00:08:28.800Her mother's side had a significantly less impressive lineage.
00:08:33.180Her mother was the daughter of a penniless Scotsman who emigrated to southern Spain as a young man to make his fortune, got a job in a wine shop, and then used that enterprising age-old technique of marrying the boss's daughter and taking over the business.
00:08:54.620So she's really from the merchant class on her mother's side, although she has a sister that marries into a very aristocratic family in France.
00:09:06.340Because those two, her mother and her mother's sister, her aunt, they were very beautiful, intelligent women, talented.
00:10:49.720She had that growing up, that she was not beautiful and that she was different.
00:10:58.240And I think that that really explains for anybody, if you're raised like that and that's how you see yourself, you develop your personality in a certain way.
00:11:07.040If you were treated as like, oh, the most beautiful favorite daughter, you would maybe develop certain traits, but because she wasn't, she became maybe a more interesting person.
00:11:16.440Right, right. And also, like, the family kind of split. Her mother was like a society hostess. And she was, Paca was much more her type of person. Paca was an older, was the responsible kind of older sister, obedient.
00:11:36.320And Eugenie was her father from top to toe, even though she had the Scottish hair.
00:11:42.040That's where she gets the red in her hair is from her Scottish side, from her mother's side.
00:11:47.460Her father, Eugenie's father, was a genuine, was such a romantic figure, just a genuine bona fide international war hero, complete with that dashing black eye patch.
00:13:08.400Right. So because the irony is that Eugenie's father, although Spanish and although Napoleon took over Spain and put his brother in there,
00:13:20.280Eugenie's father fought for Napoleon all his life, believed totally in Napoleon.
00:13:28.440And the reason for this was that it's a very complex legacy because Napoleon, whenever he went anywhere and took it over, he gave everyone a constitution.
00:13:45.220First, honest to God, I think he really believed in the principles of the French Revolution, equality, you know, liberty, equality, fraternity.
00:13:57.820Liberty to him, though, was getting rid of all the old corrupt, ineffective monarchies, like which Spain had one of the worst.
00:14:08.680All right. And also equality in his idea was that you should be judged.
00:14:15.920You should have opportunity based on your talent and skill and not on your birth.
00:14:20.480And that was that's what got so many groups over to him from the lower classes, from the people who are out of power.
00:14:30.060They idolized him to him. This is a form of government called government by the hero.
00:14:37.800All right. Napoleon was viewed as government by the hero. A supremely talented individual is going to come in, take over, get rid of the people that corrupt people who are keeping you down and make your lives better. Just trust in him. He's going to make your lives better. We have a little of that going on here in America right now. It's not going. It depends on how talented your hero is. And our hero is not talented at all.
00:15:03.440But OK, but that was what they believed. And Eugenie's father honestly believed that it was better for Spain to have Napoleon and a constitution because Napoleon gave a constitution. He jumpstarted this whole idea of a constitution all over Europe. Every place that had, you know, even Sisi, Bavaria got a constitution because of Napoleon.
00:15:24.660Italy got a constitution because of the following. So they understood, it took a long time for them
00:15:31.960to understand what a constitution was and what rights were, but eventually over time they did.
00:15:38.320And so Eugenie's father taught her to revere. I mean, you can't understand how much Napoleon
00:15:47.920was revered by the people who followed him, really, and the soldiers. So even though he's
00:15:52.980Spanish, Eugenie's father joins the French army and goes in. Even when Napoleon fell, he's one of0.95
00:16:00.640the last people in Paris defending the city against the allies coming in, the Prussians0.99
00:16:07.360coming in. So you can see where she was basically trained to love Napoleon.
00:16:14.560And then as I recall, and we've been looking at sort of the French Revolution era on this show,
00:16:20.340But I've looked we've looked a bit into the future as well. So Napoleon eventually he sent into exile. He comes back. He sent into exile again. He dies. But then and the monarch is restored in France. But then everyone's kind of like we miss Napoleon. Like let's let's actually celebrate him. You know, he's been dead for a while. And actually he wasn't so bad, was he? Like it just kept flip flopping. Right. It's like the Republic, a Napoleon relative. Like it just keeps going back and forth.
00:16:48.240So we get into Eugenie's eventual husband is a descendant or a relative.
00:16:56.360He's the nephew of the great Napoleon.
00:17:00.780So I think what happened was after the French Revolution, the terror came, right?
00:17:08.700And the terror was associated with the Republic.
