Charlotte of Belgium

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Charlotte of Belgium
Empress of Mexico
Image:Carlotta-of-Mexico.jpg
Titles	HIM Empress Charlotte of Mexico (1867-1927) HIM The Empress of Mexico (1864-1867) HI&RH Archduchess Charlotte of Austria (1857-1864) HRH Princess Charlotte of Belgium (1840-1857)
Born	June 7, 1840
	Laeken, Brussels, Belgium
Died	January 19, 1927
	Meise
Consort	April 10, 1864 - June 19, 1867
Consort to	Maximilian
Royal House	House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Father	Leopold I of Belgium
Mother	Louise-Marie of France

Charlotte of Belgium (Princess Marie Charlotte Amélie Augustine Victoire Clémentine Léopoldine of Belgium), (June 7, 1840–January 19, 1927) as Charlotte (or Carlota), Empress of Mexico was the consort of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.

1 Princess of Belgium
2 Archduchess of Austria
3 Empress of Mexico
4 The empress dowager
5 Family
6 Popular culture
7 External links

[edit] Princess of Belgium

The only daughter of Léopold I, King of the Belgians (1790–1865) by his second wife, Louise-Marie of France, Princess of France (1812–1850), Charlotte was born at Laeken Palace in Brussels, Belgium. She was named after her father's first wife, Princess Charlotte of Wales. The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha took its name from the tiny German duchy that was the homeland of Charlotte's father, Belgium's first king. Charlotte was a first cousin to both Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her husband, Prince Albert.

[edit] Archduchess of Austria

On July 27, 1857, Charlotte married Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the idealistic younger brother of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. Charlotte spent several relatively happy years in Italy as Maximilian's wife while the archuduke served as governor of the provinces of Lombardy and Venetia. However, although Lombardy and Venetia were then under the rule of the Austrian Empire, neither Maximilian nor Charlotte held real power, and both were fatally eager for more challenging roles in life.

[edit] Empress of Mexico

In the early 1860s, the ambitious Napoleon III of France initiated the French intervention in Mexico. France, eager to turn Mexico into a satellite state, searched for a suitable figurehead to serve as the nominal emperor of Mexico. Maximilian accepted the Mexican crown and the couple sailed for the New World. The imperial couple were crowned in 1864 and chose as their seat Mexico City, making their home in the neo-Gothic fantasy castle of Chapultepec. As Empress, Charlotte took the name of Carlota (Spanish for Charlotte). Carlota tried to take her imperial duties seriously, and even undertook a tour of the remote Yucatán frontier, visiting the ruins of Uxmal.

Only months after the coronation, however, Napoleon III began signaling his abandonment of Maximilian, and the French began to withdraw their troops from Mexico. This strategic pullback was a potentially fatal blow to the infant Mexican monarchy. In a desperate attempt to save her husband's throne, Charlotte returned to Europe, seeking assistance for her husband in Paris, Vienna, and finally in Rome from Pope Pius IX. Her efforts failed; she manifested symptoms of paranoia, suffered a profound cognitive and emotional collapse, and never returned to Mexico.

[edit] The empress dowager

President Benito Juarez of the Republic of Mexico oversaw the execution of Maximilian in 1867. The empire had collapsed after only three years. Carlota's mental state continued to be poor. Her brother Philippe, Count of Flanders, had her examined by alienists, who pronounced her insane. She spent the rest of her life in seclusion, first at Miramar Castle near Trieste, Italy, and then at the Château de Bouchout in Meise, Belgium. During World War I, her Belgian estate was surrounded by the occupant German army, but the estate itself was sacrosanct because Austria was one of Germany's chief allies and she was the widowed sister-in-law of the Austrian emperor.

As Charlotte's illness progressed, her paranoia faded. She remained deeply in love with her husband. After his death, she cherished all of the surviving possessions they had enjoyed in common. During the remainder of her life (1867-1927) she believed herself still to be the empress of the Mexicans. She further convinced herself that Maximilian was still alive and would soon return to her. It is said that she even slept with a small doll in her bed, whom she called "Max."

Charlotte died in Meise on January 19, 1927.

[edit] Family

Carlota and Maximilian had no children, but in 1865 the imperial couple adopted Agustín de Iturbide y Green and Salvador de Iturbide y Marzan – grandsons of Agustín de Iturbide y Arámburu, an earlier emperor of Mexico (r. 1822-23). They gave two-year-old Agustín the title of "His Highness, The Prince of Iturbide" —similar imperial titles were accorded to various members of the child's extended family—and intended to groom him as heir to the throne. The explosive events of 1867, however, dashed such hopes, and after he grew to adulthood, Agustín renounced all rights to the Mexican throne, served in the Mexican army, and eventually established himself as a university professor in Washington, D.C.