Don Carlos

Overview

Carlos de Borbón, Duke of Madrid (1848-1909), the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne (Carlos VII for his partisans), in exile since the end of the Third Carlist War in February 1876 and living in Paris (English Wikipedia, «Carlos, Duke of Madrid»). Marie admires him as the handsomest and most "royal" man she has seen, and is repeatedly disappointed by his dullness. The Mon Journal indexes confirm the identification: t.9 «Carlos, Don : 246»; t.12 «Don Carlos de Bourbon : 165»; t.13 «Don Carlos (de Bourbon) : 37, 100».

• 1876: among the men she has "adored" in dreams («Cassagnac, Torlonia, Doria, Don Carlos, l'empereur de Russie …», 063.0018); «Don Carlos que j'irais chercher au bout du monde, amoureuse que je suis de son portrait» (068.0357).
• Paris, 2 March 1878: she intrigues him in a masked meeting arranged through d'Andigné, «le souverain légitime … ce roi errant», «il est divinement beau» but «si bon» (a dull prince) (078.0341-0346); afterwards: «Don Carlos est trop bête» (079.0041), «Don Carlos qui était placé devant nous … m'a beaucoup regardée» (079.0065), «Je voudrais savoir si don Carlos a été au rendez-vous» (079.0185); on 10 March he wanted to make her acquaintance (078.0480).
• Exposition Universelle, May 1878: Bonnat's portrait of him is "mal dessiné, faux de ton" (080.0011); in the flesh he is «l'homme le plus magnifique et le plus royal que j'aie jamais vu» (080.0095-0097).
• 24 November 1878: met on the Champs-Elysées (083.0261); 16 June 1879 in a crowd, where an usher touches his shoulder and «le sang royal se révolter» (085.0331, 085.0338; footnote there names Carlos de Borbón); 19 September 1879, riding: «c'est un roi marié» (086.0307).

Identification note: two "Don Carlos"

The t.12 index also carries «Don Carlos ; Karageorvich Alexis» and «Karageorgevitch (Alexis [Don Carlos], fils des précédents : 176, 240)», «les précédents» being Prince Georges and Princess Sarka Karageorgevitch. Neither page calls Alexis «Don Carlos» (p.176: «La princesse Karageorgevitch et son fils», 15 December 1878; p.240: dinner at the Karageorgevitch, «Le prince a servi dans la garde après avoir renoncé au trône de Serbie pour lui et les siens»), and the words «Don Carlos» occur in t.12 only on p.145 and p.165. On p.145 (083.0059, 27 October 1878) Marie applies them to Prince Pierre, the cousin: «le père du prince a abdiqué pour lui et ses descendants et … c'est le prince Pierre qui est le Don Carlos de la Serbie». The index's bracket on Alexis is very probably the indexer's slip from that sentence (0.85); no diary paragraph uses «Don Carlos» as a nickname for Alexis. All tagged paragraphs (carnets 063, 068, 078-080, 083, 085, 086) were read and every tag is Carlos de Bourbon; no wrong tags found.

References in Diary

063/1876-07-04-05 (063.0018); 068/1876-12-31 (068.0357); 078/1878-03-02 (078.0341, 0342, 0343, 0344, 0346); 078/1878-03-03 (078.0349); 078/1878-03-08 (078.0458, probably about "Monseigneur" = Don Carlos, via d'Andigné); 078/1878-03-10 (078.0480); 079/1878-03-21, 03-24, 03-31 (079.0041, 0065, 0185); 080/1878-05-05 and 05-11 (080.0011, 0095, 0096, 0097); 083/1878-11-24 (083.0261); 085/1879-06-16 (085.0331, 0338); 086/1879-09-19 (086.0307).