[applause] thank you for coming out on a cold, cold night. Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte slowly walking down the streets of the city in 1870s, her trademark red parasol held high above her head to protect her from sun or rain or in Winter Weather draped carefully over one arm. On the other and she carried an ornate bag that was rimmer told all of her jewels. Her dress is no longer fashionable, perhaps they did not bygone era when napoleon dominated europe and america was little more than a fledgling nation. No matter, it was clear she had once been a great beauty and even in her old age, she conveyed an elegance and sense of superiority that captured admiration as well as curiosity. Ash is thought that one building in the next wrapping on doors in demanding their rent owed to her by the tenants, passerby is neither recognized her as their cities and their Country First female celebrity. At the same passerby is followed her home after business was to pleaded they wouldve once again marveled at her eccentricity despite all the property she owned and she owned the lot, both in the city and surrounding areas of the shia pour the idea of setting up a household and she chose to live in a rented room on the top floor of the strangers home. Crowded with ornate furniture, every surface covered with souvenirs, a single closet altering the faded ball account that had been worn in the heady days after Frances Emperor was sent into exile. And they are in an atmosphere happy with memory and nostalgia, they wouldve found her, poised to tell her story with the same sharp wit and sensitive irony in the same of observation that i darty been as much a part of her as her extraordinary beauty and her extraordinary ambition. She had lived a long and remarkable life and she knew she had a remarkable story to tell. Betsy never got to tell that story. Although she left scores of her of letters and annotated many of those that have been to her, wondrous beauty is my effort to tell that story or her. From the beginning, i realized i had stumbled upon a fascinating personal story that day to be told. But it proved more not. List of Patterson Bonaparte five from public she was perhaps the first genuine female celebrity in our nation and newspapers carried accounts of what she wore, where she went, what she did with a relish that todays gossip columnists would surely recognize. More importantly, her most personal choices had repercussions in the halls of power on two continents. The threestory op erred as not only the chance to recreated stroma and there was a lot of drama but also to explore and analyze its impact on the larger world we have 19th century politics warring struggles to power. Most satisfying of all because i am an historian of women, Betsy Bonaparte struggle to be more than the gender ideology of her day allowed offers the opportunity to measure not only the cost of social conformity, but the cost of individual female rebellion. Her story begins at the fairytale. He was a dashing french naval her who is also the youngest brother of the great napoleon bonaparte. She was ultima certain knowledge most beautiful bell, a 17yearold who is desperate to escape what she can better the humdrum mediocre and constrict and society of her native baltimore as well as her very overbearing father. The two young people met. The film unless perhaps only teenagers then and now can do. The stories that are told that the First Encounter between jerome and betsy are themselves really the stuff of romance. Set record that he saw her at one of marylands many horse races. Her point hyatt shading her lovely face and he knew it meant in think he was love. Others reported that they met at a fancy ball and as they danced, her pearls became entwined in the buttons of his coat, a sign the observers declare their entwined destinies. Still others and that she saw him coming up the lock of her friend tom she explained that once, he is the man i will marry, which if any of these tales is true is unknown . But neither betsys father, william nor the French Council in america were willing to give their blessing to this relationship. William patterson had tears misgivings about intentions and character. Ms. Evinced by the way they proved to be all too accurate. Jerome i guess this is not the technical term, but jerome was a weasel. The council warned bluntly that napoleon would never approve his brothers marriage to a commoner. Betsy and jerome were. Jerome bonaparte who really was a spoiled brat and fast. Im not fond of him. Compressed a weakness possessed the beautiful things and he was determined to possess that be. But do is ready to dramatically declare to her father and if any of you have ever had a teenage daughter, you can recognize the kind of statement she made. I would rather be the wife of Jerome Bonaparte for an hour then the wife of many other man for a lifetime. In the face of his daughters stubbornness, William Patterson surrendered. Elizabeth and jerome were made on Christmas Eve 1803. The young couple immediately became famous in america. They were fed it and fast over the nations capitol and its other major cities and newspapers everywhere carried accounts of their activities. Jerome ran up enormous debt, purchasing an elegant home, expensive furnishings, extravagant gifts for his wife, all of which he could not afford. Yet americas elite site to be seen in this company and extending credit. In washington, betsy shah the wife of