Noble Blood - Today We Leave for Mexico

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

She was born Charlotte of Belgium, before fate re-named her Carlota of Mexico. She and her husband were high-minded, idealistic imperialists, ready to forge their destiny on a new continent. But they were woefully unprepared for the reality that awaited them outside their palace walls.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. On June 19, 1867, Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico, was executed by firing squad. on a grassy hill outside of the city of Corretero. The emperor and his few remaining conservative loyalists had barricaded themselves in the city while Benito Juarez and the liberal Mexican forces attacked.

Maximilian had prepared to make an escape across the enemy lines, but a spy tipped off his opponents. Maximilian was captured, and, after a quick trial, he and his top two generals were sentenced to death. death. Before taking his position on the hill where he would be killed, Maximilian approached the firing squad. Speaking in Spanish, he told each of the men that he forgave them and that he understood that they were only doing their duty. He also gave each man a gold coin and asked them not to shoot him in the face, so that Maximilian's mother would be able to identify his body when it

was finally returned to her in Austria where he belonged. Maximilian's final words echoed across the hilltop, his voice free from any tremors of fear. I forgave everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood, which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, Viva la Independencia. The shots fired.

Only three years earlier, the Habsburg Archduke had been hand-selected by Napoleon III, to take the position of emperor over in the new world, to solidify France's imperial holdings in Mexico, while the United States of America was distracted with its civil war. Maximilian and his wife, Carlotta, sailed across an ocean to a land where they had been promised they would be greeted like returning heroes.

The pair were noble-minded liberal imperialists, but imperialists nonetheless, naive and self-assured, but all too quickly hit with reality. Maximilian died on Mexican soil, but his wife, the Empress of Mexico, Carlotta, had returned to Europe earlier to beg the European royal leaders

for military and financial support for her doomed husband. Maximilian was 34 when the firing squad came for him. Carlotta lived to 86, gradually and then quickly going mad, shut out from the world in a palace of her delusion, trapped in her own mind, a world where her husband was still alive, where they were still the emperor and empress, and where they were beloved by the people they thought they had come to save. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood.

Before she was Carlotta of Mexico, she was originally a princess of Belgium, the daughter of Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Salfeld. When Leopold was a young man, he caught the eye of England's only Princess, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only daughter of George the 4th, and at the time, the only legitimate grandchild of King George III. Unlike her German Hanover family, whom the English people had already grown to detest with their frivolity in George III's burgeoning madness, Charlotte was a shining light. She represented the future of the monarchy. Princess Charlotte of Wales was beautiful and quick-witted, and although her father, had been desperate for her to marry the Prince of Orange, Charlotte had her heart and mind set on Leopold,

the young and handsome Belgian prince. When Leopold came to meet her father for the first time, Charlotte wrote in her diary, I find him charming and go to bed happier than I have ever done yet in my life. Princess never, I believe, sets out in life or marriage with such prospects of happiness, real domestic ones like other people. But Charlotte had found real prospects of happiness, and on their wedding day, massive crowds flooded the London streets, desperate to catch a glimpse of the handsome Leopold dressed in his British military uniform, and Princess Charlotte in a wedding dress that had cost over 10,000 pounds.

They had achieved happiness, and their country was overjoyed. And more joy followed when Charlotte, just 21 years old, announced she was pregnant. The future of the nation was bright and secure. At least it was until Charlotte died in childbirth, after delivering a boy, stillborn. A nation fell into despair, a wailing, weeks-long morning that left linen drapers running out of black cloth.

It really was, Henry Brom wrote, as though every household throughout Great Britain had lost a favorite child. Charlotte's father, the Prince Regent George IV, was so bereft that he found himself unable to attend Charlotte, his only child's funeral. Even the Prince of Orange, Charlotte's one time rejected suitor, burst into tears when he heard of her death, and his new wife ordered all of the ladies of their court into formal mourning. When Lord Byron heard that Charlotte had died, he opened his window and screamed out into the street. He wrote a poem mourning her in which he wrote,

A long, low, distant murmur of dread sound, such as arises when a nation bleeds, with some deep and immedicable wound. But no one was more miserable, more grief-stricken than Charlotte's husband, Prince Leopold. That rare chance for a royal to have a happy, merry life, had been torn to shreds. his heart along with it.

