page_title: Eugénie de Montijo
section_title: Role in Franco-Prussian War
hierarchical_section_title: Eugénie de Montijo / Empress / Role in Franco-Prussian War
caption_attribution_description: English: Empress Eugénie of the French holding a small parasol.
context_page_description: Doña María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick, 16th Countess of Teba, 15th Marchioness of Ardales, known as Eugénie de Montijo, was the last empress of the French as the wife of Emperor Napoleon III.
context_section_description: After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Eugénie remained in Paris as Regent while Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial travelled to join the troops at the German front. When the news of several French defeats reached Paris on 7 August, it was greeted with disbelief and dismay. Prime Minister Émile Ollivier and the chief of staff of the army, Marshal Le Bœuf both resigned and Eugenie took it upon herself to name a new government. She chose General Cousin-Montauban, better known as the count of Palikao, 74 years old, as her new prime minister. The count of Palikao named Maréchal Francois Achille Bazaine, the commander of the French forces in Lorraine, as the new overall military commander. Napoleon III proposed returning to Paris, realizing that he was doing no good for the army. The empress responded by telegraph: "Don't think of coming back, unless you want to unleash a terrible revolution. They will say you quit the army to flee the danger." The emperor agreed to remain with the army. With the empress directing the country, and Bazaine commanding the army, the emperor no longer had any real role to play. At the front, the emperor told Marshal Le Bœuf "we've both been dismissed."
  The army was ultimately defeated and Napoleon III gave himself up to the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan. The news of the capitulation reached Paris on 3 September, and when it was given to the empress that the emperor and the army were prisoners, she reacted by shouting at the Emperor's personal aide "No! An emperor does not capitulate! He is dead!...They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn't he kill himself! Doesn't he know he has dishonored himself?!". Later, when hostile crowds formed near the Tuileries palace, and the staff began to flee, the empress slipped out with one of her entourage and sought sanctuary with her American dentist, Thomas W. Evans, who took her to Deauville. From there, on 7 September, she took the yacht of a British official to England. In the meantime, on 4 September, a group of republican deputies proclaimed the return of the Republic, and the creation of a Government of National Defense.
  From 5 September 1870 until 19 March 1871, Napoleon III and his entourage including Joseph Bonaparte's grandson Louis Joseph Benton, were held in comfortable captivity in a castle at Wilhelmshöhe, near Kassel. Eugénie traveled incognito to Germany to visit Napoleon.
caption: Empress Eugénie holding a small parasol, mid 1860s
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