00:17:12.440and they never even today we still have liberals and republics they allow crime they allow that
00:17:21.200kind of thing but when France overturned their when they beheaded their king and queen it wasn't
00:17:28.960that they had any experience with the republic they were still a monarchy in you know you can
00:17:35.520see how quickly where they turned to Napoleon to a strong and they still most of France Paris is a
00:17:42.360different part of, even today, is different than the rest of France, and they're much more liberal.
00:17:51.080They were ahead of time with government. So all these places had only understood monarchy,
00:17:58.080and that's why monarchy was able to come back. Well, in France, it came back because the Prussian,
00:18:03.660they put Louis XVI's younger brother, Louis XVIII, in power, but he only managed to stay there
00:18:13.520because they had Prussian troops holding up his regime. And he was very moderate. He didn't try
00:18:21.960and do anything. He kept the constitution. He kept the Napoleonic constitution. But his brother,
00:18:28.260when he died, his younger brother came in, Charles X, and he wanted to take everything
00:18:33.220back to an absolute monarchy. And they chased him out and put in this guy called the Citizen King,
00:18:39.120Louis-Philippe. And Louis-Philippe stayed for a long time. But he didn't do that much.
00:18:46.100Louis-Philippe, he dressed like a banker. I mean, there was no calling attention to yourself. You're
00:18:52.540trying to keep a low profile and not do too much. And France was actually kind of falling behind.
00:18:59.920You have the Industrial Revolution. All this stuff is coming and they're not really prepared for it.
00:19:05.960And and so they start to, of course, after 18 years or something, they get sick of Louis de Philippe and the economy isn't going that great.
00:19:15.420They chase him out. They try to put in a republic again and they're still not ready for a republic.
00:19:20.300And that's why Napoleon III is able to come in. Nephew is able to come in and take over and restate the French Second Empire.
00:19:29.920Right, because he comes in and it's something like, and you can correct me and explain what actually happened. But as I recall, it was something he came in, he's like, I'll be the president, don't worry about it. And then he's like, what if I'm just president for life? What if you call me emperor?0.53
00:19:44.780earth. You see, the thing is, though, they elected him by a margin of 7 million to 100,000 to be
00:19:52.140president. They decided to copy the American model for one small little period, but you only got one
00:19:59.780term, one four-year term. He got to the middle of his one four-year term and felt strongly that he
00:20:08.320deserved another term. We had this here. Okay. And they, he tried to do it legally and they
00:20:14.760wouldn't let him do it. And so he took over in a military coup, but he did something that we did
00:20:22.400not have here in America. Now, after he took over in the military coup, within three weeks, he said,
00:20:29.540I will put it to a vote. Tell me if you don't want me to be emperor, then you just vote me
00:20:37.920out of office. And by the same 7 million to 100,000, they voted him in because they wanted
00:20:45.580government by the hero. They wanted a strongman. He read the temperature of the kingdom better
00:20:52.300than the Republicans did. They did not want a republic. A republic was still associated with
00:21:00.020chaos and violence to them because the Republicans had taken over from Louis Philippe,
00:21:07.620in a violent way. They had chased away a legitimate ruler by rising up in the streets.
00:21:15.780And so it was one coup followed by another coup, basically. And they wanted a strongman.
00:21:27.740And they were extremely lucky to get Napoleon III because domestically, he was fantastic.
00:21:35.000internationally not so much it's french history of the 19th century i honestly i have a cheat
00:21:44.860sheet that i refer to sometimes it just explains because it just it just keeps there's so many
00:21:49.680revolutions that just keep they keep changing who's in charge but teenagers are not as volatile
00:21:56.140as as french french politics was during this period well and i think part of it to me as
00:22:02.860somebody who you know learning this for the first time it just really feels like no one was in
00:22:08.440charge they just wanted someone to be in charge they just wanted like you were saying the strong
00:22:12.200man the hero where it's just like okay we're gonna get rid of this king but then there's so much
00:22:16.020infighting it's like well who's gonna take over and they can't decide so you need someone with
00:22:19.260that like cult of personality for lack of a better term you need somebody who's gonna step in
00:22:23.720remember these people for centuries had monarchy centuries absolute monarchy too yeah monarchy
00:22:30.540Being a republic requires understanding of what your rights are, what is going on.
00:31:40.900She wanted to be in a position to do something and she couldn't.
00:31:45.100And that is another reason why she falls for Napoleon III.
00:31:50.160This also, though, and, you know, because this is a dual biography of her and also Empress Ceci, that reminds me so much of her because, and you talk about this in your book, but Ceci, her interest in helping people with mental problems, like opening hospitals, like she also really wanted to help.
