East Riding Museums

This item is in the Burton Constable Hall collections and is included on this database by kind permission of the Burton Constable Foundation. The Emperor Napoleon III made no secret of his love for Mademoiselle de Montijo, who sat for her portrait shortly before becoming his wife and the Empress of France. Perhaps less well known was Eugenié’s reported romantic dalliance with Sir Talbot Clifford Constable (1828-94) of Burton Constable Hall. According to The Critic, Sir Talbot ‘came near to marrying this fair daughter of Spain’. Unfortunately, Eugenié’s hot temper and ‘spirited ways’ were too much for Sir Talbot. It seems that in a ‘paroxysm of temper’ she ‘boxed him on the ears’ - and thus cooled his ardour! The original marble bust by Nieuwerkerke is in the Musée Napoléon Schloss Arenenburg. Located in theChapel Passage. After Alfred-Emilien O’Hara Nieuwerkerke (1811-92)