congressman by. The latest french bashes the addresses without layers of undergarment with plunging neckline and capped sleeves that revealed her arms as one woman put it, she is neither great points here and mobs of boys have crowded roundabout will not often be seen in this country and almost make it woman. The man at the elegant ball she had attended could see that these fees. What was fashioned in paris was clearly indecent exposure in america. We are not meant to be separated gerome often assured at the over the next two years and gets you nowhere. For there is no happily ever after to this romantic tale. In 1805 betsy was pregnant and the couple decided to sail to france, hoping to win napoleon over to the marriage. Frances emperor had other ideas. He immediately issued orders that did not pregnant at sea was forbidden to step foot on europeans oil. He also forced the French Senate to annul the marriage. He tried to get the pope to annul the marriage, but William Patterson had been clever enough to have been a merry at the archbishop of baltimore. The pope said its a legal marriage. Later napoleon imprisoned the pope. Im not saying he carried a grudge, be imprisoned the pope. He had the French Senate annul the marriage. He then demanded that sharon come before him and after prorating his younger brother issued an ultimatum. Either you abandon that American Girl and marry a princess so it woman to nobility i choose to disown you and cut off your allowance. The materialistic jerome k. Did that once. He was soon married to a stout, but very nice, by the way, unattractive german print does. Betsy would not see jerome again for decades until she passed them in the gallery palace. While jerome capitulated to his brother, betsy who could find no european or willing to welcome her was forced to find my fridge. Here she gave birth to roam a child come a son who she named jerome. Everyone in the family is major. It became very provincial for me to regret her to tell me which jerome always thought about. See it in is los rios but two americas. The fairytale ends her. Betsys own story was really just beginning. Her abandonment transformed her from a naive girl in the fiercely woman. Back in Baltimore Schubert used to play the pennant in who it recommends that the poor judgment and youthful rebellion by marrying a second time to summers tractable local schwab merchant. Instead she declared her intention to forever be governed by my own rules. She soon used marriage proposals from two lovesick english nobleman to hurt the image. She told the poland that she would not embarrass friends by marrying one of his english enemy is if she could see fit to give her a pension and she did. She invested the small sum of money so cleverly that when she died she had become a millionaire. Between 1805 and 1814, all she could do was buy her time waiting for a chance to escape to america and the city she so detested once again. When napoleon began his exile, betsy made her escape. She shocked family friend and others want again by leaving her son with relatives in the in unescorted tear up. This is not done in the early 19 century. She spent much of the next four decades abroad in london, geneva, rome, florence and paris. Here are her tragic of betrayal, her real beauty, but above all her intelligence and wit group is powerfully passport into aristocratic society as a wedding ring from Jerome Bonaparte mightve done. The battle of baltimore became the belle of europe. Surrounded by artists, writers, poets and women of sparkling wit and brilliance at home in the most intellectual of parisians salon and in the palatial homes of russian refugees and english nobleman, she had become just as napoleon once boasted of himself , the fabricator of her own destiny. The destiny she fabricated was remarkable. Well into her 60s amendment fell under her style and brilliant and Accomplished Women express their respect and admiration for her. The archive at the maryland has doorpost society is filled with love, each and every one of the really dreadful. I read them with some of these men come with love letters and marriage proposals bagman beside the atlantic and with correspondence from authors like leap said the morgan of french intellectual leaders like bernard don has stalled. During the course of a lifetimecan machine that was befriended by men and women as diverse as the duke of wellington who had a crush on her. The painter Benjamin West and the man who became the sars chief diplomat and advisor, alexander orser costs. With american leaders think Jefferson Gallatin and john jacob astor. Its the complexity of elizabeths character and personality that ultimately made her worthy of very close examination. And her many letters to friends and families, she absolutely laid waste to American Culture into an american agenda ideals. She decried the narrowness of emptiness of the society whose focus she sat on money making to the exclusion of all else and his women were destined to nothing more than accommodating their house and send produced in children. She embraced european aristocratic society with the leadership illtimed meritocracy the bloodlines. Its appreciation for artistic and intellectual achievement and validation of a public role for women. And yet, betsys own behavior often belied her rejection of all things american. In the same letters that character could tempt her american men imprisoned in their counting houses intercessors gave thomas says, she