00:32:04.880She had so many interests and she was just, her role as the wife of the emperor, it's just kind of like, how much can you really do?
00:32:14.580Yeah. Sissy gets credit for Eugenie because the second empire fell, you know, was so unsuccessful. They paint her as horrible. She did it more. Eugenie actually, they used to put boys who had stolen or whatever, had some crime, committed some crime.0.98
00:32:36.520They used to put boys as young as seven in prison and keep them in solitary.
00:32:41.640She changed the prison system for children in France.0.98
00:32:45.720She would go out with just her lady-in-waiting, just like Sissy,0.99
00:32:49.220and one lady-in-waiting dressed in black to charities, to provide charity,0.99
00:33:04.580They should be able to get a prize.0.79
00:33:08.520So she was a really good-hearted person who kind of fell under the spell of a crazy person.
00:33:16.600Okay, so let's talk about how she and Napoleon III meet each other and wind up married to each other.
00:33:22.520So I will tell you one thing about Eugenie.
00:33:25.600Eugenie is that girlfriend that we all have who has the worst taste ever in men.
00:33:30.840I mean, just the one cat. You can't stop her. One cat after another. She always thinks that this time it's going to be different, that he's really loves her, that he's going to change his ways. And that's how she winds up. One of the ways she winds up with Napoleon the third, who is the nephew, I said, of the first Napoleon. So she's already thinks he's a hero already.0.92
00:47:28.240She spends her entire life basically going around trying to pick up as much of Marie Antoinette's clothing, her possessions, whatever she had owned.
00:47:41.700Everything that basically that we have of Marie Antoinette's was saved by Eugenie.
00:48:52.980They were just dressed down. There was no fashionable stuff there. This was all to have people come to France, to have people emulate France and to have the economy because economic power was going to be the thing that was going to, it was the future.0.91
00:49:08.280And so that's how they were going to help all the poor people by giving, there's more
00:49:13.440jobs in the factories, the factories boom, there's more jobs for seamstresses, there's
00:49:17.980more jobs for jewelers, there's more jobs for the people who may find China, all of
00:49:23.320this stuff, artists, all of this stuff.
00:49:28.240This is, it's so lucky, really, that Napoleon III noticed her, chose to marry her because
00:49:36.380she was so beautiful because it turns out politically, like she was, I don't know,
00:49:40.620to make an American comparison, she's like the Michelle Obama of first ladies. Like she's not0.95
00:49:44.380just going to decorate the house for Christmas. She's going to like do stuff too. Like she's so
00:49:47.900capable and other women wouldn't have done all this stuff. That's right. Cause her mother was1.00
00:49:52.040a society hostess. She knew how to sit. I will tell you the second empire, when you saw the,1.00
00:49:57.760if you watched the Paris Olympics, that was the second empire. Okay. That over the top
00:50:03.300celebration of French culture, the glamour, the beauty of it, the spectacle of it. That was
00:50:10.940the front. I say, you know, the gowns and jewels, the spectacle. And it wasn't just
00:50:15.900the parties. It was the arts, theater, science. I mean, the French second empire makes the
00:50:24.780American Gilded Age look like the real housewives of Cleveland. That's how much she just walked1.00
00:50:32.540into it and made France what Napoleon III had wanted. Now he's doing all the, he's putting in
00:50:41.980the railroads, he's remaking Paris, and that was his vision. But he's remaking Paris, he's putting
00:50:51.960in sewers, he's making parks, he's making it beautiful. He turns it into the romantic city
00:50:57.420that we all adore today. That's Napoleon III. He did that. Totally his vision, not the guy,1.00
00:51:02.660you know, Hoffman, whatever his name is. I forget, the architect who did it. Anyway,
00:51:09.500that was not his vision. It was Napoleon III's vision. He was involved in it all.
00:51:13.580But Eugenie populated it. Eugenie, because she was so beautiful in the clothes,
00:51:18.280because she put gold in her hair, you know, gold dust in her hair, because she wore this,
00:51:22.720or Winterhalter was her painter, Charles Frederick Worth, the House of Worth. She
00:51:28.600starts Haute Couture. That was her designer. These people, this is what French culture just0.93
00:51:34.880bowls everyone over during this period. And how was she seen during that period?
