María Manuela Kirkpatrick

Doña María Manuela Enriqueta Kirkpatrick de Closeburn y Grivegnée, Countess of Montijo (24 February 179422 November 1879), was a Spanish noble and courtier, the mother of Eugénie, Empress of the French. She served as Camarera mayor de Palacio to queen Isabella II of Spain in 1847-1848.

Early life She was born in Málaga, Spain, the daughter of an expatriate Scotsman, William Kirkpatrick, a wine merchant and consul of the United States of America, and his Liège-born wife, Marie Françoise de Grevignée, whose sister Catherine married the French diplomat Mathieu de Lesseps.

Personal life María was brilliant, vivacious and talented. On 15 December 1817, she married Don Cipriano de Palafox y Portocarrero, Count de Teba (1785–1839), afterwards Count de Montijo, Marquis de Algava, and Duke of Granada, Duke of Peñaranda, a grandee of Spain, Bonapartist and veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick (1826–1920), who married Napoleon III in 1853 and became Empress consort of the French.

In the 1830s, Manuela and the girls moved to Paris for their education. There she renewed her association with George William Frederick Villiers, later Earl of Clarendon, who is rumoured to have been her lover. Manuela also continued her friendship with Prosper Mérimée, whom she had met in Spain and who took great interest in the education of the girls. Manuela was Mérimée's source for the story of Carmen.

Manuela lived long enough to see the rise and fall of the Second French Empire, and died in Carabanchel several months after the death of her grandson Napoléon, Prince Imperial.