Princess Clémentine of Belgium (d. 1955)
Princess Clémentine of Belgium (French: Clémentine Albertine Marie Léopoldine, Dutch: Clementina Albertina Maria Leopoldina; 30 July 1872 – 8 March 1955), was by birth a Princess of Belgium and member of the House of Wettin in the branch of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (as such she was also styled Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duchess in Saxony). In 1910, she became Princess Napoléon and de jure Empress consort of the French as the wife of Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric Bonaparte, Bonapartist pretender to the Imperial throne of France (as Napoleon V).
The third daughter of King Leopold II of Belgium and Queen Marie Henriette (born Archduchess of Austria), her birth was the result of a final reconciliation of her parents after the death in 1869 of their son and only dynastic heir, Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant. As a teenager, Clémentine fell in love with her first cousin Prince Baudouin. The young man, who did not share the feelings his cousin had for him, died of pneumonia in 1891 at the age of 21.
Clémentine hardly got along with her mother and was closer to her father, whom she frequently accompanied. He hoped in 1896 that she would marry Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, but Clémentine opposed the union.
As years went by, Clémentine remained single. Around 1902, shortly after Queen Marie Henriette's death, she began to have feelings for Prince Napoléon Victor Bonaparte. 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 had to wait for her father's death in 1909 to be able to marry Prince Napoleon. Their marriage finally took place in 1910, after the new Belgian ruler, her cousin King Albert I, gave his consent. The couple moved to Avenue Louise in Brussels. The couple had two children: Marie Clotilde, born in 1912, and Louis Jérôme, born in 1914.
When World War I broke out, Clémentine and her family took refuge in Great Britain and were hosted in the residence of the former Empress Eugénie. Across the Channel, Clémentine was active for the Belgian cause, and many compatriots found refuge in England. With her cousin-in-law Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium, she worked actively for the Red Cross.
After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, Clémentine returned to Belgium. In her Château de Ronchinne, in the Namur Province, she and her husband devoted themselves to charitable activities after four years of war. Clémentine frequently visited Turin and Rome with the Italian royal family.
She was somewhat removed from French political life, but Clémentine convinced her husband to return to politics and supported him financially. However, he gradually rallied to the republican idea. In 1926, he died a week after being subjected to a stroke. 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.
From 1937, Clémentine stayed more and more frequently in France, but it was in Ronchinne that she was surprised by the declaration of World War II in September 1939. As soon as she could, she went to France and stayed there since the invasion of Belgium in the spring of 1940 prevented her from returning to her native country. After 1945, Clémentine somewhat abandoned her property in Ronchinne and divided her time between Savoy and the Côte d'Azur, where she died in 1955, at the age of 82.