18thcenturylove:

Happy Birthday to…!

Maximilian I (1756)
Duke of Zweibrücken from 1795 to 1799, prince-elector of Bavaria (as Maximilian IV Joseph) from 1799 to 1805, king of Bavaria (as Maximilian I) from 1806 to 1825. He was a member of the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, a branch of the House of Wittelsbach.

Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794)

An American industrialist and philanthropist who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history. He provided the initial gift to found Vanderbilt University, which is named in his honor.

The tale of Mexican Emperor Maximillian I through the eyes of Kate Beaton in Hark a Vagrant.

forgottencityiram:

Maximilian I reigned as Mexico’s president for just over three years, despite having been born in Austria. Much of his support rested upon the presence of a French army that withdrew following the conclusion of the American Civil War. Napoleon III did not want to risk opposition from a victorious veteran American army, while he also faced the rise of Prussia back in Europe. Maximilian, however, remained defiant in Mexico and, despite the pleas of various European royalists and other luminaries from Victor Hugo to Giuseppe Garibaldi that Maximilian be spared, his enemies executed him by firing squad.

thevictorianlady:

Archduke Maximilian and Princess Charlotte of Belgium, the Emperor and Empress of Mexico

Emperor Napoleon III sent Maximilian to Mexico to establish a satellite monarchy and an outpost across the Atlantic in the 1860’s. Unfortunately for the young Emperor and Empress, the Mexican people did not take kindly to the foreign rulers. After only three years, the regime was toppled by Benito Juarez, and the 33 year old Maximilian was executed by a firing squad in 1867.

His wife Charlotte’s (or Carlota’s) story was also tragic. In 1866 Carlota had traveled to Europe to establish support for Maximilian’s faltering cause. She was already in the early stages of madness that would incapacitate her after her husband’s brutal death, and her audiences with Napoleon and Pope Pius IX did not go well. She delivered an impassioned diatribe against Napoleon for abandoning her husband and then threw herself at the Pope’s knees, screaming that Napoleon was plotting to poison her. When Vatican guards tried to pacify the hysterical woman, she accused them of being agents in Napoleon’s pay who were planning to assassinate her. Carlota’s brother then  placed her into the hands of doctors who promptly declared her insane. She spent the rest of her life confined to a castle near Brussels and died in 1927, at the age of 87.

lexilutter:

by Lexi Lutter

A stunning bedroom from the castle of Maximilian I. Mexico City, Mexico. February 2012.

Canon Ae-1 Program. Fuji film.

JEALOUS?

lexilutter:

by Lexi Lutter. View Hi-Res.

Man cleaning a stairway at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City, Mexico.

Canon Ae-1 Program camera. Fuji 400 film.

ceriselapin:

interior stairs of chapultepec castle.

“[Chapultepec Castle] is the only Royal Castle in the Americas, as well as the only one in North America that was used to house sovereigns: the Mexican Emperor Maximilian I, and his consort Empress Carlota, during the Second Mexican Empire.”