In 1864, Maximilien of Austria and Charlotte of Belgium set sail for Mexico.
They dream of an incredible adventure.
It will turn into a fiasco.
In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the heart of History", Jean des Cars tells you about the Mexican tragedy of two monarchs.
On April 14, 1864, Maximilian of Austria and Charlotte of Belgium boarded the Novara for Mexico.
In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the heart of history", Jean des Cars looks back on the Mexican tragedy of a couple with a chaotic trajectory.
On the road to Mexico, the first stop on Maximilian and Charlotte's journey is Civitavecchia.
They go to Rome to receive the blessing of Pope Pius IX.
They will need it… After Gibraltar and a brief stopover in Madeira, the imperial couple have strange occupations.
Instead of preparing to reign and govern, instead of reflecting on the difficult task that awaits them, Max persists in drafting the Protocol and the etiquette of his Court, modeled on what he knows, those of the Hofburg.
As for Charlotte, she is very busy organizing her own House.
These are childish activities that do not bode well for the future.
On May 28, they finally arrive in Vera Cruz.
They are greeted by General Almonte, Grand Marshal of the Court.
Disembarkation takes place the next day.
A huge golden coach is unloaded first, but the imperial couple are worried that no crowd has rushed to greet them.
In fact, yellow fever is rampant in Vera Cruz and throughout the region.
The heavy and humid heat and the deserted port are the first impression that the sovereigns receive on their new country.
Their journey to Mexico is made partly by train and then in old stagecoaches pulled by mules.
Fortunately, as one goes up towards the capital, manifestations of enthusiasm finally appear.
Indians, above all, convinced that they are finally seeing the arrival of the liberating god they have always been waiting for.
On June 16, the caravan reached Puebla, a hundred kilometers south-east of Mexico City, where nature is much more cheerful.
The highlands are covered with forests of cedars and fir trees, pastures.
Fields of sugar cane, coffee, cocoa, orchards planted with orange and banana trees provide a heartwarming sight for travelers exhausted by the disastrous state of the roads.
The welcome by the Puebla garrison is warm and that of the inhabitants enthusiastic.
Next, a ritual stop is made at Our Lady of Guadalupe, the most important Mexican pilgrimage.
There, two hundred uncovered cars, manned by very elegant Mexican ladies and five hundred black-clad horsemen in white gloves came to meet them from Mexico.
General Bazaine, Commander-in-Chief of the French troops, General Neigre, Commander of the Province of Mexico, the Marquis de Montholon, Ambassador of France and the Archbishop of Mexico await them in front of the cathedral.
The next day is the solemn and triumphant entry into Mexico City, at 2,240 meters above sea level.
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The royal palace has 1,100 windows, but it is dilapidated, inconvenient and poorly furnished.
Charlotte and Maximilien will make it a place of reception.
Very quickly, they will settle outside the city, at Chapultepec Castle, high on a rock overlooking the plain southwest of Mexico City.
The panorama is considered one of the most beautiful in the world.
For Maximilien, it is the Mexican Schönbrunn.
Indeed, the palace was also built in the 18th century on the site of the summer palace of the ancient Aztec kings.
The military situation is, at this time, rather calm.
At the beginning of August 1864, Maximilien will leave his wife to discover the country over which he reigns.
A two and a half month tour.
It is a triumph but the emperor contracts an exhausting dysentery.
He will suffer from it regularly, until his death.
While her husband was away, Charlotte became acquainted with her court of Mexican ladies who have no idea of protocol.
They kiss more readily than they curtsy.
As her husband returns ill from his tour, it is Charlotte, now Carlotta, who presides over the Council of Ministers, the ceremonies, and gives public hearings.
She takes a liking to power and feels invested in her mission.
But Maximilien recovered and resumed his tours across the country.
Faithful to his political ideas, he reaches out to the Liberals and disdains the Conservatives.
