Queen Isabella took up residence on the site of today’s Paris Peninsula in 1868, the same year she was exiled from Spain by the so-called “Glorious Revolution” which created the First Spanish Republic.
Isabella’s reign as Queen Regent, from her infancy in 1830 until her exile, had been a period of tumult, the reactionary Spanish Carlists having refused to accept a female monarch. With the clear intent of becoming Queen in exile, Isabella quickly changed the name of the building at 19 Avenue Kléber from the Hotel de Basilewski to Palais de Castille, Castille being the ancient name of the Spanish crown until 1700.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, an American periodical which took a keen interest in Her Spanish Majesty, reported in 1869 that the Queen’s new residence was “one of the pearls that adorn that rich casket which is called New Paris” and that she had quickly set about making it her own, “the furniture, of severe simplicity, was brought, it is said, from the Le Palais Royal de la Granja de San Ildefonso near Madrid”.
Leslie’s Illustrated seemed to have good sources, for it also had an intimate knowledge of the building’s interior. “The apartments on the first storey are reserved for the Queen,” writes the paper’s eponymous proprietor. “In the other wing of the hotel, separated from the Queen’s chamber by the stairway, are the apartments intended for the young Prince of the Asturias. This palace, no doubt, is not as fine as the Escorial [home of the Spanish Monarchs], but nevertheless, it presents a habitation not unworthy of an exiled Queen.”
Queen Isabella lived in the Palais de Castille for 38 years, giving the Paris Peninsula an unusual distinction. There is no other hotel in the world that can claim to have had such a senior royal figure resident at its site for such a long time. And the Queen of Spain did more than turn the Peninsula’s Paris plot into a royal residence. She used 19 Avenue Kléber as the home of a Spanish government-in-waiting, determined that one day her family would return in triumph, and to pass the time she made the palais a centre of free thinking on art and women’s issues.
Within a few weeks of moving into her new residence, the Queen began to intrigue. She was especially instrumental in stirring up hostility against the new regime in Madrid and their Carlist allies, something that was easy to do in the Paris of Napoleon III.
Spain’s First Republic had wasted little time in offering Isabella’s crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, with full support from the militaristic Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck. Leopold was the older brother of King Carol I of Romania. He was also head of the Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern and thus a relative of King Wilhelm I of Prussia. Napoleon III was outraged by the Spanish government’s offer, fearing that putting a relative of the Prussian king on the Spanish throne could result in an expansion of Prussian influence that would leave France encircled.
Leopold turned down the chance to rule Spain, but France declared war anyway. Prussia responded with a rapid mobilisation, assisted by their superior rail network, and with support from other members of the North German Confederation, captured Napoleon after a series of decisive battles.
Queen Isabella kept her head down during these turbulent years, but by 1874 she had once again turned 19 Avenue Kléber into a maelstrom of plots and intrigue.
In June 1870, at the Palais de Castille, she had abdicated in favour of her son Alfonso, in the presence of a number of Spanish nobles. The announcement was followed by what is described as a fêtes splendides (magnificent party) in the Dictionnaire Historique des Rues de Paris, thrown by Carlos Marfori, a former actor and the latest of Isabella’s many younger lovers. Alfonso was commanded to Paris where he was given the title King Alfonso XII. The move only intensified the gossip swirling around the Palais de Castille.
It was widely rumoured that Isabella’s husband was homosexual and that she was active in pursuing heterosexual company, often much younger than herself. The leading members of the First Republic in Spain denounced the new king at Number 19 as an impostor, claiming he was the illegitimate child of either an army major or an American dentist. There were certainly plenty of rumours surrounding the number of men who may have been inside the Queen’s bedchamber, many alleged to be baby-faced police officers, for which Isabella had a particular fondness.
Isabella denied all the rumours and continued to plot, with some success. On December 31st 1874 a coup toppled the Spanish government and Isabella’s son Alfonso was officially declared King. The Spanish ambassador denied the story to Henri Blowitz, a correspondent of The Times, insisting that the coup had been suppressed. Blowitz insisted on seeing the evidence for himself.
“Queen Isabella, to be sure, with the Prince of the Asturias, occupied the former Hotel Basilewski, only a few doors from my house,” he wrote in his memoirs. “In returning home I had instinctively passed in front of the Palais de Castille. I saw an enormous crowd at the gates, which were all closed, and some policemen, who had been sent in haste, were with the greatest difficulty holding the throng in check.”
Blowitz sought out Comte de Banuelos, a Spanish senator with whom he was acquainted and who lived nearby at 27, Rue de Lisbonne. Blowitz and the Comte took the former’s coach back to Number 19 Avenue Kleber where they found a mob scene.
“The crowd there was as great as ever,” wrote the Times man. “The greatest precautions had been taken against intruders. Since nine that night nobody had been allowed to enter. A commissary of police, with a sufficiently strong force of policemen under his orders, was guarding the great gateways opening on the courtyard.”
Fortunately Banuelos had some influence and 10 minutes later the two men were inside the Palais de Castille, where a delirious scene greeted Blowitz.
