Empress Nam Phương (4 December 1914 – 16 September 1963), born Marie-Thérèse Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan, was the last empress consort of Vietnam. She was the wife of Bảo Đại (), the last emperor of Vietnam (officially named as Đại Nam before March 1945), from 1934 until her death. She was also the second and last empress consort (hoàng hậu) of the Nguyễn dynasty. Background Marie-Thérèse Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan was born in Gò Công, a Mekong Delta town in what was then the French colony of Cochinchina, one of the five areas (the others being the protectorates of Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia and Laos) that composed the Union of French Indochina. Her father, Pierre Nguyễn Hữu-Hào, described as a wealthy merchant, had been born into a poor Catholic family in Gò Công. Through an introduction from the Bishop of Saigon, he became secretary to the billionaire Lê Phát Đạt, Duke of Long-My, and eventually married his employer's daughter, Marie Lê Thị Bình, and inherited his title. A naturalized French citizen, Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan, who was known as Mariette, studied at the Couvent des Oiseaux, an aristocratic Catholic school located in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, where she was sent at the age of 12. She was a distant cousin of her future husband, the emperor. Marriage On 9 March 1934, the public announcement of the engagement of Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan and Bảo Đại, Emperor of Đại Nam, was released. In it, Bảo Đại stated, "The future Queen, reared like us in France, combines in her person the graces of the West and the charms of the East. We who have had the occasion to meet her believe that she is worthy to be our companion and our equal. We are certain by her conduct and example that she fully merits the title of First Woman of the Empire." After a formal betrothal ceremony in the imperial summer palace in Da Lat, the emperor married Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan on 20 March 1934, in Huế. The ceremony was Buddhist, though the ruler's Catholic fiancée caused some controversy; the country's population was not entirely in favor of the bride's religious affiliation. Others suspected that the marriage "smelled high of French chicanery." The New York Times reported that "discontent was general" in the country, given that Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan had declined to renounce Catholicism and was appealing to Pope Pius XI for a