Claire Emilie MacDonnel

Claire Emilie MacDonnel was the daughter of Hugh MacDonnel and Ida Louise Ulrich, and married to Alexandre Aguado Moreno (1813–1861), marquis de Las Marismas de Guadalquivir, in 1841. Her first husband died in a mental asylum, and she remarried her former brother-in-law,[1] Onésipe Aguado, vicomte Aguado (1830–1893), in 1863.

After the introduction of the Second Empire and the marriage of Emperor Napoleon III to Eugénie de Montijo, she was appointed to the Household of the new Empress. The ladies-in-waiting of the new Empress consisted of a Grand-Maitresse or senior lady-in-waiting, the Princesse d'Essling; a Dame d'honneur or deputy, the Duchesse de Bassano, who both attended court on grand functions; and six (later twelve) Dame du Palais, who were selected from among the acquaintances to the Empress prior to her marriage, and who alternated in pairs fulfilling the daily duties.[2] She served from 1853 to 1870.[3]

She belonged to the personal friends of the empress from her upbringing in Spain. She was a social success in the Parisian high society life, described as a beauty with an "ever lovely expression"[4] and as "the most pleasant woman in Paris". [5]

She was a celebrated society hostess, known as the meeting place of the Second Empire high society in Paris, which foreign princes frequented when visiting Paris.[6]

After the fall of the Empire, she retired from high society life as her loyalty to the former empress made her feel it to be disloyal to participate in society life under a new administration.[7]

She belongs to the ladies-in-waiting depicted with Eugenie in the famous painting Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter from 1855.