Illegitimate Son
Hortense was now free to respond to the romantic overtures of the man whom she had long admired, Colonel Charles Joseph, Comte de Flahaut, a sophisticated, handsome man rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Talleyrand. They soon became lovers. In 1811, at an unspecified inn in Switzerland, close to Lake Geneva, Hortense secretly gave birth to a son by de Flahaut,
- Charles Auguste Louis Joseph ( 21 October 1811 - 10 March 1865), created Duc de Morny by his half-brother, Napoleon III, in 1862.
Only her brother Eugène, Adélaïde Filleul de Souza, de Flahaut's mother, and her closest companions were aware of her pregnancy and the subsequent birth. She had used poor health to explain her prolonged visit to Switzerland, the journey having been arranged by Adélaïde. Hortense cleverly disguised her pregnancy (she was by then, in her sixth month), during the baptism of Napoleon's son, Napoleon II when she was chosen to be one of the child's godmothers, an honour she shared with Madame Mère, mother of the Emperor.
Read more about this topic: Hortense De Beauharnais
Famous quotes containing the words illegitimate and/or son:
“There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents—if the term is to be used at all.”
—Bernadette McAliskey (Nee Devlin)
“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalms, 8:2.
“Man was kreated a little lower than the angells and has bin gittin a little lower ever sinse.” (Josh Billings, His Sayings, ch. 28, 1865)