The Life of the Empress Eugenie

387 pp. Color frontispiece, black-and-white plates. Eugénie, in full Eugénie, comtesse (countess) de Teba, original name Eugénia María de Montijo de Guzmán, (born May 5, 1826, Granada, Spain—died July 11, 1920, Madrid), wife of Napoleon III and empress of France (1853–70), who came to have an important influence on her husband’s foreign policy. The daughter of a Spanish noble who fought on the French side during Napoleon I’s Peninsular War in Spain, Eugénie went to Paris when Louis-Napoléon became president of the Second Republic in December 1848. They were married in January 1853 after he had become the emperor Napoleon III. On March 16, 1856, Eugénie gave birth to an imperial heir, Napoléon-Eugène-Louis Bonaparte. Concerned about the future of her family line, she began to take an active role in political affairs. On at least three occasions she served as regent (1859, 1865, 1870) in her husband’s absence and was certainly more than just a figurehead. A devoted Roman Catholic, she supported Ultramontane causes (favouring a strong papacy) and opposed her husband’s Italian policies that resulted in a loss of temporal power for the pope. She is often credited with having a preponderant voice in the decision to create a French-sponsored kingdom of Mexico (1861). - Britannica