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Warned by one of the errors of his uncle, he avoided seeking a wife in the royal families of Europe, but allied himself with a Spanish lady of noble rank, the young and beautiful Eugenie de Montijo, dutchess of Teba.
In 1827 I was in the house of his son-in-law, Count Teba, at Granada, a gallant, intelligent gentleman, much cut up in the wars, having lost an eye and been maimed in a leg and hand. Some years after, in Madrid, I was invited to the house of his widow, Madame de Montijo, one of the leaders of ton. She received me with the warmth and eagerness of an old friend.
George Ticknor, of Boston, frequently mentioned Madame de Teba to his friends as a singularly charming woman. In 1818 he wrote home to a friend in America: "I knew Madame de Teba in Madrid, and from what I saw of her there and at Malaga, I do not doubt she is the most cultivated and interesting woman in Spain.
Oscar I of Sweden. | | | + Hortense, | m. + 4, Louis, King of Holland, d. 1846. | | | + Napoleon Charles, d. 1807. | | | + Napoleon Louis, d. 1831. | | | + LOUIS NAPOLEON III, 1852-1870, d. 1873. m. | Eugenie, Countess of Teba | | | + Napoleon, d. 1879. | + 5, Caroline, m. Joachim Murat, King of Naples, shot 1815. | + 6, Jerome, King of Westphalia, d. 1860, m.
Some five leagues on the road thence to Granáda are the remains of the ancient Teba, at the siege of which in 1328, when it was taken from the Moors, Lord James Douglas fought in obedience to the dying wish of the Bruce his master, whose heart he wore in a silver case hung from his neck, throwing it among the enemy as he rushed in and fell.
La de Ketâma was, according to tradition, African, one of the most ancient, for having come with Afrikio. "Ben Kis Ben Taifi Ben Tebâ, the younger, who came from the king of the Assyrians, to the land of the west.
The Montijos were connected with the grandest ducal families in Spain and Portugal, and even with the royal families of those nations. The Count de Teba died while his two daughters were young, and they were left under the guardianship of their very charming mother. The elder married the Duke of Alva; the younger became the Empress Eugénie.
In conversation she is brilliant and original, yet with all this she is a true Spaniard, and as full of Spanish feelings as she is of talent and culture." Washington Irving, in 1853, thirty-five years later, writing to his nephew, speaks in equal praise of Madame de Teba. "I believe I told you," he says, "that I knew the grandfather of the empress, old Mr. Fitzpatrick.
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