Download or read book Wondrous Beauty written by Carol Berkin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning historian and author of Revolutionary Mothers (“Incisive, thoughtful, spiced with vivid anecdotes. Don’t miss it.”—Thomas Fleming) and Civil War Wives (“Utterly fresh . . . Sensitive, poignant, thoroughly fascinating.”—Jay Winik), here is the remarkable life of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, renowned as the most beautiful woman of nineteenth-century Baltimore, whose marriage in 1803 to Jérôme Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, became inextricably bound to the diplomatic and political histories of the United States, France, and England. In Wondrous Beauty, Carol Berkin tells the story of this audacious, outsized life. We see how the news of the union infuriated Napoleon and resulted in his banning the then ­pregnant Betsy Bonaparte from disembarking in any European port, offering his brother the threat of remaining married to that “American girl” and forfeiting all wealth and power—or renouncing her, marrying a woman of Napoleon’s choice, and reaping the benefits. Jérôme ended the marriage posthaste and was made king of Westphalia; Betsy fled to England, gave birth to her son and only child, Jérôme’s namesake, and was embraced by the English press, who boasted that their nation had opened its arms to the cruelly abandoned young wife. Berkin writes that this naïve, headstrong American girl returned to Baltimore a wiser, independent woman, refusing to seek social redemption or a return to obscurity through a quiet marriage to a member of Baltimore’s merchant class. Instead she was courted by many, indifferent to all, and initiated a dangerous game of politics—a battle for a pension from Napoleon—which she won: her pension from the French government arrived each month until Napoleon’s exile. Using Betsy Bonaparte’s extensive letters, the author makes clear that the “belle of Baltimore” disdained America’s obsession with moneymaking, its growing ethos of democracy, and its rigid gender roles that confined women to the parlor and the nursery; that she sought instead a European society where women created salons devoted to intellectual life—where she was embraced by many who took into their confidence, such as Madame de Staël, Madame Récamier, the aging Marquise de Villette (goddaughter of Voltaire), among others—and where aristocracy, based on birth and breeding rather than commerce, dominated society. Wondrous Beauty is a riveting portrait of a woman torn between two worlds, unable to find peace in either—one a provincial, convention-bound new America; the other a sophisticated, extravagant Old World Europe that embraced freedoms, a Europe ultimately swallowed up by decadence and idleness. A stunning revelation of an extraordinary age.

Download or read book A Woman of Two Worlds written by Alexandra Deutsch and published by Maryland Historical Society. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of a woman whose seductive beauty and tragic marriage repeatedly pulls us back for another look. Alexandra Deutsch literally “unpacks” Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte’s personal belongings in this intuitively sophisticated material culture biography of the woman whose seductive beauty and tragic marriage repeatedly pulls us back for another look and, ideally, a deeper understanding of the person behind the celebrity. In addition to letters and portraits, Deutsch found bits of the story in previously overlooked objects in the vast Bonaparte family collections. Long overlooked textile scraps, for example, tell rich stories of forgiveness gifts from Jerome to Elizabeth. A lone red account book contains a record of her finances, yet turned 180 degrees reads like a journal, providing “some of the most powerful evidence of Elizabeth's internal struggles” during the French trial over her son’s legitimacy. The volume is likely one of the five in which she recorded a “skeleton” of a memoir. Deutsch pays equal attention to the lives of Elizabeth’s son Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, “Bo,” and grandsons Jerome Jr. and Charles, deftly exploring how the members of these next generations defined and perpetuated their royal heritage through material possessions. This work truly expands Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte’s story beyond the “mésalliance” with Napoleon’s younger brother and reveals the complex life of a romantic and rebellious young woman whose deep hurt drove her to the courts of Europe and who ultimately found comfort and satisfaction in her hard-won financial independence. In this well-balanced and exceptionally sensitive work, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte finally breathes.