reveals her own meticulous in focused attention to money and money making. She had an absolute obsession with wealth and its acquisition and she was darn good at acquiring it. And her behavior would have run admiration for Many American entrepreneur. Bessie never saw the contradiction. And her simultaneous nation. Nor did she see the contradiction in her can code to the maternal sacrifices required by american domesticity in her own near obsessive devotion to a sacrifice for her son and her two grandsons today we would call her a helicopter mother. Her dreams for them worker and a never grandiose and she devoted much of her energies throughout her life to see her son that knowledge as a legitimate bonaparte in doing battle in french court to napoleon the third crown. She remained unaware of the contradictions in the values she tried to them part to her son every day she preached the importance of his bloodline and defining his destiny and she took pains to provide them with aristocratic manners and attitudes. Yet at the very same time, she prepares them for life in the american her talkers ye, making him go to harvard and telling him that he needed to pick it recession that would ensure his path to economic independence. Actually what her son since he marries money. Theres a shortcut to this and he marries money. Perhaps most tragically she never understood the contradiction inherent in her relationship with her father. Her letters lusterless condemnation of his marital infidelity is and they were many. He actually brought a mistress in the house while her mother was dying and had an illegitimate child with one of them. Infidelity by the way Jerome Bonaparte became famous for his love and she resented his demands upon her to conform to the role hes the patriarch assigned to her and the demand he made upon her. At the same time, his letters bristled with criticism of her lifestyle, complained she had shirked her familial duties and dennis insisted she was diluted in seeking hot venus out that of baltimore. Their lifelong contest of wills, their private and public condemnation of each other ironically attested to their intense emotional connection. Betsy always tried to win her fathers approval and William Paterson always tried to win her respect. Neither succeeded in the bond between them was forged from anger, you are missing content. After his death, betsy continued to do battle with his ghost, writing the dialogue of the dead are dialogues between sharon and my father in howell. It would be an injustice to betsy to tell her story is a feminist triumph. She paid a very high price for the choices she made, despite scores of suitors in america and in europe should refuse to ever marry again. In part this is a reflection of her dissolution met with romance and marriage. It was also because she couldnt imagine having been a bonaparte was to bring herself to settle for anything less and because she was extremely worried that if she married again, her son might not be able to make his claim of legitimacy. The independent spirit shared long nurtured in her old age soured. Her cynicism became deeply tinged by jealousy of the good fortune of other women. Her habit of economy that has once been a product of a desire to be independent key by her on the mission near miserliness. Bitterness never marked her first, but it did in the end marker spirit. As an aging woman she wrote her own history not as a triumph over adversity, but as a chain of endless disappointments in the trails. A reporter interviewed Elizabeth Patterson bonaparte in 1870 found her to be a wondrous beauty. But he also found her to be wary and offensive. Her nature he observed a suspicious and work by many injuries. When Elizabeth Patterson bonaparte, the most beautiful woman in america and europe summed up her role in life, she wrote simply, i have lived alone and i will die alone. Its a biography i thought her story complex and compelling. As in a story come but sequiturs dory is the oleum porton, for Elizabeth Patterson bonaparte was one of the few american women of the early 19th century whose life was lived in public and it had a direct impact on the political and diplomatic decisions made by an exclusively male national government. Her marriage to two rome buonaparte shut the Federalist Party and Republican Party alike. Newspapers at home and abroad were filled with speculation on what it would mean for american neutrality in the epic that all been waged between france and england. Did it signal a shift in policy at jeffersons administration . Herbivores had similar impact. A popular decision impacted by harsh treatment of this beautiful Young Baltimore lament and her son . At the American Government tape system and ultimate sovereignty into its laws for despite nepali tend marriage, it remains valid in maryland. Across the atlantic, the English Press lost no opportunity to contrast its welcoming gestures to pregnant sz with napoleons cruelty. Bessies love life works best with whether this would shape a rather they would have to make a decision based on what happened to bed bonaparte. When the rumor spread that napoleon had given it the attention and was even considering giving her and her son titles of nobility, theyre anxious political leaders in america who read this is a temp to us that mushy french beachhead in american society. The fear of a french duke and duchess within the United States borders actually lead to a proposed amendment to the