The Wife of the First Consul

The Famous Women of the French Court series covers notable women – many of them married to Napoleon Bonaparte or associated with him – and their lives before, during, and after Napoleon’s reign. This volume concerns Hortense Eugenie Cecile Bonaparte (1783-1837), Queen consort of Holland, who was the stepdaughter of Emperor Napoleon I, being the daughter of his first wife, Josephine de Beauharnais. She later became the wife of the former’s brother, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, and the mother of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. She had also an illegitimate son, Charles de Morny, 1st Duke of Morny, by her lover Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut.