Court on one occasion, Maria Clotilde replied "We do not mind; you see, we are born to it". She was also described however as "pious and modest". The marriage was also unpopular with both the French and the Italians; the latter in particular felt that the daughter of their King had been sacrificed to an unpopular member of the House of Bonaparte and consequently regarded it as a mésalliance. For France's part, Napoléon-Jérôme was ill-regarded and had been known to carry on a number of affairs both before and during his marriage. Their official reception into Paris on 4 February was greeted very coldly by Parisians, not out of disrespect for a daughter of the King of Savoy, but instead out of dislike for her new husband. Indeed, all her life, public sympathy tended to lean in her favor; she was fondly regarded as retiring, charitable, pious, and trapped in an unhappy marriage. With her husband, she traveled to the United States in 1861 and to Egypt and the Holy Land in 1863. While in the United States, she traveled on the newly completed main line of the Illinois Central Railroad, where the village of Savoy, Illinois was named in her honor. Fall of French Empire After the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870, Maria Clotilde had initially refused to leave Paris when the revolution broke out, because of her sense of what was suitable for a Princess from the House of Savoy, which was to stay on her post. They were forced to flee, however, and their family enjoyed a beautiful estate in the town of Prangins near Lake Geneva that they resided in. Turin After Maria Clotilde's father Victor Emmanuel died in 1878, she returned to Turin, Italy without her husband. During this period, their daughter (Maria Letizia) mostly resided with her mother in the Castle of Moncalieri, but her two sons stayed mainly with their father. It was in Italy that their mother withdrew herself from society to dedicate herself to religion and various charities. After the revolution, she lived the rest of her life in Moncalieri (located outside of Turin), where she spent her days devoting herself to religion. She lived in retirement from the world for the following twenty years, until her death. Maria Clotilde died in Moncalieri at the age of 68. She was buried there, and the funeral was given regal