⏰ Entretien avec la princesse Urraca de Bourbon-Deux-Siciles (1913-1999)

Princesse Urraca de Bourbon-Deux-Siciles.

À l'automne 1998, la princesse Urraca de Bourbon-Deux-Siciles a accordé une interview à Giuseppe Scammacca. Cette interview a été publiée dans la revue francophone  Bourbons , aujourd'hui disparue . Ci-dessous, on peut lire une traduction anglaise de l'interview de la princesse.

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Votre Altesse Royale est l'une des petites-nièces du dernier souverain napolitain, Sa Majesté Francesco II. Quels souvenirs le duc de Calabre, père de Votre Altesse Royale, vous a-t-il confiés du roi ?

Bien sûr, mon père, mais aussi mon grand-père [le comte de Caserte] me parlaient souvent de François II, ainsi qu’à mes trois sœurs. L’idée que nous avions en tant qu’enfants était que le roi était un homme frappé par les chagrins et les épreuves de la vie. Probablement à cause des diverses trahisons qu’il avait subies… Je me souviens très bien de ma grand-tante, la reine Sophie. C’était une femme sévère, j’avais tellement peur d’elle.

Pouvez-vous nous donner une description du duc de Calabre, votre père ?

Mon père a suivi les traditions familiales, notamment en réorganisant l'Ordre Constantinien dont il fut longtemps Grand Maître. Il a également poursuivi une carrière militaire dans l'armée espagnole de son cousin le roi Alphonse XIII ; je crois me souvenir qu'il était un officier du génie très talentueux. Il a combattu au Maroc espagnol. 

L'un de mes souvenirs les plus tristes : la mort dans sa jeunesse de son fils (mon frère), le duc de Noto, héritier présomptif. Il est mort de la grippe espagnole qui a ravagé l'Europe pendant la Première Guerre mondiale.

Appelé à Dieu en 1960, le duc de Calabre était de droit Sa Majesté le roi Ferdinand III. Comment a-t-il pu exercer cette dignité loin de la terre qui l'avait vu naître ?

A vrai dire, mon père n'est pas né à Naples mais à Rome, au Palais Farnèse. Il n'y a cependant vécu qu'un an, car il a dû, comme toute sa famille, quitter la nouvelle Italie après septembre 1870 ; cet exil n'a pris fin qu'en 1938, à l'occasion du mariage de ma sœur Lucia avec le prince Eugène de Savoie-Gênes, duc d'Ancône. Je me souviens que mon père consacrait une grande partie de son temps, lorsqu'il vivait en Bavière, à constituer et à réorganiser des archives relatives à la famille royale et donc au Royaume des Deux-Siciles. Malheureusement, une partie de ces documents a été détruite lors du bombardement de Munich pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Il a fait don de ce qui restait des archives à la ville de Naples.

What can you tell us about your father’s stay in Spain?

I have often been told of the military feats of my grandfather, who had been the Chief of Staff in the Carlist armies who fought for King Carlos VII of Spain, Duke of Madrid. In 1874, when the Duke of Madrid had to take refuge in France, my grandfather rode alongside him when they arrived in Pau. This is where the daughter of the Carlist King, Princess Alicia, was born.

As a Capetian princess, how do you view the House of Bourbon?

Personally, I feel first of all Neapolitan and Sicilian; moreover, when I travel to the old kingdom, I see everywhere the proof of the moral, cultural and spiritual heritage that my family left there. But I was just talking about Pau; that’s where Henri VI started out. So I am also French at heart, as I am undoubtedly Spanish and Parmesan. Indeed, the Bourbons reigned everywhere, until America. It’s amazing, isn’t it?

You yourself have experienced exile. How did you feel when you went through this ordeal?

Sadness; in particular, that of not being able to know the countries and the friends that our parents wanted to tell us about. Of course, my mother, my sisters and I could cross the north of Italy to get from Munich to Cannes… But remember that we were always watched, accompanied on the train by plainclothes police. And, it was not until 1938 that my father was able to return to Italy. However, since the end of World War II, we were finally free. It is all the more strange that my Bavarian cousins have never suffered this kind of annoyance … and have always lived in their homeland.

You return from time to time to the lands that constituted the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. What are your feelings there?

I am at home there! And I have so many friends there!

Exactly, what is the attitude of the Italians and, more precisely, of the Neapolitans and the Sicilians towards you?

As I just told you, grand and loving are the feelings of the people I meet. All still speak – and I will even say more and more – of my ancestors whom they consider as the image of the continuity of the moral and political values which embodied the history of our kingdom. Moreover, I am invited to the many events organised by cultural groups and movements that want to seriously study the true history of the nineteenth century.

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The Duchess of Calabria with her youngest child Princess Urraca.

Born on 14 July 1913 at Schloß Nymphenburg in Munich, Princess Urraca Maria Isabella Carolina Aldegonda of Bourbon-Two Sicilies was the sixth and youngest child of Prince Ferdinand Pius of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria and his wife Princess Maria Ludwiga Theresia of Bavaria. Urraca chose not to celebrate her birthday, remarking: “How can a Bourbon celebrate on the day of the storming of the Bastille?” The princess had five older siblings: Princess Maria Antonietta (1898–1957); Princess Maria Cristina (1899–1985; married Manuel Sotomayor-Luna, Vice President of Ecuador); Prince Ruggiero, Duke of Noto (1901–1914), Princess Barbara (1902–1927; married Count Franz Xaver zu Stolberg-Wernigerode), and Princess Lucia (1908–2001; married Prince Eugenio of Savoy, Duke of Ancona). The Duke and Duchess of Calabria lived with their children at Villa Amsee just outside Lindau.

 

Princess Urraca of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and Princess Michael of Kent, Venice, 1990. Photograph (c) Marcellino Radogna.

As the daughter of the head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Urraca regularly represented her family at royal and aristocratic functions and charitable events.

Press report on the 1957 accident.

On the night of 10 January 1957, Urraca was driving her eldest sister Maria Antonietta to her home in Lindau, Germany, when their automobile collided with a truck that had skid on ice near Winterthur, Switzerland. Maria Antonietta was killed in the accident and Urraca was seriously injured. After several months in hospital, Princess Urraca recovered.

The grave of Princess Urraca of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

On 3 May 1999 at Sigmaringen, Princess Urraca of Bourbon-Two Sicilies died at the age of eighty-five.  Princess Urraca never married although she did have a suitor for her hand at some point. The princess was buried at Rieden in the same cemetery as her parents and two of her siblings: Prince Ruggiero, Duke of Noto, and Princess Maria Antonietta. Urraca’s burial site was marked with a simple wooden cross affixed with a small brass plaque bearing her name, until it was replaced by a large cross-shaped headstone with a similar small brass plaque.