Maria Clotilde of Savoy-Bonaparte

MARIA CLOTILDE OF SAVOY-BONAPARTE. - Daughter of Victor Emmanuel II and of Maria Adelaide of Austria, b. in Turin on 2 March 1843, d. at Moncalieri (Turin) on 25 June 1911.

Sought in marriage, at the age of 15, by the forty-year-old Prince Jérôme Napoléon, she freely bowed to the sacrifice imposed by reason of state and by the French-Sardinian alliance, though she knew she had nothing in common with him in feelings or ideas. Having thus become a French princess, she knew how to maintain her rank nobly in Paris, albeit with great reserve, wholly intent on the education of her three children: Victor, Louis Napoléon and Maria Letizia. When the Napoleonic dynasty fell (1870), she did not wish to flee; but when she decided to leave, she departed from the city with head held high, amid the respectful greetings of the people. Having withdrawn to Switzerland, to the castle of Prangis (Nyon), she remained there until 1878, when the diversity of principles and convictions imposed upon her honor and her conscience the separation from her husband. She retired to Piedmont, to the castle of Moncalieri, devoting herself entirely to prayer and to works of charity, greeted by the people as "the saint of Moncalieri." She hastened to Rome in 1891 to attend her husband in his final days, he having returned fully to God. She was a Dominican tertiary from 1871, and is buried at Superga.

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