Various journals publish that I am leaving for Portugal in the character of a pretender to the hand of Queen Doña Maria. Flattered as I am at the thought of an alliance with a young, beautiful, and virtuous Sovereign, the widow of a cousin who was dear to me, it is my duty to deny this rumour. I may add that, despite the interest I feel in a nation which has conquered its liberty, I should certainly refuse to share the throne of Portugal, if, by chance, it were offered to me.
Louis Napoléon.
The historian will search in vain should he attempt to identify the other ladies “whose names had been placed before” the Prince.
The next heard of is the young Englishwoman, Miss Emily Rowles, of Camden Place, Chislehurst, the home in later years of the Emperor and Empress and their son. Miss Rowles indignantly terminated the engagement—which had been definitively arranged—when she heard of the relations which existed between the Prince and Miss Howard.
When he was residing in London (1847) the Prince aspired to the hand of Lady Clementina Villiers, daughter of Lord and Lady Jersey. Lady Jersey, however, disliked the suitor, and the affair was nipped in the bud. The Prince had asked Lord Malmesbury if he had any chance of success with the young lady, and was not encouraged by the reply, which appears to have been in the nature of a gentle snub.
Miss Burdett-Coutts was not to be won by an adventurous French Prince, although he was the nephew of Napoleon I.
Turn and turn about the Prince made advances to—
1. The daughter of the Prince de Wasa, husband of a daughter of the Grand Duchess of Baden (née Stéphanie Louise Adrienne de Beauharnais).
2. Princess Adelaide of Hohenzollern, niece of Queen Victoria’s consort, and sister of that Prince Leopold whose selection by Prim to occupy the vacant throne of Spain, in 1870, led up to the war.
3. A daughter of the Prince de Wagram, who “did not please him,” and who married Prince Joachim Murat.