constitution that would cancel citizenship to any private citizen who accepted a foreign title or pension. The amendment on popularly as the Betsy Bonaparte amendment only narrowly failed ratification. Much later in the 1850s that the undersigned jerome create cause celebre for a on two continents for the pseudofrench court for record nation of jeromes legitimacy in his right to a price in succession to the throne of napoleon the third. He lost the case for the french court said youre absolutely right. Hes legitimate child of Jerome Bonaparte, but its going to cost too much trouble so we are not going to say he is and were not going to say he is entitled to succession to the throne. The trial was the headline on harpers weekly magazine, displacing news of Secession Convention and the possibility of civil war at home. Every significant event in his personal life from her marriage to her divorce to napoleons downfall to the famous trial to the death of her former husband and finally to her own death at the age of 93 in 1878 all prompted newspapers across the country. If i newspapers in tulsa, oklahoma the results are wary of her courtship, marriage and betrayal. A reader can actually trace the american trajectory from anxious and fragile x tournament to a constant member of the family of nations by following how these newspapers responded to the events of betsys life. Finally, that sees critique of american society, unforgiving and unrelenting provides a window onto a halfcentury that is often lauded by the male historians writing about men as expansive opportunity failed individualistic and democratic. The letters between betsy and her father william constitute one of the most profound dialogue between old world values and aristocratic culture in which society and between a gender ideology that allowed women of public identity and one that sought to confine them into the private sphere. If her judgment was extreme, so it deserves our attention as historians and as women and men in our own era who celebrate equality and individuality sometimes honored in the breach. In the end, the story betsy had to tell was the womans story. It captures the difficulty women of the early 19th century phase and construct an independent lives within a country that lauded selfinterest and selffulfillment for men, but confinement of endless sacrifice for their wives and daughters. Only a year after betsy died, the novelist henry james published his first job nurse a portion of the lady in the atlantic monthly. Its the personal freedom, responsibility, betrayal and sexuality and its focus on the differences between the new world and the old brought to fiction the dilemma that had once been faced by a real american women, Elizabeth Patterson bonaparte. Neither henry james snort Edith Wharton whose age of innocence and the buccaneers dramatize the same teams knew that invest in the historian would find a reality ascom pelion as their fiction. [applause] i usually tell my students and ready to answer any question i know the are two. Otherwise i say what teachers everywhere for millennia has that come to see me after class. [laughter] any questions . Yes, sir. Thank you for your talk. I am not very good at genealogy, but was betsys son a second cousin of Louis Napoleon . Yes. Yes he was. He strikes me as a rather weak claim to succession. Well, the issue was napoleon the third didnt have any children at the time they brought this. Its such a complicated story. At first, napoleon the third welcomes betsy and sharon and her son go. She calls him Ofer Bonaparte and says yes of course youre a member of the family and of course you belong. And man, betsy zacks has, jerome, who has a theory and vicious and truly nasty son im tempted to say he makes ted cruz looked nice, protested because pond on, this boys name is jerome, too. They couldnt think of another name. They called him plonk on because jerome son had been a military officer and he had gone to west point and he resigned his commission and joined the french army. And the war in the crimea he came home with lots and lots of memos and he was made a member of the personal guard of the empress. Plan plan on the other got his nickname because he went to war also and his troops at the minute he heard the plan plan of the canons, he ran. So she was as craven cowardly guy and here was those son who is really quite raise. Napoleon the third bolcom said men are created and told they can in the palace. Plan plan comes in and he says i am going to raise holy if you acknowledge him. Then the family pushes them aside. The court then says yes, youre absolutely right. You are legitimately married. Bo is a legitimate bonaparte. He had to be in the succession to the throne. Should have informed her that secession presumes a certain amount of training. You have to be there for the job. You dont suddenly appear from another country. Yes, thats true. And i would say that she was always unrealistic about her not only did she hope that bo would become the emperor of france, but when he said im taking my marbles and going home, she put all her stakes on his son, jerome, and jerome, that jerome said, you know, i do want to do this anymore. He came back to america. Was really sad about both of these men is that they both married american women. And betsy, instead of being happy for them, saw this as the greatest but trail that her family could ever impose upon her. She was enraged. She wrote those son, jerome, when he got