page_title: Infanta María del Pilar of Spain
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: Infanta María del Pilar of Spain / Death
caption_attribution_description: English: Infanta Pilar of Spain, sister of King Alfonso XII
context_page_description: Infanta María del Pilar of Spain, daughter of Queen Isabella II of Spain and sister of King Alfonso XII, was an Infanta of Spain.
  At the age of seven, she accompanied her mother into exile in Paris, where she was educated at the College of the Sacred Heart. After the fall of Napoleon III, the royal family settled in Geneva. In 1875, with the restoration of the monarchy to her brother King Alfonso XII, she returned to Spain. Upon her mother's return to France, Pilar moved with her younger sisters Paz and Eulalia to the Royal Palace of Madrid. She completed her education under the supervision of her eldest sister Isabella, Princess of Asturias.
  There was a project to marry Infanta Pilar to the son of Napoleon III, Napoléon, Prince Imperial. The Empress of France, Eugenie, and Queen Isabella II were in favor of this union, but the young Prince Napoleon was killed in the Anglo-Zulu War. Two months later Pilar, age eighteen, died suddenly in Eskoriatza. Empress Eugenie took a wreath from her son's grave and sent it to Pilar's gravesite in El Escorial.
context_section_description: In the early summer 1879 it was organized that Pilar, Paz and Eulalia would spend some time in Eskoriatza, a small town known for its hot springs of mineral waters. On July 10 they arrived in Eskoriatza in the province of Gipuzkoa after a long and tiresome journey. In the following weeks, the sisters rested, leading a peaceful life dedicating their time to walks around the country side and reading. Infanta Paz noticed that Pilar looked pale and tired but since the sisters read each other's letters, Paz did not write about it to their eldest siblings to avoid alerting Pilar.
  On August 1 the local people arranged a little fiesta in the Infanta's honor. Wearing a white dress, and with a red beret on her head, Pilar attended the rustic fete and enjoyed its simple pleasures: donkey rides, bullocks and open-air dancing. That night, she complained of feeling tired. On August 3, Pilar did not feel well and she stayed in bed all day. At night while she was reading Graziella by Alphonse de Lamartine, she had an acute attack of convulsions, lost consciousness, and never woke up again. She died, probably of tuberculous meningitis. However, the official medical report was diagnosed with serious effusion. She was buried a few days later in El Escorial.
  King Alfonso XII and his sister Isabella arrived too late to see her alive. "Everyone", wrote the Infanta Paz afterwards, "loved Pilar best of all". Pilar herself was hoping to marry the Prince Imperial of France, nicknamed Loulou. On the day of his death, June 1, 1879 a pressed violet - the flower of the Bonapartes - is said to have fallen out of Pilar's prayer book and to have broken at the stalk. According to that legend, when Pilar learned of his death some weeks later, she pined away and died of a broken heart.
  The Empress Eugénie wrote from Camden on August 9, 1879 to her mother the Countess of Montijo "I have received a terrible blow with the death of Infanta Pilar who was so close to my son. You tell me that she felt sick after a dance in Eskoriatza. Could God have truly decided to take these two souls destined one to another." The Empress Eugénie took one of the wreaths from his son's burial and sent it to Pilar's in El Escorial.
  Infanta Paz, who was seventeen at the time, was deeply affected by her sister's death. Years later, the Infanta Paz married Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria, and decided to call her only daughter Pilar, in memory of her beloved sister. Thus, she introduced a Spanish name in the house of Wittelsbach.
caption: Infanta Pilar of Spain.
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