The Count of Diesbach, who is part of this strange Court, describes the situation on October 27, 1864 as follows: "The poor Emperor, who was considered so intelligent, is only doing nonsense. He is hated more and more by all parties. even the French. The Empress alone has the head and wears the breeches. She complains bitterly of having been deceived by the Emperor of the French. She has been told that Maximilian was requested by all of Mexico, she sees everything the opposite. She was told that the war was over, she sees and complains that she is the cause of so much bloodshed, because we have never fought more than today. They were obliged to hand over the management of affairs to Marshal Bazaine. It is the beginning of the end. Poor people! They were so happy in Miramare. "
Count Diesbach is right about almost everything: Mexico has not claimed Maximilian, the civil war has never ceased between supporters of Juarez and the conservative power in place.
Bazaine commands the French troops and he is the real master of the situation.
He is wrong on only one point: Charlotte and Maximilien were not happy at Miramare.
Perhaps they are happier in Mexico which, despite all the difficulties, at least gives them a reason to exist.
The situation is getting worse
The summer of 1865 was difficult for Marshal Bazaine.
After a few victories, the defeats follow one another.
There is an explanation for this: the Civil War has ended and the United States does not accept the presence of European troops in Mexico.
They will apply the Monroe doctrine, which is to prevent any interference in American internal affairs, to put an end to this interference.
Militarily, the situation is complex.
Bazaine concentrated his forces in northern Mexico, near the American border, to deal with any eventuality.
On the other hand, Juarez's guerrilla warfare is growing in the center, supported and probably financed by the United States.
Bazaine warns Napoleon III of this untenable situation.
Contrary to the commitment he made to Maximilian, the Emperor of the French began to think about withdrawing his troops ...
Charlotte discovers the Yucatan
Despite the deteriorated situation, in November 1865 Charlotte made, on the advice of her husband, a trip to the Yucatan peninsula where the Mayans once lived.
Once again, Maximilien keeps Charlotte away.
He has a good reason for that: for some time now, he has had a Mexican mistress, named Concepcion.
The emperor does not seem particularly focused on women but the climate and the atmosphere helping, he fell under the spell of the beautiful Mexican.
If Charlotte's trip to Yucatan is important, it is not so much for the archaeological beauties that she will discover there but because during this trip, she will present the first symptoms of a mental disturbance.
She feels bad, she refuses the local food which she believes poisoned.
It's all a bit of a mystery.
Has she really suffered an attempted poisoning?
It is not impossible, Mexicans knowing and knowing very well how to use the properties of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Charlotte returns exhausted and depressed from this journey.
Cuernavaca
Before Charlotte left for Yucatan, the imperial couple had discovered a new dream residence, 80 kilometers southwest of Mexico City.
We can say that if Chapultepec was their Versailles, Cuernavaca is their Trianon.
They make it their country residence.
It is a house built in the 18th century, surrounded by wonderful gardens, with a lake suitable for boat trips.
It is in Cuernavaca that Charlotte finds Maximilien.
It was also there that she learned, on December 10, of the death of her father, King of the Belgians, Leopold I.
She is desperate.
It was still in Cuernavaca that Maximilian learned that his Mexican mistress was pregnant.
To shelter his clandestine loves, he had a small house built not far from there, "El Olvido", "L'Oubli".
In February 1866, Maximilien was appalled by a letter he received from Napoleon III.
As the Emperor of Mexico did not send the sums agreed for the maintenance of the French troops, he will recall them in stages.
The survival of the Mexican Empire hangs by a thread.
And the behavior of the imperial couple is strange.
Everyone seems to be living their life on their own.
Maximilien with his mistress who will give him a son the following August and Charlotte who, when she comes out of her depressive phases, plays her role of empress wonderfully.
She enjoys the company of the French, Belgian and Mexican officers present at the Court.
She discovers and uses her powers of seduction.
He was supposed to have connections.
