Clementine of Belgium
Clémentine Albertine Marie Léopoldine of Belgium (born July 30, 1872 in Laeken ; † March 8, 1955 in Nice ) was Princess of Belgium and by marriage princesse Napoléon .
Life
Clémentine was the youngest child of the Belgian King Leopold II (1835-1909) from his marriage to Marie Henriette (1836-1902), daughter of Archduke Joseph of Austria . She had two older sisters, Louise and Stephanie . Her brother Leopold had died in 1869 and their parents had hoped that Clémentine would become the heir to the throne. After her, the parents had given up hope and the line of succession passed to Philip of Flanders .
Clem, as Clémentine was known in the family circle, was the only one of the three sisters to win her father's heart. In contrast to her sisters, she had a reasonably good childhood and did not suffer from the harsh upbringing methods of her parents. Because her mother treated the children with cold, Clémentine developed a particularly close relationship with her sister Stephanie. After her mother's death, she was the first lady in the country. Clémentine was the only person who, at the end of the day, allowed King Leopold II to be near him. At times there was speculation about a marriage between Clémentine and her cousin Baudouin , the idea of combining the two branches of the family was also approved by the parents, but Baudouin and his mother also rejected this request.
On November 14, 1910, a year after the death of her father, who did not want to agree to a marriage of his youngest during his lifetime, she married in Moncalieri Victor Bonaparte , prince Napoléon (1862-1926), the Bonapartist pretender to the French imperial throne and head of the Bonaparte family. She described the marriage to her sister Stephanie in a letter as very happy. She and her family often stayed in Farnborough with the ex-Empress Eugénie and found refuge here when Belgium was conquered by the Germans during the First World War in 1914 . In Farnborough, the couple had also announced their engagement.
At the age of 82, Clémentine died in her Villa Clairvallou in Nice. Her tomb is in the Chapelle Impériale of the imperial family of Ajaccio .
progeny
From their marriage, Clémentine had two children:
- Marie Clotilde Eugénie Alberte Laetitia Généviève (1912–1996), princesse Napoléon
- ⚭ 1938 Count Serge de Witt (1891–1990)
- Louis (1914–1997), prince Napoléon
- ⚭ 1949 Alix de Foresta (* 1926)
literature
- Dominique Paoli: Clémentine, princesse Napoléon , Editions Racine, Brussels, 1998.
- Maude MC Ffoulkes: My Own Affairs , READ BOOKS, 2008
- Ludwig Bauer, Eden Paul , Cedar Paul : Leopold, the unloved: king of the Belgians and of wealth , Little, Brown, and Co., 1935, p. 192
Web links
- Clementine, Princess Napoleon ( Memento of February 7, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
- http://crossoflaeken.blogspot.com/2009/07/princess-clementine-of-belgium.html
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marion Schmitz-Reiners: Belgium for Germans: Insights into an inconspicuous country , Ch. Links Verlag, 2006, p. 78 ( digitized version )
- ^ Ghislain de Diesbach: Secrets of the Gotha , Meredith Press, 1968, p. 83
- ^ William HC Smith: The Bonapartes: the history of a dynasty , Continuum International Publishing Group, 2007, p. 222
- ↑ Princess to Meet Intended. Retrieved November 25, 2012 .
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Clementine of Belgium |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Clementine Albertine Marie Leopoldine |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Princess of Belgium |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 30, 1872 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Laeken |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 8, 1955 |
| Place of death | Nice |