Today We Leave for Mexico

spy tipped off his opponents. Maximilian was captured, and after a quick trial, he and his top two generals were sentenced to 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 before 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 the Third 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 this directed 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 thirty

four when the firing squad came for him. Carlotta lived to eighties six, 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. Thought they had come to save. I'm Dani 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 only Princess Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only daughter of George the Fourth and at the time the only legitimate grandchild of King George the third. Unlike her German Hanover family, whom the English people had already grown to detest with their frivolity and George the Third'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 ten thousand pounds. They had achieved happiness, and their country was overjoyed, and more joy followed when Charlotte,

just twenty one 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 mourning that left linen drapers running out of black cloth. It really was, Henry Broom wrote, as though every household

throughout Great Britain had lost a favorite child. Charlotte's father, the Prince Regent George the fourth, 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 sixteen, she became besotted with the dashing naval officer Archduke Maximilian, eight years or senior and the younger brother of the Austrian Emperor. The newlywed sped off to the Kingdom of Lombardy Venetia now in Italy, where Maximilian was Viceroy and

where they built castle in Treast. 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 world, attending wild parties and visiting brothels, while Carlotta stayed in priest 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 countinents. 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 eighteen sixties, France was attempting to solidify its empire in North America. With the United States preoccupied with the Civil War, Napoleon the Third 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 fifth, still celebrated in Mexico is Sinco de Mayo. Eventually, the French troops took the capital and sent the Liberal forces led by Benito Juarez on their 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 Australian 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 men, and that the referendum was staged and organized entirely by the French. In Maximilian's mind and in Carlotta's, 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 Novara and made their way to Mexico with blessings from both Pope Pious the Ninth and Queen Victoria, who ordered the Gibraltar Garrison to fire a salute as their ship passed. When they finally landed in the port of air Cruz, 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 Navara 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 from 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, Bonito Juarez and his army hadn't given up. Bonito Juarez had not relinquished the title of President of Mexico, and wary of France moving in on 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

the Third 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 as 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 the Third, 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 the third, 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 the Third 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 tear 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 sobs transformed into heaves of laughter.

The Empress doubled over, tears still streaming down her face, while she erupted and 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, it 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 were 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 at her to the family castles in Belgium, where she could be confined, watched over, and safe. For the next sixty 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 halls 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 eighty six of pneumonia, having lived to see the invention of cars, Einstein's theory of relativity, and the first flame flight. She remained one of the rich,

just 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. Historians today argue about the nature of Carlotta's madness, whether she actually was mad or for mad as 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 Nacato, 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 I Heart Radio and Aaron Mankey.

The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, 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 blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M