Joseph de Riquet de Caraman

Marie-Joseph-Guy-Henry-Philippe de Riquet de Caraman, 18th Prince de Chimay (9 October 1836 – 29 March 1892), was a Belgian diplomat and politician.

Early life Prince Joseph was born on 9 October 1836 at the Château de Menars in France. and memoirist Émilie Pellapra, the widow of Comte de Brigode. His niece, Hélène Marie de Riquet de Caraman, married John Francis Charles, 7th Count de Salis-Soglio.

Personal life In 1857, he married Marie Joséphine Anatole de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1834–1884), a daughter of Viscount Napoleon de Montesquiou-Fézensac and Anne Elisabeth Cuiller Perron (a daughter of Gen. Pierre Cuillier-Perron). Her brother was the French admiral Bertrand de Montesquiou-Fézenzac. The prince was known to give private concerts, with him on violin and his wife on piano. In memory of one of these at which he had assisted, Franz Liszt dedicated a mass to Caraman-Chimay. Together, they were the parents of six children, including:

Marie Joseph Anatole Élie de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay (1858–1937), who married sixteen-year-old American heiress Clara Ward, a daughter of Capt. Eber Brock Ward, in 1890. They divorced in 1897 and, after Clara's death, he married Anne Marie Charlotte Amélie Gilone Le Veneur de Tillières in 1920. Marie Anatole Louise Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay (1860–1952), who married Henry, Count of Greffulhe. After her death in Paris in 1929, he married Mathilde Stuyvesant ( Löwenguth) in 1933, a French widow of an American heir who had previously been married to a Dutch count.

After the death his wife in 1884, he married Marie Mathilde Lucia Christiana Francisca Paula de Barandiaran (1862–1919), a daughter of Grégoire de Barandiaran and Isabel Cavalcanti de Albuquerque, in 1889. They did not have any issue. and was succeeded in his title by his eldest son, Joseph. After his death, his widow married Jacques Benoit Théophile, Comte de Liedekerke de Pailhe, with whom she had a daughter.