Francisco de Paula de Borbón

Francisco de Paula of Spain was born on 10 March 1794 at the Royal Palace of Aranjuez as the youngest of the fourteen children of King Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma. His parents had married twenty-nine years earlier, and their youngest son was especially favored by his mother. Francisco was given the names Francisco de Paula Antonio Maria. As a child, he was painted with his family by Francisco Goya. He had blond hair, brown eyes, and a gentle expression. His education differed from that of his older brothers, Ferdinand and Charles. The minister Manuel Godoy arranged for him to be taught according to the educational theories of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Francisco was originally intended for a career in the Spanish navy, but these plans were thwarted by Napoleon’s intervention in Spain. After Napoleon had pressured Charles IV and Ferdinand VII to abdicate at Bayonne and made his brother Joseph Bonaparte king of Spain, the royal family was expelled from the country. Francisco, then fourteen years old, initially remained at the Royal Palace of Madrid with his sister, the deposed Queen of Etruria, and her children. When he was due to leave the palace on 2 May 1808, a crowd gathered to prevent his removal. The sight of the pale and distressed infante provoked a popular uprising against the French occupiers, which was violently suppressed by French troops under General Joachim Murat. The event became known in history as the beginning of the uprising of 2 May. For the next ten years, Francisco lived in exile with his parents. The family initially stayed in Compiègne and, from October 1808, in Marseille. In 1812 they moved to Rome to be closer to Francisco’s sister, who was being held in a convent there. During Napoleon’s Hundred Days, the family temporarily fled to Verona and returned to Rome after Napoleon’s final defeat. Francisco received only an irregular education in exile. His parents wanted to prepare him for a career in the Church; he received minor orders, wore religious clothing, and was even offered the prospect of becoming a cardinal. He felt no calling to the clerical life, however, and instead asked Ferdinand VII to allow him to abandon his ecclesiastical career and join the army. After leaving Rome, Francisco became involved in a scandal in Lyon in 1816, delaying his journey to Spain. Ferdinand VII forgave him but initially ordered him to travel among several European courts. Marriage plans involving princesses from Saxony and Bavaria came to nothing. Francisco himself wished to marry his niece, Maria Luisa Carlota of Parma, but her mother rejected the match. He finally returned to Spain in April 1818. Ferdinand VII showered his brother with honors and privileges. Francisco became a member of several Spanish military orders, received income from their estates, was admitted to the Order of Malta, and was granted foreign distinctions. He was also appointed an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. In 1819, he married his niece Luisa Carlotta of the Two Sicilies, the daughter of his sister Maria Isabel. Francisco was twenty-five at the time, while Luisa Carlotta was only fifteen. She was energetic, witty, strong-willed, and ambitious, and soon gained considerable influence over both her husband and Ferdinand VII. Between 1820 and 1834, the couple had eleven children. Francisco was more interested in art and music than in political power. He painted as an amateur and had a good bass voice as a singer. His rooms in the Royal Palace became a meeting place for musicians and singers. Over the course of his life, he collected nearly 700 scores, and in 1830 he became an honorary member of the newly founded Royal Conservatory of Madrid. Politically, Francisco initially supported his brother’s conservative and absolutist policies, although his own views were more moderate and liberal. Luisa Carlotta, by contrast, involved herself passionately in government affairs. When Ferdinand VII remained without children, his brother Charles was expected to succeed him. Luisa Carlotta nevertheless persuaded Ferdinand to marry her sister Maria Christina. Their daughter Isabella thereby became heir to the throne. After Ferdinand’s death in 1833, three-year-old Isabella ascended the Spanish throne as Isabella II. Luisa Carlotta played a decisive role in ensuring that the succession did not pass to Charles and his sons. During Maria Christina’s regency, Francisco was excluded from the government. This also worsened the relationship between the two sisters. Francisco and Luisa Carlotta joined the liberal opposition and conspired against the regent. In 1838, they were forced into exile in France with their children. After Maria Christina’s fall, they returned, but soon came into conflict with her successor, General Baldomero Espartero. Their attempts to influence the planned marriages of Isabella and her sister led to another expulsion. After Espartero’s regency ended in 1843, the family returned to Madrid. Luisa Carlotta died suddenly of measles on 29 January 1844, at the age of thirty-nine. Francisco continued pursuing his political marriage plans and hoped to unite his eldest son, Francisco de Asís, with Isabella II. Under pressure from French diplomacy, the marriage finally took place in October 1846. Francisco thus became the father-in-law of his niece and held a prominent position at court during Isabella’s reign. When he again intervened in political affairs in 1849, he was temporarily expelled from Spain. In 1852, with the Queen’s approval, Francisco contracted a morganatic marriage with Teresa de Arredondo y Ramirez de Arellano. The couple had a son, Ricardo María, who was not permitted to use the Bourbon name and was granted the title Duke of San Ricardo in 1864. The marriage was considered a happy one, but Teresa died as early as 1863. Francisco died of colon cancer on 13 August 1865, less than a year later. Although he had wished to be buried in the church of San Francisco, he was laid to rest at the Escorial in accordance with his rank.