We can hardly find any character more appealing among the European royals of the late 19th century than H.R.H. the Infanta Eulalia of Spain, whose life span covers nearly a century of the complex and interesting history of the Royal House of Spain: from the old times of her grandmother, the famous “governess Queen”, María Cristina of the Two Sicilies to the rather recent times of king Juan Carlos still a young boy when she met in 1951. Therefore nothing more entertaining than having a close up look at her very eventful life, a life of endless travels and happenings marked from the very beginning by the mystery surrounding of her own paternity and then by her longstanding struggle with a marriage she would have never wished to contract with her first cousin the Infante don Antonio of Orleans. This is the life of a very controversial character that left no one indifferent because she possessed a boundless charm, her conversation was filled with wit and knowledge, she was direct and straightforward in her appreciations of people and situations, and she was the unquestioned grande dame of the French Belle Époque. Much of a rebel and yet very royal, Eulalia lived for many years at the very core of the European scene being a first row witness of the grandeur of all the courts of Europe (from the tiny German courts to the stunning court of the Russian Tsars) to end up her life in a very tiny village in the North of Spain from where she wrote: “Nowadays kings and queens do not seem to care about anything and they receive false royalties as if they were authentic. Royalty is lowering itself more and more. I’m always afraid of the half-royals”.
In this book we find the true uncensored Eulalia: her secrets, her lies, her peculiar ideas, her strong likes and dislikes, her sound opinions on many subjects, her rather complex relationship with her own Spanish family and so many aspects of her complex life most of which have until now been kept in the shadow. Thanks to a long and sound research in most royal archives of Europe this book reveals masses of hitherto unpublished material from letters, diaries, and encounters with many royals who could still recall the personality of this Spanish Infanta whose memoirs are endlessly quoted in most books about European royalty of her time.
