| María Manuela Kirkpatrick | |
|---|---|
| Spouse | Cipriano de Palafox y Portocarrero, Count of Montijo |
| Issue | |
| Paca, Duchess of Alba Eugenie, Empress of the French |
|
| Father | William Kirkpatrick |
| Mother | Marie Françoise de Grivegnée |
| Born | 24 February 1794 |
| Died | 22 November 1879 (aged 85) |
María Manuela Enriqueta Kirkpatrick de Closeburn y de Grivegnée, Countess of Montijo (February 24, 1794 in Malaga - November 22, 1879 in Carabanchel) was the mother of Eugénie, the Empress of the French.
Dona Manuela was born the daughter of an expatriate Scotsman, William Kirkpatrick of Conheath, a wine merchant and Consul of the United States of America in Malaga, Spain, and his Liège-born wife, Marie Françoise de Grivegnée, whose sister Catherine married the French diplomat, Matthieu de Lesseps. María Manuela was brilliant, vivacious and talented. In 1817 she married Don Cipriano de Palafox y Portocarrero (1785–1839), Count de Teba, and later Count de Montijo, Marquis de Algava, and Duke of Granada, Duke of Peñaranda, a grandee of Spain, a Bonapartist, and veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. They had two daughters, and a son, Paco, who died young.
Their daughters were María Francisca de Sales, generally known as Paca (1825–1860), who inherited most of the family honours, and Eugénie, born one year later. In the 1830s Manuela and the girls moved to Paris for their education. There she renewed her association with George William Frederick Villiers, later Earl of Clarendon, who is rumoured to have been her lover. Manuela also continued her friendship with Prosper Mérimée, whom she had met in Spain and who took great interest in the education of the girls. Manuela was Mérimée's source for the story of Carmen.
In 1837, Manuela moved briefly to England to further the education of her daughters, but soon returned to Paris. After the death of her husband, and perhaps the disappointment of Villier's marriage to an English lady, Manuela engaged in an extensive social life and pursued her ambition to find suitable husbands for her daughters. In 1844 Paca became the wife of Jacobo Luis Fitz-James Stuart Ventimiglia Álvarez de Toledo Beaumont y Navarra, [eighth] Duke of Berwick, [eighth] Earl of Tinmouth, [eighth] Baron Bosworth, [eighth] Duke of Liria and Xérica, [fifteenth] Duke of Alba de Tormes (1821–1881), one of the richest men in Europe. Eugénie did even better. Guided by her mother and Mérimée, she married Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.
Manuela lived long enough to see the rise and fall of the Second French Empire. Her great great granddaughter is Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, the most titled noble in the world.