Princess Clementine of Belgium was the wife of Napoléon Victor Bonaparte, Bonapartist pretender to the throne of France.
Background
Princess Clémentine was born in 1872 at the Royal Castle of Laeken, (north west Brussels). She was the third daughter, and last child, of King Leopold II of Belgium and Marie Henriette of Austria. Clémentine was raised by her mother, who had, reportedly, a difficult temper.
Career
She had two older sisters, Princess Louise, and Princess Stéphanie. Her brother, Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant, had died of pneumonia in 1869, after having fallen into a pond. Her sisters married when she herself was quite young.
Princess Louise had married in 1875 and Stephanie in 1881.
However, once Clémentine came of age, she was given independence by her father to travel without her mother"s approval. She later wrote, thanking her father, saying, "Thanks to you, dear father, I have been able to find happiness." However, the happy opportunity to travel ended when Clémentine"s mother, the Queen, died in 1902 and Clémentine was obliged to assume the functions of a First Lady at the Court of Brussels.
Throughout Clémentine"s life she had three known romantic interests. Baudouin did not return Clémentine"s affections and died in his early twenties.
Marriage with the Baron would have been impossible as he was not of royal blood.
In 1903, when she was 31 years old, Clémentine again asked her father for permission to marry the Prince and he again refused. Clementine persisted but was threatened by the King with disinheritance. The wedding of Princess Clementine and Prince Napoleon Victor Bonaparte took place in Castle of Moncalieri, Kingdom of Italy, on 10 November/14 November 1910.
He is beautiful, this Prince.
Napoleon is a love, I adore him." Napoleon and Clémentine had two children: Princess Marie-Clotilde, born in 1912, and Louis Jérôme Bonaparte, born in 1914. She died in Nice in 1955.
Membership
The second was Baron Auguste Goffinet, a member of the Belgian court.