Philippe, Count of Flanders, who had always been gentle and very fond of Charlotte, said that Charlotte had been always determined to have a throne at any cost. The difficult situation in Mexico, forced Charlotte to come back to Europe in search of help. During her interviews with Napoleon II and Pope Pious IX she began to show signs of menthal derangement. Such was Charlotte's menthal state, that she refused to leave the Vatican, fearing that someone would try to kill her, and she spent the night there. The Count of Flanders traveled to Rome and took his sister to Miramar where he confined her.
Maximilian was defeated by the Republican army of the Mexican president Benito Juárez; he was captured in Querétaro and shot on June 1867. Nothing was told to Charlotte, who remained insane in Miramar. When Leopold II learned of Maximilian's death he demanded custody of the widow; rumours had reached him of the cruel and neglectful treatment hsi sister was being subjected by the Habsburgs and he sent his wife, Queen Marie Henriette to Trieste to bring Charlotte back to Belgium. As Charlotte, by her father's will, was now a rich woman, the Habsburgs did not renounce to her custody so easily; but Leopold was decided not to let the Austrian Royal family to administrate a Coburg fortune and he offered in his siter's name to relinquish to Maximilian's estate and to freely give Lacroma, Charlotte's own property, to the Austrian Crown, assuring Charlotte will be allowed to return to Belgium.. Queen Marie-Henriette arrived in Trieste on the first days of July and, horrified by Charlotte's appearence, she wrote: "She look pathetically pleased to see me, all skin and bone and terrified of everyone and everything". The Queen of Belgium accompanied by her sister-in-law, the Empress of Mexico, left for Belgium on July 29, 1867. Marie-Henriette took care of Charlotte and when she learned of Maximilian's death in the winter of 1868, it was the Queen who consoled her.
In 1867, the Count of Flanders married Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, sister of King of Romania, Carol I. They had five childre, two of whom died in infancy; the other three were, Princess Henriette, Princess Josephine and Prince Albert, who would succed his uncle in the throne of Belgium as King Albert I.
King Leopold forbid her younger daughter Clementine to marry and kept her by his side for maany years until his death, after which she married Prince Victor Napoleon, grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jeronimo.
Leopold II considered Belgium too small for his ambitions and he lead a pilicy of colonialism. He first attepmted to take Philippines from Spain, but as his plan failed, in 1884 Leopold, supported by the Assocition Internationale Africaine, which was established to bring the benefits of civilization to Central Africa and to supress the slave trade, converted 900,000 square miles of the Congo into a private estate. He considerably increased his fortune by exploiting the resources of wild rubber and ivory in the Belgian Congo, which were levied with high taxes and were exploited by the natives' forced labour. This abuses led to several uprisings which were brutally supressed and millions of natives died. Leopold hold this estate for 40 years after which he was force to relinquish to it and the Congo became only a Belgian colony in 1906.
Marie Henriette died on September 19, 1902. Some years later, Leopold married Blanche Delacroix, a French woman, who was his mistress since 1900, and to whom he had confered the title of Baroness Vaughan. She gave him to sons, Luciane and Philippe, to whom the King confered the titles of Count of Terveuren and Count Revenstein. King Leopold II died on December 17, 1909 at Leaken Palace. He was succeded by his nephew Albert, since his brother, the Count of Flanders had died in 1905.
Potts, D.. and Potts, W.T.W: Queen Victoria's Gene
Haslip, Joan: The Crown of Mexico