Marie Madeleine Yvonne de Bourbon-Busset, Duchess of Parma

https://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00007196&tree=LEO

BIOGRAPHY Marie Madeleine Yvonne, known as Madeleine, was born 23 March 1898 in Paris, daughter of George Louis Marie de Bourbon, vicomte de Busset, and Jeanne de Kerret de Quillien. She belonged to the senior legitimate line of the House of Bourbon, even though this line always has been ineligible to claim the French crown. However, as she belonged to a very rich family she inherited the Château of Lignières and the Château Boszt.

On 12 November 1927, at the Château of Lignières, she married Prince Xavier de Bourbon-Parma and they became the parents of six children. In 1936 her husband was declared regent of, and later pretender for, the Spanish Carlist party and this would change their lives forever.

In World War II her husband was imprisoned by the Germans in Concentration Camp Dachau which he survived. On his return they lived quietly in France until, in 1964, their eldest son married Princess Irene of The Netherlands. Suddenly the Carlist party was discovered by Europe's press and they descended upon their family.

In 1974 her husband, aged eighty-five, became Duke of Parma and head of the family. In May 1976 a feud developed between their two sons and she chose the side of the younger son, Sixte Henri. She went even so far as to put Sixte Henri in charge of her possessions, even though they should be inherited by the elder, Charles Hugues, since 1977 Duke of Parma and head of the family.

When she died on 1 September 1984, in her will she bequeathed the Château of Lignières to Sixte Henri, Château Boszt to her daughter Princess Françoise de Lobkowicz, while the rest was divided between Charles Hugues and the three remaining unmarried daughters.