00:51:40.260Was she beloved? She was. I would say the first 10 years or so, it's all working great. It's all
00:51:51.660great and great and then comes the civil war before that though can we get to he he married
00:51:59.680her partially because he needed an heir and so she had one child right right she almost died
00:52:05.680having that child and it was a it was a son and they told her i mean it sounded horrible i mean
00:52:11.360labor i think went on for two days and so she had but she has a healthy son she gives him a healthy
00:52:18.060son and they tell her she can never have any more children. So he was already cheating on her. He0.97
00:52:24.680cheated on her after six months. I mean, he was never going to be faithful, but she couldn't have
00:52:29.080any more children with him. Then they start to really have to become, find a way through their
00:52:33.500marriage without her being totally humiliated every time, which she is. I mean, my book is very,
00:52:39.440okay, I got a very fat book here, like it's 500 pages or whatever. 300 or 400 pages of it are just
00:52:45.980Napoleon III in his affairs. I mean, it's, I couldn't get all the sex even in.
00:52:53.160So, you know, this is, this is part of it. This is part of what she's also dealing with
00:52:58.220throughout it. It makes me, I keep thinking of Princess Diana, all the things you're talking
00:53:03.620about, how she loved to be among the people she wanted to help. Like she had this level of glamour
00:53:07.880reminds me of that. But then also it's like the public face is like, oh, look at this beautiful
00:53:12.560woman and behind the scenes it's this not great marriage terrible marriage terrible marriage he
00:53:19.240he shoved it in her face i mean it was very public he whenever he fell in love with it he would fall
00:53:25.680in love he would fall in love every fourth day with somebody else or so um she had to just deal
00:53:33.080with that and that was so she was always pretty pretty sad about that well and again this is where
00:53:40.300like your book, and I think it does this really beautifully, like Cece and Eugenie who are being
00:53:44.900hailed as these wonderful, beautiful women. Look, they're so stylish. They're so gorgeous. And their
00:53:49.040personal lives are just sad. Right. And they put it on as it's part of their, it's armor.
00:53:56.960This is what they are. The glamour and everything is what keeps them inside private. You know,
00:54:04.460they at least have that kind of thing. But Eugenie, everyone knew, everyone all over Europe,
00:54:10.200There was nothing to do about it. This is who he was. And we should get into, though, the empire was not all great.
00:54:20.060OK, the second empire, that was the domestic side. All right. And he did. He gave them railroads.
00:54:25.560He put them into the future. Everything that you see today, they're still living off the second empire, what they did domestically.
00:54:31.940internationally he was a disaster he was and we're dealing with it right now he was an agent
00:54:38.740of chaos he in the 19th century it was it we're coming back to it today it was like there was a
00:54:47.440big poker table and all the kings sat around it all the major powers sat around it and tried to
00:54:53.360out cheat each other at cards and to see who had the best hand and scheme and all that stuff and
00:54:59.000Napoleon III, he thought he was a lot smarter. They always think they're the smartest one with
00:55:06.740the best hand at the table. And believe me, there's always somebody smart. Today, everyone's
00:55:12.780smarter from the guy we have at the head of the table. But they had Otto von Bismarck, and he was
00:55:19.140a very smart guy, and way ahead of everybody, way ahead, certainly, of Napoleon III.0.60
00:55:25.020And this is all leading towards civil war. You described it.
00:55:29.380No, no. Civil war was the reason why the textile industry, why the economy, why they soured on Eugenia and why they soured on the Second Empire was because the Americans were a big, big market for French goods, especially the South.
00:55:45.880And when the American Civil War hit, and all those textiles companies, all the textile industry went into depression. And on top of that, Mexico went into, had a little revolution and a guy named Benito Juarez came into power.
00:56:07.380and there were a lot of French people who had invested in Mexico with bonds and he reneged on
00:56:13.360all. So they start to go into a tailspin a little bit in the economy. And they had also spent a lot
00:56:21.160of money on wars. They had participated in the Crimean War and the war in Italy. And it didn't
00:56:29.300really, they needed to build up again. They were all of a sudden, the debt that they had gone into
00:56:35.940for everything, for the railroads, for the army, just starts to, they need money. And that's when
00:56:44.540the empire starts to falter. That's when people start to get sour on the empire.