married. And by the way, he married daniel websters daughter, you know, thats not exactly white bread an american aristocracy. She was not interested at all. She wrote him the nastiest letter i think i have ever seen from a member of a family to another member of the family. Fundamentally saying, you know, i hope to see you in hell and hope your miserable and hope you never had a happy day in your life, and you have ruined my life and im never speaking to you again. So heres a woman who, because of these wishes for her family alienated and separated herself from the family, and i consider that, in the acknowledgment because this book is dedicated to my soninlaw, my daughterinlaw. Daughterinlaw. And i said its really a shame, the greatest tragedy in betsys life is that she could not love her family in the same way that i love mine. Its the worst side of betsy, that she wanted them to be what she wanted them to be. There are mothers like that everywhere. Thank you for a great presentation. Presentation. Oh, thank you. I have a lot of questions but i probably believe a lot of them are answered in the book so i wont ask the ones i think are likely answered in the book, but there are two or so, actually i have a third that probably arent answered and may not be so i will ask those. Okay. You dont need to answer all three. I dont want to occupy all your time. One though is just simply, why was napoleon so upset about are concerned about his youngest brothers choice of a white . Thats easy to answer. Napoleon like to marry off his family to members of the european aristocracy. Both to establish his own social standing, but also it was one way shore up the entire. Exactly, exactly. He was furious with his brother who married his mistress, and napoleon said, how dare you marry someone that i didnt pick . So when jerome did it, too, it was unfortunate because he was so mad that when jerome did also that was the straw that broke the camels back. Okay. The second one is will more, smaller question. In baltimore in 1870 when betsy is wanted around and living in you said the upper floor of a friend some not a friend. A strangers home. Baltimore, i grew up in baltimore and am wondering where the home is. How did she come any background you can give on that choice and that i did . I probably have the address of her but i didnt put it in the book and the very old and ive forgotten. Betsy never wanted to establish her own household, ever. In part because she saw that as a sign of domesticity. She did not want to be a woman who ran a household. And she owned enormous amounts of real estate, and luckily, she would not live there. So she lived as she had lived she rather to the way she lived in europe when chips grabbed and saved to give her son dancing lessons and popping out to be an equestrian. And she lived in rented rooms when she was invited to stay at someones estate. So she reproduces that in baltimore when, in fact, she owned a good bit of the real estate in baltimore. So i think, i think she is eccentric by that point. She lives in one room, you know, crowded with all of her memorabilia. Is the house identified in the book . Not in the book, no. I didnt think that was, except to people in baltimore, really, zip code and all, no. Are you going to write a screenplay . You know, now that is a great question. I mean, this is a Keira Knightley special, right . [laughter] it just absolutely has to be at least a masterpiece theatre. We try becoming a, im not above my agent, sony pictures, faintly interested in the new said no, we are not. I dont know why not. If any of you have connections, believe me, ive already cast the whole thing. You know, ive already got who i want. But it is such a grand story. I mean, its just filled with drama and excitement. They fall in love. Thats the only men i think betsy ever love. He is as usable and is fun and a sharp and as intelligent as she has. The people who see them together say theres real electricity. But he wants is a young diplomat at the time. He wants to rise in power in russia, he says look, i cant marry you. I have to a rich member of the nobility, but will youd but will you be my mistress . And bestie says, live in russia at someones mistress, no, thank you. And they separate. Years later the writer this letter and he says, we have both learned to be stoical in our unhappiness. He still i guess still loved her. First to fall upon the questions about screenplay. There was a movie yes. Various fictional the movie that is made in the 20s, they invented a happy ending with jerome yes. And for some reason arenberg appears in debt. I have no idea how they did know each other. But why he was there spent the movie is hilarious but it sort of gone with the wind without the wins, you know . [laughter] i actually read a lot of the letters myself and i had been thinking that maybe writing something on her life, but i found her to be such a rough character. I just did want to spend that much time with her, i knew you characterized jerome, and im not going to defend his character, but i think first of all napoleon threatened them with little more than inheritance like maybe better reference may be in prison that. Only to continue taking the with her after he had agreed not to. Not beforehand. She was so obsessed with titles. I wanted, i dont know if this was in his mind, but i dont issue wouldve been happy married to a jerome who did not have a title are married to anyone who do not have a title. My other