Did she have an affair with Belgian Colonel Van der Smissen?
Some claim that the officer is the father of a child she gave birth to the following fall, in Miramare.
Others go further by claiming that this is the future General Weygand.
She also flirted with the aide-de-camp of her husband, the colonel, Feliciano Rodriguez.
As in all the Courts, we gossip a lot in that of Mexico.
These are speculations, even state secrets.
It is in any case certain that Charlotte did not hate male company while her husband was detached from her.
Charlotte goes to seek help in Europe
In June 1866, the situation became untenable.
Maximilian then envisages, with lucidity, his abdication.
He no longer had any money, he could not cope with the commitments he had made to Napoleon III and the French troops, already in difficulty with those of Juarez, were gradually going to withdraw.
But for Charlotte, this abdication is impossible.
She would ruin the purpose of their lives and they would join the cohort of fallen monarchs in history.
How can we not think of the abdications of Charles X in 1830 and especially of his grandfather Louis-Philippe in 1848?
In both cases, they have ruined their lives.
She must find a solution.
She will plead the cause of her husband to Napoleon III.
Confident of herself and determined, she manages to convince a distraught Maximilian.
On July 9, 1866, the Empress left Chapultepec and Max accompanied her to the village of Ayutla.
Their farewells are heartbreaking, they are in tears.
The same evening, Max, exhausted and feverish, falls from his horse and must be carried to his carriage.
The emperor suffers from dysentery, he is exhausted.
Charlotte embarks at Vera Cruz on July 13.
Faithful to her principles, she will not board the boat "L'Impératrice Eugénie" until the Mexican flag has replaced the French flag.
She is still Empress of Mexico after all.
She landed in Saint-Nazaire on August 8.
No official welcome, nor in Paris where she moved to the Grand Hotel.
This lack of consideration hurts her deeply.
Obviously, for Napoleon III the unexpected arrival of Charlotte is not good news.
He knows in advance what she is going to ask him.
He also knows he won't be able to grant it to her.
To cushion the shock of the inevitable interview, he sends Eugenie to talk to him.
The French sovereign lends itself to it elegantly.
The inevitable meeting of Napoleon III and Charlotte takes place on August 11 in Saint-Cloud.
The sovereign is tired ... and Charlotte unleashed!
After having pleaded her case with passion and venting all her resentment, she begins to exhibit behavioral disorders.
She is convinced that the orangeade offered to her by the Empress is poisoned!
She is too humiliated to go to her family in Brussels or to her in-laws in Vienna.
It wouldn't help him.
She is proud and does not like to show herself in a weak position.
She behaved like this throughout her life.
Her doctor then advised her to go to Miramare to rest.
At first, she is happy to find this familiar haven.
But very quickly, she receives alarming news from Mexico: Juarez's troops take over.
After taking Tampico, they get closer to Vera Cruz.
Charlotte then decides to request an audience with the Pope so that he grants a concordat to Mexico, which he has always refused, but especially so that he intervenes diplomatically with Napoleon III.
Charlotte goes to the Vatican
The tottering Empress arrives in Rome on September 25.
Pope Pius IX grants him an audience two days later.
Their hour-long interview came to nothing.
The next day, the Pope, according to the protocol in use for a reigning sovereign, pays her a visit, without further results.
On the 29th, she was in a state of extreme agitation, still convinced that they wanted to poison her, eating only oranges and refusing any drink.
The next day, July 30, at dawn, more and more elated, she was taken back to the Vatican.
To the Pope, obliged to receive her, she gave a totally paranoid speech, saying that she was surrounded by spies and that they wanted to poison her.
A fixed idea!
She rejects the cup of chocolate that they try to serve her ... She spends the day in the Vatican Library, wanders in the gardens and in the evening, it is impossible to send her back to her hotel.
She spent the night in the Vatican and at dawn the next day, she wrote her last wishes as well as a few farewell letters, convinced that she was going to die very quickly, poisoned ...