Download or read book Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte written by Charlene M. Boyer Lewis and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-05-22 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two centuries ago, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte was one of the most famous women in America. Beautiful, scandalous, and outspoken, she had wed Napoleon's brother Jerome, borne his child, and seen the marriage annulled by the emperor himself. With her notorious behavior, dashing husband, and associations with European royalty, Elizabeth became one of America's first celebrities during a crucial moment in the nation's history. At the time of Elizabeth's fame, the United States had only recently gained its independence, and the character of American society and politics was not yet fully formed. Still concerned that their republican experiment might fail and that their society might become too much like that of monarchical Europe, many Americans feared the corrupting influence of European manners and ideas. Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte's imperial connections and aristocratic aspirations made her a central figure in these debates, with many, including members of Congress and the social elites of the day, regarding her as a threat. Appraising Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte's many identities—celebrity, aristocrat, independent woman, mother—Charlene M. Boyer Lewis shows how Madame Bonaparte, as she was known, exercised extraordinary social power at the center of the changing transatlantic world. In spite of the assumed threat that she posed to the new social and political order, Americans could not help being captivated by Elizabeth's style, beauty, and wit. She offered an alternative to the republican wife by pursuing a life of aristocratic dreams in the United States and Europe. Her story reminds us of the fragility of the American experiment in its infancy and, equally important, of the active role of women in the debates over society and culture in the early republic.

Download or read book The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte written by and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Bonapartes in America written by Clarence Edward Macartney and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amazing and exciting, as romantic as it is realistic and historically authentic, THE BONAPARTES IN AMERICA was the first published work to contain in one volume all available material, much of it newly discovered by them, on every member of the Bonaparte family that lived in the United States or was connected in any way with the country. Dr. Macartney, distinguished historian, former head of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and Major Dorrance, author and publisher, roamed afar in their quest of new and important material. Research in the British Museum, and special trips through France and to Corsica, to mention but a few, went into their book of old romance, which was first published on the 100th anniversary of the former King Joseph Bonaparte’s final return to Europe from the United States. This one famous and colorful family has placed a great if hitherto little known part in the building of America, our native land. THE BONAPARTES IN AMERICA contains fascinating chapters on Jerome Bonaparte and Elizabeth Patterson; Charles J. Bonaparte of Baltimore; Joseph Bonaparte at Philadelphia, Bordentown, New Jersey, and Lake Bonaparte New York; the Murats of Florida; Napoleon III in New York City; Napoleon III and Mexico; The Napoleonic Exiles in Alabama; Texas and the Champ d’Asile; Marshal Ney and North Carolina; Napoleon and the Louisiana Purchase; Napoleon’s American Son in California; and American Plots to Rescue Napoleon from St. Helena. THE. BONAPARTES IN AMERICA is beautifully illustrated with old portraits and engravings, including pictures of Napoleon, Jerome and Elizabeth. Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. Charles J. Bonaparte, Joseph Bonaparte, Joseph’s I Philadelphia home, “Point Breeze” and Bonaparte I park at Bordentown, Lake Bonaparte, Prince and Princess Achille Murat, Napoleon III, Letizia Bonaparte, mother of Napoleon, John Gordon Bonaparte of San Francisco and the Napoleon House at New Orleans.

Download or read book Betsy Bonaparte written by Helen J. Burn and published by Maryland Historical Society. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past 130 years, Elizabeth "Betsy" Patterson Bonaparte has inspired countless books, movies, articles, and fictionalized accounts. None captures the full measure of her fascinating life. The product of thirty years of study, Helen Jean Burn's life of Betsy Bonaparte surpasses its predecessors in scope, depth, and soul. Born in Baltimore to a wealthy family in 1785, Elizabeth Patterson shook local and Parisian society when she wed Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the Emperor Napoleon. Insisting on a better future for his brother, the emperor annulled the marriage, but not before it produced a son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. Betsy's failed quest to win royal status for her son and grandsons consumed the remainder of her seventy-four years, decades that transformed her from the glamorous "belle of Baltimore" into a shrewd and successful businesswoman determined to protect her family.

Download or read book A Woman of Two Worlds written by Alexandra Deutsch and published by Maryland Historical Society. This book was released on 2016-03-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this well-balanced and exceptionally sensitive work, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte finally breathes.

Download or read book Betsy Bonaparte written by Claude Bourguignon-Frassetto and published by Maryland Historical Society. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baltimore’s high-spirited, independent and controversial Betsy Patterson married Napoleon’s brother Jerome in 1803, bore a son, and defied the angry Emperor. Originally published in France in 1988, this lively biography takes the reader into the intrigues in France and early 19th-century Baltimore.