Fifteen years later, the middle-aged Leopold remarried to a young French princess. They named their first daughter, Princess Charlotte of Belgium, after Leopold's first wife. When that Charlotte went on to become the Empress of Mexico, she changed her name to the more Latin, Carlotta. That was Carlotta's legacy before she was even born. Her namesake was heartbreak and wasted potential, a tragedy of all that could have been, and all that almost was. Carlotta was raised largely by her grandmother, the queen of France, and though her father would

have preferred that she marry a Portuguese prince, when Carlotta was 16, she became besotted with the dashing naval officer, Archduke Maximilian, eight years her senior, and the younger brother of the Austrian emperor. The newlyweds sped off to the kingdom of Lombardi Venetia, now in Italy, where Maximilian was Viceroy and where they built a castle in Trees. But being young and being in love doesn't always guarantee that the future will unfold like the fairy tale you no doubt imagine when you're a princess who just married a dashing archduke. Maximilian's faithfulness to his wife lasted only past their honeymoon, and soon the archduke was cavorting around the attending wild parties and visiting brothels while Carlotta stayed in Triste waiting for her

beloved husband to come home to her. She was a loyal wife, raised to believe that loyalty and obedient were a princess's primary duty, and so Carlotta never wept and never fought her husband. Only when Maximilian returned from a trip to Brazil, carrying a venereal disease that left them unable to bear children, only then did Carlotta. cry. From that point on, Carlotta and Maximilian slept in separate bedrooms. But still, she woke with bright, dry eyes and her usual affable countenance. Her husband had just been offered a new job opportunity, and Carlotta was finally ready to help him seize the destiny that they were meant for.

After all, they were young, attractive, intelligent, liberal, and royal. They were meant for great things. In the early 1860s, France was attempting to solidify its empire in North America. With the United States preoccupied with the Civil War, Napoleon III sent troops to Mexico in order to create a kingdom, a new monarchy that would be allied with France. Although the French troops suffered a defeat on May 5th, still celebrated in Mexico, Is Cinco de Mayo, eventually the French troops took the capital and sent the liberal forces led by Benito Juarez on the run. That was when French ministers came to Maximilian

and offered a second son, his own chance to become an emperor. Although Maximilian was hesitant, it was a risky proposition. Mexico was distant, and he would have to forfeit his claim to the Austrian throne. Eventually, Maximilian agreed,

especially once the French ambassadors assured him there had been a referendum and the Mexican people wanted him to come. Of course, they didn't mention that the referendum was staged and organized entirely by the French. In Maximilian's mind and in Carlottas, Mexico was a shining new opportunity. They would arrive as heroes to deliver liberal reforms to the Mexican people and to live out their lives, beloved and powerful. And so, Maximilian and Carlotta boarded the SMS Navarra and made their way to Mexico with blessings from both

Pope Pius I and Queen Victoria, who ordered the Gibraltar garrison to fire a salute as their ship passed. When they finally landed in the Port of Veracruz, the emperor and empress were, there's no other way to say it, a little underwhelmed. They had expected ecstatic crowds of revelers, bodies falling to their knees, women weeping with joy. Instead, as the Navarra approached the shoreline, the couple glimpsed a polite but anemic crowd. Though a small band played, most of its sound dissolved into the sea air. It was an inauspicious start for an inauspicious trip. Imperialism usually is.

There were some Mexicans who supported the monarchy. Conservative royalists who expected rigor and order for Maximilian and Carlotta. But by imperial standards, the royal couple was fairly liberal. They funded charities and social programs. They finally isolated themselves from their key supporters by declaring freedom of religion in Mexico. The conservative monarchists murmured to each other and clenched their jaws.

Maximilian was not the conservative emperor that they had hoped for. And all the while, Benito Juarez and his army hadn't given up. Benito Juarez had not relinquished the title of President of Mexico, and wary of France moving in on the country, their sphere of influence, the United States still recognized him as a legitimate leader. And then the American Civil War ended, and America once again had troops available for a showing of strength at the southern border. At this point, Napoleon III decided to cut his losses.

He withdrew his troops. Suddenly, Maximilian and Carlotta were less monarchs and more prisoners, trapped in an exalted position with no protection, surrounded by a Mexican population that largely rejected foreign rule and Benito Juarez's forces moving in closer every day. Out of duty to his supporters and the oath of office he took, Maximilian refused to step down as emperor. Too many soldiers had already died in his name. So while Maximilian fought to defend his fragile empire,

his wife Carlotta sailed back to Europe. to beg for military support. She would never return to Mexico or see her husband again. When Carlotta arrived in Paris for a meeting with Napoleon III, prepared to beg for military support for her husband, she was greeted not by the president,

but with half-hearted apologies. The French president was ill and would not be able to meet with Carlotta. Carlotta refused to accept his brush off. She insisted on meeting personally with Napoleon III. But when the meeting finally came, his position was unwavering. France would no longer provide any troops to support the Mexican Empire. Maximilian was on his own. Undeterred, Carlotta insisted on seeing Napoleon III for a second time. This time, Carlotta was a little less of the

