The Splendor of a Short Lived Empire

On Friday I took Nancy and Fred to Chapultepec Castle which sits on a hill in Chapultepec Park.

The castle was begun in 1785 as a summer palace for the Viceroy, the king's representative in the colony of New Spain.  The building, however, never was used for that purpose.  When Mexico became independent the castle was used as a military academy, an astronomical observatory, and the residence of Mexican presidents, and in 1944 it became the National History Museum.

The castle's most famous residents were Maximilian von Hapsburg and his wife Carlota.  After the invasion of Mexico by the French in 1862, Napoleon III invited Maximilian, an Austrian prince, to become Emperor of Mexico.  Napoleon expected Maximilian to be his puppet and to make Mexico a client state of France.  However, due to diplomatic pressure from the U.S., the French troops were withdrawn, and the Mexican resistance led by the legally elected president, Benito Juárez, defeated Maximilian.  He was executed before a firing squad.

Between 1864 and 1867, when Maximilian and Carlota ruled as Emperor and Empress of Mexico, their residence was Chapultepec Castle, and they had the building renovated and furnished with imperial splendor.  Thus, Chapultepec Castle is the only royal castle in the Americas.  Today several rooms of the castle are furnished as they were during Maximilian and Carlota's ill-fated empire.

  The imperial carriage was used by the couple on special occasions.

The emperor's reading room

The smoking room is furnished with items from China and Japan.

The dining room

In this salon there are portraits of Maximilian and Carlota.  There are two pianos for the royal couple.

The Empress Carlota's bedroom

Carlota's sitting room

At that time, the castle was located in the countryside outside of Mexico City.  Maximilian had a boulevard constructed which connected the castle with the center of the city.  He named it "Paseo de la Emperatriz" (Boulevard of the Empress).  Today the boulevard is lined with skyscrapers.  Ironically it is now named "Paseo de la Reforma" in honor of the reform laws passed by Maximilian's opponent Benito Juárez.