EUGÉNIE [Marie-Eugénie-Ignace-Augustine de Montijo] (1826- ), wife of Napoleon III., emperor of the French, daughter of Don Cipriano Guzman y Porto Carrero, count of Teba, subsequently count of Montijo and grandee of Spain, was born at Grenada on the 5th of May 1826. Her mother was a daughter of William Kirkpatrick, United States consul at Malaga, a Scotsman by birth and an American by nationality. Her childhood was spent in Madrid, but after 1834 she lived with her mother and sister chiefly in Paris, where she was educated, like so many French girls of good family, in the convent of the Sacré Cœur. When Louis Napoleon became president of the Republic she appeared frequently with her mother at the balls given by the prince president at the Elysée, and it was here that she made the acquaintance of her future husband. In November 1852 mother and daughter were invited to Fontainebleau, and in the picturesque hunting parties the beautiful young Spaniard, who showed herself an expert horsewoman, was greatly admired by all present and by the host in particular. Three weeks later, on the 2nd of December, the Empire was formally proclaimed, and during a series of fêtes at Compiègne, which lasted eleven days (19th to 30th December), the emperor became more and more fascinated. On New Year’s Eve, at a ball at the Tuileries, Mdlle de Montijo, who had necessarily excited much jealousy and hostility in the female world, had reason to complain that she had been insulted by the wife of an official personage. On hearing of it the emperor said to her, “Je vous vengerai”; and within three days he made a formal proposal of marriage. In a speech from the throne on the 22nd of January he formally announced his engagement, and justified what some people considered a mésalliance. “I have preferred,” he said, “a woman whom I love and respect to a woman unknown to me, with whom an alliance would have had advantages mixed with sacrifices.” Of her whom he had chosen he ventured to make a prediction: “Endowed with all the qualities of the soul, she will be the ornament of the throne, and in the day of danger she will become one of its courageous supports.” The marriage was celebrated with great pomp at Notre Dame on the 30th of January 1853. On the 16th of March 1856 the empress gave birth to a son, who received the title of Prince Imperial. The emperor’s prediction regarding her was not belied by events. By her beauty, elegance and charm of manner she contributed largely to the brilliancy of the imperial régime, and when the end came, she was, as the official Enquête made by her enemies proved, one of the very few who showed calmness and courage in face of the rising tide of revolution. The empress acted three times as regent during the absence of the emperor,—in 1859, 1865 and 1870,—and she was generally consulted on important questions. When the emperor vacillated between two lines of policy she generally urged on him the bolder course; she deprecated everything tending to diminish the temporal power of the papacy, and she disapproved of the emperor’s liberal policy at the close of his reign. On the collapse of the Empire she fled to England, and settled with the emperor and her son at Chislehurst. After the emperor’s death she removed to Farnborough, where she built a mausoleum to his memory. In 1879 her son was killed in the Zulu War, and in the following year she visited the spot and brought back the body to be interred beside that of his father. At Farnborough and in a villa she built at Cap Martin on the Riviera, she continued to live in retirement, following closely the course of events, but abstaining from all interference in French politics.
EUGENIUS, the name of four popes.
Eugenius I., pope from 654 to 657. Elected on the banishment of Martin I. by the emperor Constans II., and at the height of the Monothelite crisis, he showed greater deference than his predecessor to the emperor’s wishes, and made no public stand against the patriarchs of Constantinople. He, however, held no communication with them, being closely watched in this respect by Roman opinion.
Eugenius II., pope, was a native of Rome, and was chosen to succeed Pascal I. in 824. His election did not take place without difficulty. Eugenius was the candidate of the nobles, and the clerical faction brought forward a competitor. But the monk Wala, the representative of the emperor Lothair, succeeded in arranging matters, and Eugenius was elected. Lothair, however, came to Rome in person, and took advantage of this opportunity to redress many abuses in the papal administration, to vest the election of the pope in the nobles, and to confirm the statute that no pope should be consecrated until his election had the approval of the emperor. A council which assembled at Rome during the reign of Eugenius passed several enactments for the restoration of church discipline, took measures for the foundation of schools and chapters, and decided against priests wearing a secular dress or engaging in secular occupations. Eugenius also adopted various provisions for the care of the poor and of widows and orphans. He died in 827.
(L. D.*)
Eugenius III. (Bernardo Paganelli), pope from the 15th of February 1145 to the 8th of July 1153, a native of Pisa, was abbot of the Cistercian monastery of St Anastasius at Rome when suddenly elected to succeed Lucius II. His friend and instructor, Bernard of Clairvaux, the most influential ecclesiastic of the time, remonstrated against his election on account of his “innocence and simplicity,” but Bernard soon acquiesced and continued to be the mainstay of the papacy throughout Eugenius’s pontificate. It was to Eugenius that Bernard addressed his famous work De consideratione. Immediately after his election, the Roman senators demanded the pope’s renunciation of temporal power. He refused and fled to Farfa, where he was consecrated on the 17th of February. By treaty of December 1145 he recognized the republic under his suzerainty, substituted a papal prefect for the “patrician” and returned to Rome. The celebrated schismatic, Arnold of Brescia, however, put himself again at the head of the party opposed to the temporal power of the papacy, re-established the patricianate, and forced the pope to leave Rome. Eugenius had already, on hearing of the fall of Edessa, addressed a letter to Louis VII. of France (December 1145), announcing the Second Crusade and granting plenary indulgence under the usual conditions to those who would take the cross; and in January 1147 he journeyed to France to further preparations for the holy war and to seek aid in the constant feuds at Rome. After holding synods at Paris, Reims and Trier, he returned to Italy in June 1148 and took up his residence at Viterbo. The following month he excommunicated Arnold of Brescia in a synod at Cremona, and thenceforth devoted most of his energies to the recovery of his see. As the result of negotiations between Frederick Barbarossa and the Romans, Eugenius was finally enabled to return to Rome in December 1152, but died in the following July. He was succeeded by Anastasius IV. Eugenius retained the stoic virtues of monasticism throughout his stormy career, and was deeply reverenced for his personal character. His tomb in St Peter’s acquired fame for miraculous cures, and he was pronounced blessed by Pius IX. in 1872.
The chief sources for the career of Eugenius III. are his letters in J.P. Migne, Patrol. Lat., vols. 106, 180, 182, and in Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, vol. 57 (Paris, 1896); the life by Cardinal Boso in J.M. Watterich, Pontif. Roman. vitae, vol. 2; and the life by John of Salisbury in Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores, vol. 20.
See J. Langen, Geschichte der römischen Kirche von Gregor VII. bis Innocenz III. (Bonn, 1893); F. Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. 4, trans. by Mrs G.W. Hamilton (London, 1900-1902); K.J. von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Bd. 5, 2nd ed.; Jaffé-Wattenbach, Regesta pontif. Roman. (1885-1888); M. Jocham, Geschichte des Lebens u. der Verehrung des seligen Papstes Eugen III. (Augsburg, 1873); G. Sainati, Vita del beato Eugenio III (Pisa, 1868); J. Jastrow and G. Winter, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Hohenstaufen, i. (Stuttgart, 1897); C. Neumann, Bernhard von Clairvaux u. die Anfänge der zweiten Kreuzzuges (Heidelberg, 1882); B. Kugler, Analekten zur Geschichte des zweiten Kreuzzugs (Tübingen, 1878, 1883).