Poise Empress she had been before. As she began to explain to the French president the seriousness of the threat in Mexico, Carlotta began weeping uncontrollably. Tears streaming down her face, her voice stuttered and then disappeared entirely, until it was replaced by choking gasps. But just as quickly as she descended into tears, Carlotta began to laugh. Her heaving soves transformed into heaves of laughter. The Empress doubled over, tears still streaming down her face, while she erupted in staccato yelps of laughter that made the guards in the room send for help. Carlotta still returned to the French president one more time.

On their third meeting, before Carlotta even spoke, she began to babble and twitch. She fainted on a couch and was taken away. Maximilian would get no help from France. So next, after she recovered and at her husband's request, Carlotta went to the Vatican to ask the Pope for support. Since her fainting spell in France, Carlotta had become increasingly isolated and paranoid.

She was convinced that she was going to be poisoned, and so she stopped eating altogether. With the poisoner's plans thwarted, Carlotta assumed that her assassins would resort to physical attempts. When Carlotta arrived at the Vatican, she wasn't granted a visit. But weeping and frantic, Carlotta pushed through the doors until she entered the Pope's private chamber.

Half starved and half mad, Carlotta snatched a cup of hot chocolate from the Pope's hands, dipped her fingers in, and started licking them. The hot chocolate from her fingers was the first thing she had eaten in days. The Pope's food, she assumed at least, would be free of poison. Please, Carlotta begged, chocolate still dripping from her lips. There are assassins waiting outside to kill me as soon as I leave this building. Please protect me.

The stunned pope wasn't sure how to react to the desperate woman. And so, a bed was set up for Carlotta in the Vatican Library. Carlotta of Mexico became the first and only woman ever to spend a night at the Vatican. For her remaining time in the Vatican City, Carlotta did not leave her hotel room. Occasionally she would escape from her. room running full speed and outstripping her attendants to get to a fountain in the middle of the city where she drank the water using a goblet she had stolen from the pope's private chambers. Around this time, Maximilian's stronghold of power finally fell, and the emperor of Mexico

was sentenced to death. But Carlotta's family, hearing reports of her madness, carefully made the decision not to let her know just yet that her husband was dead. Using a fake telegram, they said was from Maximilian, Carlotta's family lured her to the family castles in Belgium, where she could be confined, watched over, and safe. For the next 60 years, Carlotta lived as a recluse in a palace, dipping in and out of sanity. Her sister-in-law sealed the windows of Carlotta's private room

and added padding to the walls. Sometimes Carlotta would walk the hall, completely nude, whipping herself with a riding crop. If any guard tried to stop her, she would start calling him the name of her long dead husband and try to take him to bed with her. Eventually, of course, Carlotta was told that her husband was executed, but it's impossible to know whether or not she fully absorbed the information.

Carlotta finally died at age 86 of pneumonia, having lived to see the invention of cars, Einstein's theory of relativity and the first plane flight, she remained one of the richest women in the world, living in complete obscurity. Once a year, every spring, the former empress would walk down the grassy hills of the palace garden, towards a tiny lake,

where she would extend a delicately slippered shoe to step into a boat. Today, the former empress would say, Today, my husband and I are off on our great adventure. Today, we leave for Mexico. That's the tragic story of Carlotta of Mexico. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear more about her madness. I'm Ego Wadam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live,

and the Big Money Players Network, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice. ever. I went and had lunch with them one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah.

He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about doing whatever it takes to be thought. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Lengoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do?

And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the My Culturhaustura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Historians today argue about the nature of Carlotta's madness, whether she actually was mad or if her madness could be identified as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. historical record actually proves that some of her paranoia was based in truth Carlotta was under a tremendous amount of stress as you can imagine assigned a task that was in effect life or death for her beloved husband and she was so anxious that her doctor was dosing her coffee with a sedative to calm her down without her knowledge it wasn't poison but there was something someone was putting in her drinks and some people even believe that the empress's madness actually was poisoning. According to rumors, when Carlotta was in Mexico,

despondent over not being able to bear a child, a Mexican woman, a supporter of Benito Juarez, who hated the imperialist's royals, vindictively gave her doses of the mushroom Teo Na Nakado, saying that it would help her conceive a baby. In reality, it's a plant that's been shown to induce Psychosis. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Aaron Manke. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manke, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.

Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble BloodTales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. And I'm Eaglewood. Next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.