Status Updates From La Belle Créole: The Cuban ...

Acknowledgements and I guess notes/works cited starts at 76%. This ended so depressingly. Review to come.

Ok. I’m sorry, but I’m 70% into this book and I’m not seeing how Mercedes was the Belle Creole who enthralled Europe and Cuba, just an old woman who trusts a bad man to help her who just ends up victimizing her. This is leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. I’ll try to finish this, but it’s going to be a struggle.

Wow, he was either extremely inept with money and business, or he purposefully ruined her. What an @ss! And what an idiot she was for trusting him for as long as she did.

Money troubles because 1) she’s spending more than she has to maintain a certain lifestyle, 2) supporting a sh*tty man who is 3) mismanaging her funds. The man, btw, got his first wife when she was married to someone else and when they finally did get married, he didn’t stay faithful to her, possibly with Mercedes, though it isn’t spelled out as such. I thought Mercedes was supposed to be smart!

The first charitable concerts were started in good part by Mercedes in the 1820s-30s. She sang for freedom for the Greeks, Polish refuges, destitute workers, earthquake victims. She organized and sang in them. She was a very large hearted woman.

Prince Emilio Belgiojoso’s voice was so amazing, Liszt wished “that financial ruin would force him into a professional singing career.” (The sentence was worded awkwardly, at first it seemed Liszt wanted to be destitute himself so he would have to sing professionally, which made no sense!)

We get so LITTLE of Mercedes. I feel like we know more about the people in her life than her herself. Her daughter died at age three and we get ONE paragraph about it, with the supposition that it affected Mercedes. We also don’t learn how the poor little girl died. Weird things are left out and weird things included...

Wait, WAIT WHUT?!? Joseph Bonaparte has an estate in NEW JERSEY that he went to after Napoleon lost the war?!?! Ok, I admit I’m an ignorant American and didn’t know a lot about Napoleon other than Waterloo and Wellington, BUT I LIVE IN NEW JERSEY. HOW DID I MISS KNOWING THIS?!?! Pardon me while I follow the rabbit down this particular hole.

Wow!!! She had LISZT playing the piano at her Salons!!!! 🤩🤩🤩

Duuuude, Napoleon was a JERK! He caused so much trouble, sorrow, etc for so many people!

Surprised she hadn’t been married off sooner, she was 21, that’s ANCIENT in those days.

“Mercedes recalled the strain felt by her mother who, accustomed to an opulent lifestyle, was ill-prepared to face the loss of her wealth.” First of all, no sympathy. Second of all, we were just told she received two million of their currency, how had she lost wealth?!?

The history is interesting and I’m sure living through all of the unrest and power changes, that Mercedes has experienced a lot, but it’s implied, rather than explained/shown. It’s obvious the author has some diary/memoir of Mercedes’, but it isn’t quoted much. It would be nice to hear directly from her how all this affected her.

Geez, he dad sounds like a pompous @ss! Also, author not clear on Mercedes’ age for much of the story of her family, very confusing.

Wow, things were very different back then re: traveling. It apparently wasn’t odd for wealthy people of the day to travel and not see the rest of their family for years, if ever again! For example, Mercedes’ parents left Cuba for Spain when she was a child for their honeymoon. The father returned to Cuba when she was eight and brought Mercedes to Spain to live with her mom after 13 years!

Sad that her mom didn’t have that maternal love for her, but she hadn’t seen her daughter in almost 13 years and had other children later to dote on.

She ran away from the convent. “Everyone seemed to have given up imposing any sort of rule or discipline. She ‘learned nothing and barely knew how to write.’” That sounds horrifying! I think she turned out ok, hence this book, but that might not be the best way to raise a child, just a thought.

Her father is a trip. Kept trying to buy his way into titles and honors he did not earn, petitioning even the king for induction into a prestigious order he had no qualifications for. He seems very singleminded in his goals and annoyed a lot of people in his path to glory. Nice guy.

She was spoiled rotten until at least age eight. This is going to be interesting.

“At less than one year old, Mercedes saw her parents sail for Europe...one which most thought would end in a year or two. ... Few would have guessed that she would not see her father until she was almost nine years old, and that it would be a new century before she saw her mother again,...in far-off Madrid.” Due to travel or them not caring? Weird.