00:56:49.620So it's kind of all these things put together, like you mentioned, so about his international
00:56:53.280relations were awful. And part of that is going to these wars and then going into debt because
00:56:58.320the war is that they don't win, combined with what you mentioned about the South. So just
00:57:02.940everything is so how long was the empire thriving 10 years 20 years 18 well 1860 so he gets it in
00:57:16.0801852 1853 she comes in 1860 1861 is when the they've already had two wars they've had the
00:57:27.360Crimean War and Italy. They've already 1863, probably. So 10 years, 10 years. And then it
00:57:35.540all starts to, then it starts to become difficult. And that's where Eugenie comes up because Eugenie
00:57:42.480has learned about foreign relations from her husband. In fact, she said, the notes I took
00:57:48.240trying to figure out, she doesn't know a diploma, she doesn't know anything, but what she loves
00:57:52.840about him is that she says he pushes all, he'll gamble everything on one action and that's why
00:58:00.180he wins. All right. And he had gambled everything on Italy and he didn't win there. He got out and,
00:58:07.740but he set off all this stuff in motion that Italy was going to become one nation, which was
00:58:14.360not what he wanted. But Eugenie says, okay, I know what we should do. We should get somebody
00:58:24.640to take over Mexico. That will help us get silver because there are silver mines in Mexico. Because0.86
00:58:32.720this was the age of colonialism and people did want to, I mean, England is going to the Zulus0.78
00:58:38.980and India, and they wanted resources.0.80
00:58:42.780This way, we'll get our money back out of Mexico having defaulted on the bonds, and
01:07:54.420I think we talked about this before we started recording,
01:07:56.900but in general, I think I had said, why have I never heard of her?
01:08:00.540And you said it's because after this, like after the fall of the Second Empire, it was all, people just wanted to forget that she ever existed because they wanted to.
01:08:24.040they tried to ignore that they had the second empire, but they kept a lot of stuff from not
01:08:29.940just the physical Paris. They kept a lot of stuff from Eugenie. For example, the Olympics. If you
01:08:36.440saw the Paris Olympics, that was so much in the tradition of the second empire. That fabulous
01:08:44.920party, the over-the-top stuff, the celebration of French culture, that's all she ever did.
01:08:50.380They're bringing people to the city, that tourism, that was another of the economic things they tried to do to help the economy, and to bring money in and jobs and get French culture out there.0.98
01:09:05.740So that's a direct line to the fabulous Second Empire, which they still have haute couture.
01:13:08.940We're only going to give you $5 million.
01:13:10.700And so they were totally unprepared when it happened.
01:13:13.720So the aftermath of all of this is, maybe I'm forgetting some other interim rebellion or revolution, but after the fall of the Second Empire, France went into a situation where they have a president, and that's it, a voted elected president.
01:13:35.020That was the Third Republic. Well, except for when you get into World War II, the Germans come in and stuff like that. So there are different. But no, then they stayed a republic after that. They have today an assembly, an elected assembly and a president, and they fought it out and they decided this is what they want.0.96
01:14:03.540So having written this book about these two women, it seems to me that Cece is, and maybe
01:14:10.120it's because of those movies from the 1950s or 60s.
01:15:00.200They kept all the stuff that they did.
01:15:03.020They tried, they, I mean, they didn't have the same glamour right off the bat because0.96
01:15:09.140they were, but one of the reasons they were able to pay off the Prussian so fast was that
01:15:14.040all the improvements to the infrastructure and the economy that Napoleon III had put
01:15:20.580in, the telegraph, the railroads, all that stuff, that allowed them to come back.
01:15:25.180That's why they were able to come back.
01:15:26.880And they kept them, all that stuff he put in to help them in the future has kept them going all this time.
01:15:33.240Now, I don't know how long it will, they probably need to do some refreshing now.
01:15:38.400But that lasted a century at least, which was, you know, I wish people would put infrastructure in here.
01:15:47.740So it's sort of like her name might not be remembered very widely, but the effects of what she did are still every single day.
01:15:55.200You walk through. That's her. And they've just opened up the Napoleon III rooms, and they put the fashion show there. And if you go to France right now, you can go to the Louvre and see what it was like.
01:16:07.680They refurnished them. They are also kind of coming back slowly. That happens in history. It takes a couple hundred years for people to get real perspective on what actually happened back then.
01:16:21.660mm-hmm and so when like your book is just oh when this episode comes out your book will have just
01:16:28.460come out in in mid-february so have you like the conversations you've been having with people about
01:16:34.880this book what sorts of um response are most people talking to you about cc um is anyone
01:16:41.600asking about eugenie besides me well no i i i will do um other things about eugenie because
01:16:48.040I think, you know, that's what I do. I, I, I'm the person who writes about all the most
01:16:54.880important and influential women in European history who nobody's ever heard of, you know,
01:16:59.900and people have heard of Sissy. And, you know, in Germany, she's a rock star. She's, she's there.0.99
01:17:07.680She's got a movie every year about her. She's got two series going on about her at the same time,
01:17:14.020German language, one on Netflix, one on BBS, but they don't really, I think, and so of course,
01:17:20.780people want to talk about her, but they don't really see her in context, I don't think, in
01:17:26.160German. I don't think, they don't give her, they certainly don't give her the credit.