Download or read book The Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte written by Eugene Lemoine Didier and published by . This book was released on 1879 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century written by Virginia Tatnall Peacock and published by Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott Company. This book was released on 1900 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Letters of Napoleon written by J. M. Thompson and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not that all Napoleons letters, or even many of them, are of a selfrevealing kind. In youth he had few confidants in middle age he had little to confide. la the stress of business and war he soon shed the idealism of the patriot, the fatalism of the f evolutionary, and the romanticism of the lover. Any sense he may once have had of the beauty, the pathos, or even the humour of life was coarsened by flattery and success. He can still declare, exhort, abuse, persuade, even charm but always in the interest of a policy, and to gain an end. He is wise, clearsighted, eloquent, heroic but hardly ever a human being in repose. Nevertheless, Napo leons letters remain, beyond anything written about him, or anything else he wrote or said about himself, by far his finest portrait. When he was a young man, Napoleon wrote in the rapid and already confused hand of the relatively rare letters signed Buonaparte or Bonaparte. With growing age and work, his handwriting became so slovenly as to be wellnigh illegible whilst his signature shortened from Napoleon to Napol., Nap., Np., and N. Though he still wrote some private letters, and the more important military and diplomatic despatches, he habitually employed secretaries, and carried on the bulk of his correspondence by dictation. Napoleon had three principal secretaries Bourrienne 1797-1802, Meneval 1802-13, and Fain 1806-14. All of them wrote Memoirs, and there is no lack of evidence as to how their work was done. In a rather unkind conversation at St. Helena, Napoleon said that Bourrienne wrote a good hand, and was active, tireless, and patriotic, but that he was a gambler, whose face lit up when his master dictated any thing dealing with big figures: he was in fact dismissed for becoming involved in financial speculation. His work was done partly at the Luxembourg, and partly at the Tuileries. In his Memoirs he describes Napoleons appear ance, dress, and habits in minute detail. From breakfast at 10 to dinner at 5 every hour was taken up with reading petitions, correcting letters, giving interviews, or attending meetings.

Download or read book Civil War Wives written by Carol Berkin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-11-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these moving stories if Angelina Grimké Weld, wife of abolitionist Theodore Weld, Varina Howell Davis, wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and Julia Dent grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant, Carol Berkin reveals how women understood the cataclysmic events of their day. Their stories, taken together, help reconstruct the era of the Civil War with a greater depth and complexity by adding women's experiences and voices to their male counterparts.

Download or read book Napoleon in America written by Shannon Selin and published by . This book was released on 2014-01 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if Napoleon Bonaparte had escaped from St. Helena and wound up in the United States? The year is 1821. Former French Emperor Napoleon has been imprisoned on a dark wart in the Atlantic since his defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Rescued in a state of near-death by Gulf pirate Jean Laffite, Napoleon lands in New Orleans, where he struggles to regain his health aided by voodoo priestess Marie Laveau. Opponents of the Bourbon regime expect him to reconquer France. French Canadians beg him to seize Canada from Britain. American adventurers urge him to steal Texas from Mexico. His brother Joseph pleads with him to settle peacefully in New Jersey. As Napoleon restlessly explores his new land, he frets about his legacy. He fears for the future of his ten-year-old son, trapped in the velvet fetters of the Austrian court. While the British, French and American governments follow his activities with growing alarm, remnants of the Grande Armee flock to him with growing anticipation. Are Napoleon's intentions as peaceful as he says they are? If not, does he still have the qualities necessary to lead a winning campaign? If you enjoy alternate history or 19th century historical fiction, Napoleon in America is for you."

