Despite the support of the Italian royal family, King Leopold II to avoid incurring the wrath of the Third French Republic, refused any marriage between his daughter and the Bonapartist pretender.

Clémentine brought up her two barely adolescent children and was keen to preserve the Bonapartist movement of which she became the “regent” until her son came of age in 1935, but she had no influence on French political reality.

The latter nourished the hope of having a second son and had therefore resumed an intimate life with the Queen; but, after a miscarriage in March 1871,[1] another girl is born: Clémentine, the royal couple's last child.

[4] Her first name pays homage to her godmother and great-aunt, Princess Clémentine of Orléans, while her middle name refers to that of her godfather, Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen, a cousin of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

[9] From the age of 8, Clémentine was the only child of the Belgian royal couple to stay in Belgium and spent a sad and lonely childhood at the Palace de Laeken.

Even though she sees her cousins Henriette and Joséphine Caroline weekly, her universe was essentially limited to adults, including her governess Omérine Drancourt.

In April 1889, two months after the death of her brother-in-law Rudolf in strange circumstances in Mayerling, Clémentine and her mother stayed with Stéphanie, now widowed, at the Miramare Castle.

[10] Her governess was replaced by a maid of honor, an aristocrat and pianist in her spare time, Zoé d'Oldeneel, while her parents allocated her a living room where she could receive guests.

In summer, she attended horse shows in Brussels, one of her favorite distractions with the amenities provided by the park of the Palace of Laeken where she liked to have lunch on the grass and sometimes even load haystacks.

[15][16] The young man, who did not share the feelings that his cousin had for him and did not like the atmosphere that reigned at his uncle's house in Laeken, was supported in his refusal by his parents, accentuating the cooling of relations between Leopold II and his brother the Count of Flanders, father of the intended groom.

[20] In the autumn of 1896, a more plausible party appeared as a suitor for her hand, Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, but the princess refused this union because she confided to her father that she did not like the candidate and that, in her life, the unknown scared her.

In spite of her father's insistence, who judged Rupprecht favorably and considered him an advantageous political choice for Belgium, Clémentine maintained her refusal to marry the Bavarian suitor and Leopold II finally relented.

When he arrived in Spa, the King found his daughter Clémentine there; but learning that Stéphanie is also present and praying in front of her mother's remains, he refused to meet her.

[42] In Belgium, Victor wanted to remain discreet and traveled, since the beginning of the 1890s, a lot in Europe where he was favorably received by several sovereigns, including Tsar Alexander III of Russia.

[43] In addition, Leopold II did not forget that the Emperor Napoleon III once aspired to conquer Belgium,[44] nor that he was the one who caused the misfortune of his beloved sister Charlotte by inciting her husband Archduke Maximilian of Austria to reign in Mexico, before abandoning them to their fate.

Le Peuple, the official organ of the Belgian Labour Party (POB), published: Reason of State is invoked against the marriage of Princess Clémentine to Prince Victor Napoleon, as if a woman does not have the right to dispose of her heart as she understands [...] As if it were not for her to judge for herself whether the descendant of King Jérôme suited her as a husband [...].

[50]Le Peuple also claimed: Prince Victor owes to the King [of the Belgians] and to the government to be able to direct from our territory his imperialist propaganda against the neighboring and friendly Republic, while being on the best terms with the Minister of France in Brussels, the nationalist and clerical Gérard.

To distract herself, she paid a few visits to the painter Edwin Ganz (specialist in the representation of horses and an artist close to the Belgian royal family,[54] in particular to Clémentine[55]), who was lodged by her aunt Empress Charlotte of Mexico in her Bouchout Castle.

[61] The Countess of Flanders, the sole representative of the Belgian royal family, accompanied Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, divorced husband of the absent Princess Louise.

[66][67] Eager to become parents as quick as possible,[68] the Prince and Princess Napoleon had two children: In the spring of 1912, shortly after the birth of Marie-Clotilde, Clémentine and Victor occupied the property they had acquired in Ronchinne, in the Namur Province, a castle which commanded an area of 233 hectares and where work was needed.

While Victor acquired antique furniture and called on François Malfait, the architect of the city of Brussels, to give the building an architectural Mosan style,[69][70] Clémentine had the stables and the garden fitted out, as well as the creation of a model farm and the erection of a chapel.

In August 1914, events precipitated: Prince Victor Napoleon was prevented by the French State from enlisting in the army, while King Albert I was forced to fall back on Antwerp, soon bombarded by the Germans.

[75][76] Clémentine and her husband hesitated before agreeing to take refuge in Great Britain with Empress Eugenie, widow of Napoleon III, who had invited them to join her at her residence in Farnborough Hill, 40 km south from London.

[75][78] One of the wings of the English residence iwa transformed into a care center, while Clémentine worked in favor of her many Belgian compatriots who had found refuge across the Channel.

She had contacts with the British royal family, with Paul Hymans (Minister Plenipotentiary in London), and with artists such as the painter James Ensor, the sculptor Victor Rousseau and the musicians Eugène Ysaÿe and Camille Saint-Saëns.

[89] After the bitter failure of the Bonapartists in the 1924 French legislative election and Victor's final estrangement from political life, it was Clémentine who entrusted the reorganization of the party to Jean Régnier, Duc de Massa.

[101] In January 1930, Clémentine and her children went to Rome to attend the wedding of Princess Marie-José of Belgium with Umberto, Prince of Piedmont and heir of the throne of Italy.

In 1934 and 1935, in the space of eighteen months, two mournful events affected Clementine: the deaths of King Albert I, then his daughter-in-law Queen Astrid who tragically lost her life in a car accident.

In October 1938, her daughter Marie-Clotilde married Count Serge de Witt, a former captain of the Imperial Russian Army and twenty years her senior, in London, a union that Clémentine disapproved of before resolving her feelings towards it.

[110] In October 1954,[111] Clémentine left Belgium to return to the Côte d'Azur where, not appreciating hotel life, she rented the Clair-Vallon Villa in Cimiez, a residential district of Nice.