“There was great commotion everywhere,” he wrote. “All the intimate friends of the royal palace had been ordered thither, and they went and came, joyous salutations resounding throughout the house in a fashion that seriously compromised the etiquette of the Spanish Court.”
Banuelos was led away to see the new King, while Blowitz was filed in Alfonso’s study for safekeeping, having been told that a courtier would return with a statement from the new monarch.
“I entered the ‘study’ of the Prince of the Asturias, a room to the left on the ground-floor,” Blowitz wrote. “On one table was a chart of both hemispheres, and on another, covered with books and papers, lay a volume of Tacitus, bearing, in whose handwriting I did not know, annotations in Spanish.”
While Blowitz was rifling through Alfonso’s books he heard a footfall and turned to explain himself, expecting to see a butler. He got a profound surprise.
“I looked up,” he wrote. “It was the young King himself, dressed with irreproachable taste. He wore his evening dress, with its narrow silk lapel, with youthful and easy grace, while a gardenia adorned his buttonhole. “
Blowitz was quick to ask forgiveness, addressing Alfonso as “Your Majesty”, whereupon he saw the new King’s face grow red with embarrassment.
“Excuse me for this little movement of surprise,” said the blushing monarch, who had just become Alfonso XII of Spain. “Although I believe I may consider myself a King, you are the first stranger who has yet greeted me with this title, and I could not repress the slight movement, which I perceive did not escape you.”
The new King then described the scenes that had taken place at 19 Avenue Kléber earlier in the day.
“When I returned from my walk this morning I saw people running [up Avenue Kleber] towards the palace,” he told Blowitz. “The great gateway was open, with everybody awaiting me on the steps. The Queen was at the top of the stairs, and coming down to throw herself into my arms, while the others cried, ‘Vive le Roi!(Long live the King!)’ Then I understood, and I had all the difficulty in the world to keep from bursting into tears.”
Queen Isabella remained in residence at the Palais de Castille after Alfonso returned to Spain to take the reins of his country. At first she frequently went to Spain. On January 7th 1878 The New York Times reported that Isabella was determined to “rule the country through her son” in order to gratify a large number of “private revenges” with the result that “for a time the poor boy had a hard time of it, having to bear the bitter reproaches of his mother”.
Isabella was persuaded to visit Madrid less frequently and for the next 23 years she held court at Number 19 Avenue Kleber, following a routine of diplomatic meetings, bacchanalian dinners and occasional trips to “take the waters” at German spas.
Isabella’s daytime schedule at the Palais de Castille was captured in a memoir by Lillie de Hegermann-Lindencrone, an accomplished singer and wife of a Danish minister. “I was delighted when the Marquis de Podesta [a lady in waiting to Isabella] asked me if I would like to make the acquaintance of the Queen,” she wrote in 1897. “I went to see her at the Queen’s beautiful palace in the avenue Kléber. The Queen received me in a beautiful room lined with old Gobelin tapestry and furnished with great taste.”
Despite her advancing years, Isabella continued to be passionate when it came to men. On March 26th 1904 The San Francisco Call ran a story about Queen Isabella’s life at 19 Avenue Kléber on its front page, with the headline Ex-Queen Isabella Lives In Royal Style In Paris.
The paper described the Queen receiving dignitaries at the Palais de Castille, having fittings with couturiers and conferring honours on anybody who found her favour.
The Call also mentioned the long lines of musicians and Latin Quarter artists who would be shown into her presence and upon whom “she will squander her gold in unlimited quantities, provided they be young, handsome and talented”. The paper noted that any potential male protégé who was “homely in the royal eyes” or “had a grey hair or two” would be ushered out of the side door in a second, but any who passed muster would receive an annual pension in return for frequent visits to 19 Avenue Kléber.
As the 20th century dawned Queen Isabella turned her corner of Paris into one of the city’s most vibrant salons. She would often hold gala balls – to which her “normal” society friends were not invited – that featured some of the most prominent artists of the day, including many Impressionist painters. Not that creative types were her only passion. She still had a weak spot for young policemen and would often ride up the Avenue Kléber in her carriage to find a uniformed Adonis at the Arc de Triomphe whom she could invite home for tea.
The piece in The San Francisco Call is, in retrospect, rather melancholy. It was the last story ever to be written about the colourful Queen and the Palais in which she lived. Exactly two weeks after it was published, Isabella died of pneumonia. The Queen was laid out “in state” within the Palais de Castille, beneath an enormous chandelier sheathed in black gauze.
With Isabella dead, the fate of the Palais de Castille was sealed, but not before a fierce battle. On one side stood the United States government who wanted to turn Isabella’s last home into its French embassy and the King of Belgium who wanted to use the property as his pied a terre. If either had won, the Palais de Castile might still stand at 19 Avenue Kleber. But neither Belgium royalty nor American diplomacy could forestall Lionel Tauber, who wanted to demolish Isabella’s home and build a hotel. It was Tauber who won out, opening gates of history to the Hotel Majestic and, a century later, the Peninsula’s first property in Europe.