[1] Her father, Pierre Nguyễn Hữu Hào, described as a wealthy merchant,[4] had been born into a poor ethnic Vietnamese Catholic family in Kiến Hòa district, Định Tường province.

[5][7] A naturalized French citizen, Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan, who was known as Mariette, studied at the Couvent des Oiseaux, an aristocratic Catholic school located in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, where she was sent at the age of 12.

"[4] After a formal betrothal ceremony in the imperial summer palace in Da Lat,[9] the emperor married Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan on 20 March 1934, in Huế.

"[11] The New York Times reported that "discontent was general" in the country, given that Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan had declined to renounce Catholicism and was appealing to Pope Pius XI for a dispensation.

[13] At the state ceremony that marked the end of the four-day wedding festivities, Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan was given the title 'Empress Consort' and the name Nam Phương, which can be roughly translated as 'Fragrance of the South', in acknowledgment of her place of birth.

Next day, dressed in a great brocaded Annamite gown, she stepped into an automobile and was driven to the Emperor's Palace, followed by the Imperial princesses and the blue-turbaned wives of the mandarins.

"[11]At the time of her marriage, a song was written in her honor:[11] "In the firmament of the Son of Heaven a brilliant new star has risen!/Supple as the neck of the swan is the charm of her graceful form./Her black and sparkling eyes, in hours of ease, envelop and thrill that happy mortal allowed to see./O, Nguyễn Hữu-Hào!

Bảo Đại continued to assume the title of emperor after proclaiming the country's independence from France on March 11, 1945, as he was urged to rule his empire as a member of Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

[citation needed] Nam Phương's first official visit to Europe, in the summer of 1939, launched a craze for what one reporter described as "trousers and embroidered tunics for evenings; pagoda silhouettes, [and] revers or sleeve forms.

In 1947, after the communist takeover of the country, the empress and her children moved to Château Thorenc, outside of Cannes, France, which had been in the family since its purchase by her maternal grandfather in the early 20th century.

Two years later, when the Vietnamese government announced its confiscation of the imperial family's personal property, the bill specifically excluded any real estate owned by the empress prior to 1949.

[19][20] Empress Nam Phương died on 16 September 1963 from a heart attack, at Domaine de La Perche, her home near the small rural village of Chabrignac, Corrèze, France.