died on January 19, 1927 after contracting pneumonia, at Bouchout Castle. She was interred in the Royal Crypt of the Church of Our Lady of Laeken.

Filed under Belgium, Historical Royals, Mexico
Tagged Anniversary, Biography, Birth, Charlotte of Belgium.

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