question really, fundamental question is, she was a bitter person and so obsessed with things the to us in the 21st century seem ridiculous like getting a title. I just wonder, did you have any difficulty finding her to be a person wanted to write about no. Thats a good question. And there are other people who said, she was an unpleasant person. I would have to get a little autobiographer first of all, i love, i love the witty people. I love sharp people, and she was one. I guess i sort of empathize with betsy. There was a high price as i said that she paid for what she wanted to be, which was not just a member of the she wanted to be at one point she says, i wanted to be a person, not just the wife and mother. I grew up in mobile, alabama, yes, and in the 1950s if you were smart, like to read books and were not wealthy, you were not the prom queen. And i picked myself up at 16 and a half, to the amazement and horror of most of the people i knew when i went to college at barnard in new york, where i was without question the least prepared, you can imagine what school in mobile, alabama, was like but i could tell you stories. One of my teacher put a hand on my shoulder and said, think of it this way, we havent done any permanent damage. [laughter] i was all alone in new york. I was a scholarship kid, all these girls were smart and brassy and talented and had read all of shakespeare and read all the greek tragedies. And i was lonely and i thought, you know, im going to stick it out because this is what i want. And thats what i found in betsy, that made me really both empathize with her but i think understand her. She knew what she wanted, and its true that some of what she wanted was shallow. But basically what she wanted was to be your own person. And i really, i like that in a person. And jerome was a weasel. [laughter] lovely talk. Thank you. I have two questions, and if you choose which to answer. How did she make her money . I know baltimore is much more important than we think of it today in the early and the second question is what did her father, what influence did her father have on the person she became . The answer to the first one is easy. She interested in real estate, but she also invested in stocks and bonds and she followed currency rises and falls. You can tell im an academic. I dont understand any of the stuff really, but and she would buy currency and she made her final really big part of her fortune by investing in government bonds during the civil war. And just to hedge her bed, she invested both in northern and in southern i mean, she writes these meticulous letters to the people who are managing her money. I want you to do this, i dont want you to buy that. I mean, she really kept her eye on what was making money and what wasnt. She made a big fortune which she left to her remaining grandchild, Charles Bonaparte who, by the way, Charles Bonaparte, the fbi, the precursor of, found the precursor of the fbi. And i think his papers are in the library of congress. Yes. And he restored the name bonaparte to the newspapers. This happened after betsy died. I mean, he was not so famous during her lifetime. She would have not thought much of his accomplishments. The Single Member of the family that would have pleased her was jerome, her grandson, had a daughter who married in a region member of the nobility. That betsy would have liked. So that, now, there was a second question. Was that the second question . How did her fathers person of influence her personality . Well, they were very similar, of course. I mean, he had come over to america when he was 14, a penniless irish kid, and he made a fortune. He married not into mobility but when he moved to baltimore, he very carefully picked out one of the most prestigious families, and he married into it. So he was a social climber in the same way that betsy was a social climber. He was as stubborn as she was stubborn. But what is more interesting is that napoleon and her father, different scales, were very similar. William paterson never stop telling people that he had made his own destiny. He was rags to riches and he had done it all by himself, just as napoleon said. And betsy, who hated her father on some levels, never hated napoleon. She had fired him her entire life. And so and what did she admire that hed made his own destiny, that he was hardnose, ambitious. And so like the joys of biography, people are so complicated. Right . Right. Thank you spent one more genealogical question. Is that napoleon iii had no children. Spent at that time. His son was killed fighting yes, but when, in 1858 and 1859, they did not have a child. Didnt want to be caught up on a mistake. Spent i have sort of a probably irrelevant relative question. Excuse me. There is an estate outside of baltimore, and there is a statue and there is a rumor that the statute is jerome napoleon, and that that the state was made for betsy. Do you have any knowledge of the . That is probably very likely. That is he built a huge home and they had two carriages that were very ornate. And all kinds of fancy furniture that was brought in. And then, of course, jerome in essence skips down. Betsys father is left to pay all the bills. He feels its a matter of personal honor, right, that his soninlaw, and so he takes everything in the house, everything, and he tells betsy when she comes back to baltimore, he says no, it all belongs to me and im selling it because i paid your rotten husbands deaths debts. She