France's new emperor, hitherto a bachelor, had begun quickly to look for a wife to produce a legitimate heir-apparent.

Most of the royal families of Europe are unwilling to marry into the parvenu Bonaparte family, and after rebuffs from Princess Carola of Sweden and from Queen Victoria's German niece Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Napoleon had decided to lower his sights somewhat and "marry for love", choosing the Countess of Teba, Eugénie de Montijo, a Spanish noblewoman of partial Scottish ancestry who had been brought up in Paris.

Prosper Mérimée, together with his friend the Countess of Montijo, has coached her daughter, Eugenie, during the courtship with Napoleon III (though his correspondence indicates he was opposed to their marriage).

When the daughter becomes the Empress Eugénie of France in 1853, he is made a senator.