01:17:30.980They're fascinated by her being sort of insane kind of thing. And believe me, if you had Sissy's
01:17:38.440life and that mother-in-law and that court and everything that happened to her, you'd be a
01:17:43.020little nutsy too you'd wander the world too if you had everything that had happened to her0.99
01:17:48.600but she actually she was an even better empress in many ways as bad enough you know she didn't do1.00
01:17:57.020any of the of the um the stuff that she well she went around to the local people she didn't stay0.99
01:18:03.780and like behave like a normal empress but she saved that what was left of that empire0.61
01:18:09.720Franz Joseph had lost almost all of it.
01:18:12.300Franz Joseph just gets this big pass because he lived for so long.
01:18:48.760And Sisi helped negotiate the single incidents where a political difference between two places was negotiated peacefully and ended without violence, without repression, without any of that.
01:19:05.720Today, you get the Nobel Peace Prize for that.
01:22:39.160Well, and again, I said at the beginning of the episode, but also I am so grateful for your work because I've done episodes about Joanna of Naples, Catherine Domenici, Queen Margot. And like your books are, they're really such a good way of explaining, like to me, who was just starting, I didn't know, I didn't know what Joanna of Naples or that world, like you explain things really well, but then how you described it, what did you say? You're a narrative historian?
01:23:00.840It's not a biographer. It's not a straight back. I have to tell you, in this book,
01:23:07.140Sissy has so much to happen. It's really about glamour and power. Once you're out of power,0.99
01:23:11.580I don't. Sissy had so much bad happen to her that her younger sister burned up,
01:23:17.520and I couldn't even get it in the book. I couldn't. But the biographies, especially the one that is,
01:23:28.080the german one that um is the supposed to be the bible about her it's so because they don't have
01:23:34.660the context they're not looking at it from the outside world at all they're just being very
01:23:40.800narrow i i i thought it was so mean and so unfair i would often just throw that book across the room
01:23:48.280when i read something it's just it's because she just biographer just comes out and says oh this
01:23:53.840she was terrible about this. And she was terrible about that. Excuse me, she's got to fight all
01:23:58.800these people. Yeah, you know, so I know, I love both these women. Both these women are, I think,1.00
01:24:07.200I wish Eugenie had not done Mexico, of course, but we're all flawed. And it was something of
01:24:15.300its time. So you can't put her in it as a great ruler or anything like that. But boy, did she
01:24:20.600trying every other way and all this all this believe me all this stuff all the glamour this
01:24:27.100was just in service to the people that she was trying to help nothing else yeah well thank you
01:24:33.700so much for for joining me today yeah this was such a treat and honestly I read your book and
01:24:39.240I feel like I learned even more it's I love I love being able to talk to the author because
01:24:43.660I'm like explain this to me and now I'm like oh I understand this better maybe I could maybe I
01:24:47.360kind of understand france in the 19th century i know it's really hard and everybody's named
01:24:52.960napoleon so there's nothing to do i know it's like everyone was called louis when it's the
01:24:57.580monarchs and then suddenly everyone's called napoleon and i'm just it's i brand name recognition
01:25:02.360you were never sure that your guy wasn't gonna be yeah true well thank you again for taking the
01:25:09.720so nancy's latest book is the rebel empresses elizabeth of austria and eugenie of france
01:25:19.100power and glamour in the struggle for europe and i did want to mention that we talked a lot about
01:25:25.860um napoleon the third and all of his mistresses one of them not mentioned in this book but it's
01:25:32.800because there was a lot of mistresses there's not room to talk about all of them in the book
01:25:35.840was Rochelle, the Jewish actress who we did an episode about a bit ago. Rochelle was,1.00
01:25:44.080she was one of the mistresses of Napoleon III. And allegedly, she was the one who taught Eugenie
01:25:50.400how to curtsy in the most, I don't know, acceptable or dramatic way. The whole thing
01:25:56.320with Rochelle, this actress, was she had really good hand gestures and really good posture. And0.66
01:26:01.120then Eugenie, we learned about here, like she wasn't raised as a royal. So it makes sense to
01:26:05.080me, then maybe she would have turned to Rochelle to learn what's the correct way to like curtsy or
01:26:08.840to bow. Anyway, I love that Nancy took the time to talk with me about this book. And I do really
01:26:13.940recommend this book. And I think having Cece, like half the book Cece, half the book Eugenie
01:26:18.820really helps ground it or it did for me because I kind of knew the time and the place a bit from
01:26:22.520the Cece stuff. So then I could kind of more understand what was happening with Eugenie.
