We have entered a season in which, for the Christmas sales strategy, memoirs by personalities of all kinds are proliferating. Some of the most talked-about have been Mar Flores’s, Calm Sea, and those of Isabel Preysler, My True Story, which have unearthed all kinds of memories… One of them is the relationship that her late sister Beatriz maintained with the recently deceased Duke of Seville, who died ten days after his brother Alfonso, last May.
It was the late Francisco de Borbón Escasany, father of Olivia and Francisco de Borbón, who brought to light the romantic relationship he had with Isabel Preysler’s sister Beatriz, who died of lung cancer in October 2011 at the age of 53. Another family tragedy for the Preysler-Arrastia line, as they had lost two other of Isabel’s siblings, the latest, Carlos, in 2013, also due to cancer.
The Duke of Seville, who was a loquacious and approachable man, gave an interview to La Razón on the occasion of the publication of his book Almost Memoirs, which came out in 2023. According to what he disclosed to journalist Amparo de la Gama, it had not occurred to him to complete it, but his close associates and intimate friends had convinced him to do so.
The ultimate aim of these memoirs was also so that his children and grandchildren could get to know him better and have the testimony of his fascinating experiences gathered in a book that he had written, in his own words, from the heart and with a memory that was no longer of the past, yet remained very lucid.
The Duke of Seville Lost His Daughter
The book listed his three children, notably the late Cristina de Borbón, who died unexpectedly in 2020, Olivia de Borbón, with whom he had always been very close, because when she separated from his first wife, she went to live with him in Madrid, and Francisco, who hoped to inherit the title of Marquis of Seville.
The Duke of Seville recalled the complexity of his daughter Cristina’s life and the health problems she had battled over the years, while emphasising her virtues, as a very affectionate and generous woman. He described her as “a fragile being” and lived with that deep pain over her loss.