She asks to be buried "very simply" in St. Peter's Cathedral as close as possible to the tomb of the Apostles.
She is delirious!
She also writes a letter to her husband: "My beloved treasure, I bid you farewell. The Lord calls me to Him. I thank you for the happiness you have given me. May God bless you and make you obtain eternal peace. Your faithful Charlotte. "
To convince the Empress to leave the Vatican, a cardinal calls on the Superior of a neighboring convent who manages to bring the cumbersome Charlotte back to her hotel.
The following days, she remains prostrate in her room, terrified and still obsessed with poison.
His retinue called his brother, the Count of Flanders, then in Italy.
He arrives on October 7, devastated by his sister's behavior and condition.
He manages to persuade her to take a train with him to return to Miramare.
Charlotte is locked up in Miramare ...
When she returns to Miramare, Charlotte is not only accompanied by her brother but also by her husband's doctor, Doctor Gilek, and an alienist from Vienna, Doctor Riedel.
They lock her up in the castle, from where she tries to escape.
Three days later, they forcibly transfer her to the Castelletto, the pavilion at the back of the park, where she is easier to watch.
The Austrian psychiatrist who treats her considers her as manic-depressive, obsessed with the idea of not having been able to give Maximilian an heir, which is one of the causes of her imbalance.
In a letter to his brother Leopold II, the Count of Flanders wrote: "I believe that the impotence, notably known to her husband, has a lot to do with it. If she had had children, her imagination would have been occupied with other things than politics and the blood had taken another direction. They say that Max never touched her. How unsuccessful this marriage was and how many troubles and sorrows we had and we will have! "
At the beginning of 1867, Charlotte was calmer.
She maintains an almost normal correspondence with several members of her family.
Of course, Maximilian was informed of the condition of his wife.
He only asks that in no case Charlotte be transferred to Vienna.
From February, Bazaine and his troops began to withdraw from Mexico.
Max and the 9,000 or so men who remained loyal to him settled in Queretaro, northwest of Mexico City.
They are besieged by the supporters of Juarez.
The emperor capitulated on May 14, 1867. The revolutionary organized the trial of Maximilian in the theater of Queretaro.
Sentenced to death, exhausted but remarkably dignified, The Fallen Emperor was shot on June 19, 1867.
The news reaches Paris as the Universal Exhibition opens, drawing crowds and monarchs from all over the world.
Napoleon III and Eugenie are appalled but perhaps aware of the bad role they played in this tragedy.
Queen Victoria, who had always been opposed to this adventure and who had tried to dissuade Maximilian and Charlotte from embarking on it, wrote in her diary: "Poor dear Charlotte, deprived of reason and her husband killed! What a dramatic end to their unfortunate business ... "
Therefore, the Belgian royal family will endeavor to repatriate Charlotte to Brussels.
Queen Marie-Henriette, the wife of Leopold II, arrived in Miramare on July 30, 1867 and managed to tear her sister-in-law from the Castelletto.
They return to Brussels.
Charlotte is installed at the castle of Tervueren and watched by doctors.
It is surrounded by a sort of small court in accordance with the status it claimed.
She will never regain her mental balance.
She ended her sad existence on January 19, 1927, aged 86.
Her marriage, her empire: for her, it had all been nothing but bitter disillusionment.
Bibliographic resources:
Dominique Paoli, L'Impératrice Charlotte, the black sun of melancholy (Perrin, 2008)
Bertita Harding, Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico (Payot, 1935)
André Castelot, Maximilien and Charlotte, the tragedy of ambition (Perrin, 1977)
Jean des Cars, Tragic couples in history (Perrin, 2020)
At the heart of History "is a Europe 1 Studio podcast
Author and presentation: Jean des Cars
Production: Timothée Magot
Director: Jean-François Bussière
Distribution and editing: Clémence Olivier
Graphics: Karelle Villais