Download or read book Napoleon A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows written by Ruth Scurr and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marking the 200th anniversary of his death, Napoleon is an unprecedented portrait of the emperor told through his engagement with the natural world. “How should one envisage this subject? With a great pomp of words, or with simplicity?” —Charlotte Brontë, “The Death of Napoleon” The most celebrated general in history, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) has for centuries attracted eminent male writers. Since Thomas Carlyle first christened him “our last Great Man,” regiments of biographers have marched across the same territory, weighing campaigns and conflicts, military tactics and power politics. Yet in all this time, no definitive portrait of Napoleon has endured, and a mere handful of women have written his biography—a fact that surely would have pleased him. With Napoleon, Ruth Scurr, one of our most eloquent and original historians, emphatically rejects the shibboleth of the “Great Man” theory of history, instead following the dramatic trajectory of Napoleon’s life through gardens, parks, and forests. As Scurr reveals, gardening was the first and last love of Napoleon, offering him a retreat from the manifold frustrations of war and politics. Gardens were, at the same time, a mirror image to the battlefields on which he fought, discrete settings in which terrain and weather were as important as they were in combat, but for creative rather than destructive purposes. Drawing on a wealth of contemporary and historical scholarship, and taking us from his early days at the military school in Brienne-le-Château through his canny seizure of power and eventual exile, Napoleon frames the general’s story through the green spaces he cultivated. Amid Corsican olive groves, ornate menageries in Paris, and lone garden plots on the island of Saint Helena, Scurr introduces a diverse cast of scientists, architects, family members, and gardeners, all of whom stood in the shadows of Napoleon’s meteoric rise and fall. Building a cumulative panorama, she offers indelible portraits of Augustin Bon Joseph de Robespierre, the younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre, who used his position to advance Napoleon’s career; Marianne Peusol, the fourteen-year-old girl manipulated into a Christmas-Eve assassination attempt on Napoleon that resulted in her death; and Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases, the atlas maker to whom Napoleon dictated his memoirs. As Scurr contends, Napoleon’s dealings with these people offer unusual and unguarded opportunities to see how he grafted a new empire onto the remnants of the ancien régime and the French Revolution. Epic in scale and novelistic in its detail, Napoleon, with stunning illustrations, is a work of revelatory range and depth, revealing the contours of the general’s personality and power as no conventional biography can.

Download or read book Revolutionary Mothers written by Carol Berkin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking history of the American Revolution that “vividly recounts Colonial women’s struggles for independence—for their nation and, sometimes, for themselves.... [Her] lively book reclaims a vital part of our political legacy" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into the life of every American. In this book, Carol Berkin shows us how women played a vital role throughout the conflict. The women of the Revolution were most active at home, organizing boycotts of British goods, raising funds for the fledgling nation, and managing the family business while struggling to maintain a modicum of normalcy as husbands, brothers and fathers died. Yet Berkin also reveals that it was not just the men who fought on the front lines, as in the story of Margaret Corbin, who was crippled for life when she took her husband’s place beside a cannon at Fort Monmouth. This incisive and comprehensive history illuminates a fascinating and unknown side of the struggle for American independence.

Download or read book Old World New World written by Leonard J. Sadosky and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2010-02-09 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Old World, New World: America and Europe in the Age of Jefferson grew out of workshops in Salzburg and Charlottesville sponsored by Monticello’s International Center for Jefferson Studies, and revisits a question of long-standing interest to American historians: the nature of the relationship between America and Europe during the Age of Revolution. Study of the American-European relationship in recent years has been moved forward by the notion of Atlantic history and the study of the Atlantic world. The present volume makes a fresh contribution by refocusing attention on the question of the interdependence of Europe and America. Old World, New World addresses topics that are timely, given contemporary public events, but that are also of interest to early modern and modern historians. By turning attention from the Atlantic World in general to the relationship between America and Europe, as well as using Thomas Jefferson as a lens to examine this relationship, this book carves out its own niche in the history of the Atlantic world in the age of revolution.

Download or read book The Royal Governess written by Wendy Holden and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the childhood years of Queen Elizabeth II, one of the most famous women who ever lived, a young governess helped shape her into the icon the world knows today. In 1933, twenty-two-year-old Marion Crawford accepts the role of a lifetime, tutoring the little Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. Her one stipulation to their parents is that she bring some doses of normalcy into their sheltered and privileged lives. At Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Balmoral, Marion defies stuffy protocol to take the princesses on tube trains, swimming at public baths, and on joyful Christmas shopping trips at Woolworth’s. From her ringside seat at the heart of the British monarchy she witnesses the trauma of the Abdication, the glamour of the Coronation, the onset of World War II. She steers the little princesses through it all, as close as a mother. As Hitler’s planes fly over Windsor, she shelters her charges in the castle dungeons (not far from where the Crown Jewels are hidden in a biscuit tin). Afterwards, she is present when Elizabeth first sets eyes on Philip, her future husband. But being beloved confidante to the Windsor family comes at huge personal cost. Marriage, children, her own views: all are compromised by proximity to royal glory. In this majestic story of love, sacrifice and allegiance, bestselling novelist Holden brings to life the early years before Queen Elizabeth II became monarch. “This captivating page-turner whisks readers back in time to Buckingham Palace in 1933…A majestic story that delves into the incredible life of Queen Elizabeth II before she took her place on the throne.”—Woman’s World