Princess Charlotte of Belgium, Empress Carlota of Mexico
Her sad life in pictures and portraits.
It's my first video, so please, don't be bad :)
She was born in 1840 to king Leopold I. of Belgium and his wife, Louise-Marie of France. In 1857, she married her second cousin Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the idealistic younger brother of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria.
In the early 1860s, the ambitious Napoleon III 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 at the Catedral Metropolitana in 1864 and chose as their seat Mexico City, making their home in the neo-Gothic fantasy castle of Chapultepec.
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. The situation was exacerbated by a United States blockade that prevented French reinforcements from landing. 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.
President Benito Juarez of the Republic of Mexico oversaw the execution of Maximilian in 1867.
Carlota's mental state continued to be poor. Her brother Prince 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 Castle of Bouchout in Meise, Belgium. During World War I, her Belgian estate was surrounded by the occupying 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".

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