01:26:26.200But also this does connect with our overall theme that we're kind of like dipping in and out of this
01:26:31.140year, where we're looking at Marie Antoinette and 18th century France and the French Revolution.
01:26:37.060This was like what we're talking, what we just talked about, what you just heard about. Eugenie
01:26:40.720really gets into what happened after the French Revolution. And what happened after the French
01:26:45.080Revolution was more revolutions and just kind of constant chaos. And that reminds me of a thing
01:26:50.900that I had mentioned towards the beginning of this whole season when we started it last year,
01:26:56.680which is the astrology of it all. By which I mean that on November 19th of 2024, this past year,
01:27:06.600Pluto moved into Aquarius. And the last time Pluto was in Aquarius was around 200 years ago
01:27:11.520in 1778, around the time of the American Revolution. It stayed there until 1798,
01:27:17.320around the time of the French Revolution. And so during the time that Pluto was in Aquarius last
01:27:21.840time. The American Revolutionary War, French Revolution, Haitian Revolution, the Industrial
01:27:26.260Revolution, the Enlightenment era. And I sort of, I, oh, the Irish uprising, lots of things happen.
01:27:33.060And so I mentioned when we started the Marie Internet series that like, wow, we're just going
01:27:36.780to get into this astrological thing that happened before. Little did I realize how chaotic everything,
01:27:45.420how unprecedented times this would all have turned out for all of us, but I don't know. So
01:27:50.300like I talked about in last week's episode a bit, like to me, looking at people who lived
01:27:55.380through chaotic, unprecedented times and just kept going, I find some reassurance in that or
01:28:01.760inspiration. Like just the fact that people put one foot in front of the other able-bodied people,
01:28:07.920just some people kept breathing, just some people kept living another day, even when things around
01:28:12.440them were just like constant chaos. And again, truly, I didn't, I never conceived how chaotic
01:28:19.740things would feel right now when these episodes were coming out. But it's kind of like what we're
01:28:23.940talking with Eugenie and even with Cece, it's kind of like, well, they were living in these chaotic
01:28:27.880times as well. Anyway, by which I mean, I'm going to have this podcast every week. And I hope that
01:28:35.460brings some reassurance to all of you, especially people listening to this from America, which is
01:28:40.780just like, wow, quite a time you're having. And I also wanted to mention some other things that I
01:28:48.320like to mention at the end of episodes, such as I am writing a book, Rebel of the Regency,
01:28:54.900The Scandalous Saga of Carolina Brunswick, Britain's Uncrowned Queen. It's going to be
01:28:59.020coming out next year. And every week there's new updates from me about what's happening with that
01:29:04.420book and what the latest things are that I'm doing. And if you want to get that behind the
01:29:08.680scenes, look at what's going on, the best way to do that is to join my mailing list.
01:29:13.900with my mailing list. What it is, is once a month, like mid month, I'll send an email with kind of
01:29:19.500like, here's the book updates. Here's some information about the podcast stuff. Here's
01:29:24.500some like books and TV shows and movies that I've been enjoying. There is, here's my next
01:29:28.660in-person events. There might be one coming up maybe in Toronto. Stay tuned. So if you want to
01:29:34.900sign up for that and just get kind of like your Ann Foster updates, go to vulgarhistory.com
01:29:38.980slash news and sign up for my newsletter. You can also follow me on Substack where I post essays.
01:29:46.980Women's History Month, you know, I do this all the year anyway, but it is Women's History Month.
01:29:50.920And if you're like, I want some every two weeks, a Women's History newsletter, you can get that
01:29:56.980on my Substack, vulgarhistory.substack.com. And the best way, if you want even more from me,
01:30:03.900you can keep up with me on Patreon, where I am at patreon.com slash annfosterwriter.0.96
01:30:08.020And I've been posting more stuff there and less stuff on other various social media things as part of my attempt to divest from billionaire oligarchs and their fucked up algorithms.
