María Teresa, whose ancestors come from Sitges, immersed in a controversy over the Waringo report: 51 workers left their positions in the Court.
51 employees resigned or were fired in five years by Maria Teresa of Luxembourg
Enrique de Luxembourg defends his wife, accused of 'tirana'
While Luxembourg tries to turn the page of the chapter of a fairy tale in which the Grand Duchess Maria Teresa is described as a "whimsical tyrant," LOC decides to move on to the next episode to exclusively show her Catalan origins . Specifically, the last name Mestre has its main origin in Sitges (Barcelona) . All this in the week in which the Waringo report commissioned by Prime Minister Bettel has come to light to know how it is structured and what happens in the Grand Ducal Court. It follows that the 'tyranny' of María Teresa would have caused the departure of 51 workers between 2014 and 2019, taking into account that the institution has about 110 employees.
But let's go back to the origins. The Bourbon reformism of the second half of the eighteenth century of Carlos III established the liberalization of direct trade with the five great islands of the Caribbean in possession of the kingdom of Spain, including Cuba. This offered wealth as inexhaustible sources of sugar, so several Sitgetans decided to prosper socially and economically as Facundo Bacardí - founder of the Bacardi empire - or José Antonio Mestre Roig - merchant -, who was the great-great-grandfather or direct ancestor of the fifth generation of the Great Duchess.
As the historian Jonatan Iglesias confirms to LOC, "the origin of the surname Mestre can be traced to Arnau Mestre in Landorthe - the French region of Comminges - who married in Sant Pere de Ribes - a village near Sitges - in 1625. His descendant, José Antonio Mestre y Roig, was the one who founded the Mestre branch in Cuba, from which the Grand Duchess descends. "
José Antonio was born on August 21, 1787 in the parish church of Sitges and, like his older brother, Salvador, who was already on the island in front of a trading house, wanted to join him. According to the Archivo de Indias, in 1816 he requested a license to go to Santiago de Cuba with his other little brother, Juan Bautista, 17, on board the Narcisa ship.
At first life was not as pleasant as they had imagined, but little by little they climbed socially. In 1830, José Antonio married Josefa Dionisia Domínguez y Morales, of Tenerife origin. In Havana he founded the local La Sedería y Chocolatería. Over time, their descendants became key figures of the bourgeoisie of the island thanks to their enormous heritage. Among the ancestors of Maria Teresa were doctors, architects, lawyers, engineers or merchants .
The maternal grandfather of the Grand Duchess, Agustín Batista González de Mendoza , was a landowner of Port-au-Prince and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Trust Company of Cuba and his wife, María Teresa Falla Bonet, the heiress of a billionaire who owns a sugar bowl and of two banks that were expropriated in the wake of the Cuban revolution. With the coming to power of Fidel Castro , the Mestre settled in New York.
With the great fortune they managed to get out of the country, little Maria Teresa studied in the best schools in the Upper East Side. In 1965 they moved to Santander, where his family owned large areas of land and, finally, settled in Geneva, where his father had his banking business.
In Switzerland he also had a careful education that allowed him to graduate in politics in Geneva, where he met a handsome young man who called himself only Enrique, since he hid his title as a member of the Nassau-Weilburg Bourbon-Parma royal house to prevent They will fall in love with him just because of his last name. Finally, the young Cuban caused the anger of the Grand Duchess Josefina Carlota, who never accepted her son's marriage.
Since they were married in 1981, her mother-in-law made Maria Teresa impossible, whom she disparagedly called "the Cuban 'petite." But that plebeian origin could be questioned, as Jonatan Iglesias confirms, "if we scrutinize his family tree, illustrious names appear like the II Earl of Casa Montalvo, the Marquises of San Felipe and Santiago or the Espinosa de los Monteros , among others" .
In spite of the strong temperament of the current Grand Duchess, a part of tenderness is hidden in his little heart since he has never forgotten his Sitgetan origins. Therefore, in the summer of 1996, she wanted to visit Sitges with her husband Enrique.
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