Herewith the Tuesday update my other blog, Maximilian ~ Carlota, where I share my research from my novel based on the true story, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. Doña Cordelia (Otilia) Jordan de Degollado In 1923, shortly before the death of the ex-Empress Carlota in Belgium, a Mexican newspaper reporter (or perhaps a pair of them), tracked down the then elderly Doña Cordelia (Otilia) Jordan de Degollado, the American widow of the Mexican Empire's never-received ambassador to Washington. I found the newspaper clipping in the Joaquín and Mariano Degollado archive at the University of Texas, Austin. Here is my translation from the Spanish. (Alas, the article did not carry the reporter's name. It opens with mutliple subtitles, as it appears here.)
A Lady of Carlota's Court Tells How She Lived in Mexico
The sovereign is near death Señora Cordelia Jordan de Degollado
Yesterday She Recalled the Times of the so-called Empire of Maximilian
—A VERY INTERESTING STORY—
During that Ephemeral Empire, this Lady was Maximilian's Ambassadress Near the White House
The rumors of the ex-empress Carlota's grave illness published in European newspapers and later, in the Mexican press, inspired us to interview a distinguished octogenarian resident in this capital who was a member of the court of Maximilian von Habsburg's ephemeral imperial government.
We refer to the elderly Doña Cordelia Jordan, widow of Degollado, who lives in an apartment at number 41, Calle de Roma, in the Colonia Juárez, and that is where we arrived, accompanied by our photographer.
After inquiring with the concierge of this immense apartment building, we presented ourselves at the door that belongs to Degollado's widow and although at first the servants who attend her showed great reluctance in admitting us . . .
