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Principessa Maria Clotilde of Sardinia
(1843–1911)

Other names: Ludovica Teresa Maria Clotilde

Biographical

The marriage between Clotilde and Prince was arranged through the Franco-Sardinian alliance. When they married, Clotilde was sixteen, Napoléon was almost forty. They had little in common and little affection for each other. Clotilde moved to Paris with her husband, and lived there quietly, dedicating herself to her children, and works of piety. In August 1870, her father asked her to return to Turin due to the dangerous situation in France, but she refused, declaring her duty to her children and France. After the fall of the Bonaparte dynasty, she left France in September that year, and lived in Prangins at Lake Geneva until 1878, when she moved permanently to the castle of Moncalieri at Piedmont. She lived separately from her husband, but they maintained good relations. She rushed to his bedside before he died in 1891. She became a tertiary of the Dominican Order.

Place of birth: Turin
Place of marriage: Turin
Place of death: Moncalieri
Place of burial: Basilica of Superga

Daughter of King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy and Maria Adelheid, Archduchess of Austria (Habsburg). She married Napoléon-Jérôme Bonaparte, Prince Napoléon, in 1859 and had issue.

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