Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition] Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00IT3LUVI | Format: PDF, EPUB
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From the award-winning historian: the remarkable life of "the most beautiful woman of 19th-century Baltimore", whose marriage in 1803 to J?r?me Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon, became inextricably bound to the diplomatic and political 19th-century histories of the United States, France, and England. From the author of Revolutionary Mothers and Civil War Wives. In Wondrous Beauty, Carol Berkin tells the story of this audacious, outsize life: how her romantic, passionate marriage infuriated Napoleon and resulted in his banning the then-pregnant Betsy Bonaparte from disembarking in any European port, demanding that his brother either lose all power and remain married to that "American girl" - or renounce her, marry a woman of Napoleon's choice, and reap the benefits. J?r?me ended the marriage and was made king of Westphalia; Betsy fled to England, and gave birth to her son and only child, J?r?me's namesake. Berkin writes how this naive, headstrong American girl returned to Baltimore a cynical, independent woman, refusing to seek social redemption and return to obscurity through a quiet marriage to a member of Baltimore's merchant class; how she disdained America's obsession with money-making, its growing ethos of democracy, and the rigid gender roles that confined women to the parlor and the nursery, and sought a European society where women created salons devoted to intellectual life and where traditions of aristocracy dominated society; and, we see how as a shrewd investor she transformed a modest pension from the French government into a fortune that rivaled many a (male) financier.
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- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 7 hours and 19 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Recorded Books
- Audible.com Release Date: March 5, 2014
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00IT3LUVI
Before reading this biography of Betsy Patterson Bonaparte I didn't realize Napoleon Bonaparte had a Baltimore connection, but it's a fascinating story, well told here, that encompasses both European and early American history and culture. Betsy met Napoleon's younger brother Jér?me in 1803 while he was in Maryland avoiding military service and the two teenagers fell in love and married within that year, against the wishes of their families and governments. Betsy's strict controlling father did not trust the aristocratically unemployed foreigner, but Betsy was eager to escape the limiting and prosaic social strictures she felt awaited her if she was forced into a more conventional match. Because Betsy and Jér?me were courting during the unsettled period while Americans debated whether to choose sides or remain neutral in the conflict between France and Britain their romance became a political event monitored closely on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the early days of their marriage Betsy and Jér?me enjoyed mingling with the major political players of Washington, where Betsy scandalized party goers with her risqué French fashions, but their happy days did not last long. Napoleon wanted to further his empire building ambitions by arranging a royal marriage for Jér?me, so when the young couple arrived in Europe Napoleon declared their marriage annulled. Unable to stand up to his older brother Jér?me abandoned Betsy, then pregnant with their child, and married the highly titled but much less scintillating Princess Catherine Fredericka Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg to become the king of Westphalia.
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