01:30:20.820So if you want to just keep up with kind of like more random thoughts, just kind of like interesting links or what's going on, like little chats, that's all happening at patreon.com slash annfosterwriter, which you can join for absolute free.
01:30:31.220And you can just hang out there and see the things that I post there for free people, which is like a couple things a week.
01:30:35.960if you want to get a little bit more for one dollar a month you can on patreon patreon.com
01:30:43.020and foster writer you get early ad free access to all episodes of vulgar history and that includes
01:30:47.560also ad free access to previous episodes of vulgar history so you can just get all your
01:30:52.220episodes there without any advertising breaks for one dollar a month or if you pledge five dollars
01:30:56.580or more a month on patreon then you also get bonus episodes of things like vulgar peace theater
01:31:03.180where we did talk about a movie a cc based movie i don't know if there is a eugenie based movie but
01:31:09.980we did talk about oh what was it called corsage corsage the cc movie from a few years ago we0.98
01:31:17.340talked about that in vulgar peace theater um there's also episodes there so this asshole
01:31:20.940um i haven't done one about napoleon the third but i feel like i feel like i might anyway that's
01:31:26.500all at the five dollars or more a month level on patreon and also when you join at the five dollars
01:31:30.380or more a month level, you get to join our Discord, which is like a big group chat where
01:31:33.980we just chill out, hang out. We talk about Survivor, the traders, share pictures of our pets,
01:31:40.160provide emotional support for each other. One of the members of the Discord, I hope I'm not
01:31:44.480saying anything that I shouldn't be saying, acquired a copy of Lola Montez's book,
01:31:51.080like a vintage copy from actually when Lola Montez wrote it and shared pictures of that.
01:31:55.780And we were all losing our minds. It was really cool to see. Anyway, we also have
01:31:59.480a brand partner, which is Common Era Jewelry, which is a woman-owned small business that makes
01:32:04.160beautiful heirloom jewelry. The pieces are made in New York City. Everybody who is involved in
01:32:10.000this company has healthcare and good wages. The packaging is made by a little family-owned
01:32:14.300business in Chicago. So if you're just thinking about like, who do I want to buy my shit from?0.99
01:32:19.360And do I want, do I know what the company is about? Do I want to support that company? Like0.99
01:32:23.740where I've always felt comfortable joining with Common Era Jewelry is because of everything I
01:32:27.260just said like this is a bespoke company and so they make gorgeous designs they make necklaces
01:32:33.420they make um rings and a lot of them are inspired by women from history like they have a little face
01:32:39.220of a person on it like cleopatra or whoever also women from myth maybe you're feeling like medusa
01:32:44.280that one sold really well that one's been selling really well apparently um the more the patriarchy
01:32:49.940is taking over the world in a handmaid's tale nightmare people are turning to people like
01:32:54.760Medusa. Anyway, they also have a new collection, common era jewelry does, of zodiac jewelry
01:33:00.880inspired by an obscure 17th century alchemical manuscript. So basically, this is not just like
01:33:06.280I'm an Aries. So it's not just kind of like, oh, look, it's a ram. No, it's like, it looks like
01:33:11.740zodiac jewelry you've maybe never seen before. So it reimagines zodiac jewelry through the lens
01:33:15.760of ancient alchemical wisdom. Each pendant features an ancient sigil crafted under precise
01:33:21.240astrological conditions once believed to hold protective and transformative powers now i don't
01:33:26.200know about eugenie's vibe but i feel like this is very catherine de medici vibe this is very like
01:33:31.860nostradamus vibe so more than a dormant these pieces are modern talismans symbols of connection
01:33:37.480intention and the timeless magic of the stars these pieces are all the pieces from common ear
01:33:42.920jewelry are available in solid gold as well as a more affordable gold vermeil the zodiac stuff
01:33:47.860there is a delay on getting those in the more affordable gold vermeil but you can if you go
01:33:52.060to their website you can go on the wait list you'll be notified when those are for sale
01:33:55.060and if you purchase from common era jewelry you get 15 off your order by going to commonera.com
01:34:02.020slash vulgar or using code vulgar at checkout you can also get your vulgar history merchandise
01:34:07.200at vulgarhistory.com slash store in the u.s if you're outside the u.s um you can shop i recommend
01:34:14.340And going to our other store, our Redbubble store, because the shipping is better outside the U.S., vulgarhistory.redbubble.com.
01:34:21.640You can get in touch with me using the form at vulgarhistory.com if you have things that you want to talk about.
01:36:27.920and discover the realms of peril and glory today.
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