never got over that. When shes in her 80s shes writing in the margins of her fathers letter and she sang he took my silver. It took my right . She feels felt betrayed by her father for that, but there was a country estate, a city home. Im not sure whether she ultimately wound up owning the city home. I cant, i cant swear to that. My sisterinlaw lives there. Jerome napoleon is the butler. How nice that they live the there. Im from sykesville maryland and theres a beautiful property and as a sign in front of it, the paterson home. Spent there were lots of patersons. That is, for betsys mother had 13 children. There was robert, edward, george. There were a couple of girls who died young. I cant really name the whole family. Im really two books passed this book now, so im having a little trouble with the names. But they all had homes. So it was not necessarily hers. It could have belonged to the sons. William patterson won his entire family to stay, to live with them even when they got married. Wanted to keep an eye on everybody and run their lives. So the sons, when they could come got out and build their own homes. One of the sons had slaves and sided with the south, and one of the other sons sided with the north, of the three remaining sons when the civil war breaks out. So it probably wasnt betsys home. She was sent to the country home when her father is trying to break up jerome and betsy before they get married. He sends her to the country, and so that mightve been the home that he sent her to. To get her out of town. Meanwhile, jerome, the weasel, goes to philadelphia and, of course, tries to seduce several women because the you know, when youre not near the one you love, love the one you are near as Crosby Stills Nash and youngs tell us. And william gets a letter from someone, an anonymous letter saying do you know what your future soninlaw is like . Thats one of the reasons he sends her off to the country. So now i have told you the whole boat. Know, there is more in a, i promise. Yes the . Did her father leave her money when he died . And how long did not fully and provide a pension . He provide it until he went to alba. She got a pension, not biblical but she got a pension from 1805 no, she didnt get it until about 1807, 1808, then until 1815. Actually bureaucracies being what bureaucracies are, she continued to get a couple of payments after napoleon had been deposed because it was, you know, it was in the bureaucracy. William had signed agreements that he would distribute his estate equally equal portions to all children in the family. But when he died, his will, because he was a very prominent person from his will was published in the newspaper, and he had we done it. And it says publicly, i have pledged im paraphrasing. I pledge to give all of my children equal shares, but my daughter, betsy, have been such a plague in my life, she has never done what i wanted her to do, she abandoned her family, she has done terrible things and so im not leaving her her full share. Betsy was mortified that its in the newspaper, write, and one of the reasons why should the dialogue between husband and her father. And she, being betsy, calls a lawyer and she says i want to sue for my share of the estate. Through a very complicated process that she might have lost something else, she finally withdraws lawsuit. So she got some property. She had actually the family house. He left her the family house. But she never got her fair share. And when she asked her brother, edward, was the only member of the family she really felt close to come to support her, he said no and she never spoke to him again. And the most fun is reading her annotations on the letters that she put years and years later. And my favorites were the annotations on the love letters. She just had tremendous contempt for these men. And there was one fellow who kept writing to her, i burn with love. And every one of the letters that sh you would write, another letter from that idiot. [laughter] and on her fathers letters, its as if it had happened that very day. Shes so furious. And was usually furious about is how he treated her mother, and thats one of the reasons she so despises american gender ideology because her mother was treated as very submissive and very obedient. And her father brought all these women into the house and he was terrible to her mother. And thats what she writes in the annotations. You know, he brought horse into the house and he was a hypocrite and he was a liar and he was a good family man and how dare he accused me. Its all in these annotations on the sides of the letters. I dont know if youve ever done research, but its really fun to find things like that, i must say. Have i worn you out with all of this . You said he was irish, patterson, and they had dinner in the church, and the Roman Catholic church in baltimore. Was he Roman Catholic . All, no. He any of the converted to the presbyterian because his wife, because the Presbyterian Church was the more high status church. He was a social climber. And so he married, got her married in the Catholic Church by the archbishop of baltimore to ensure that come because he suspecting napoleon might not like this, to ensure that it was legal in the eyes of the church as well as legal in the eyes of the state. So hes very cunning, and he does it to protect her. It didnt protect her really. She ultimately gets a divorce in maryland because as shes making all this money, she realizes jerome who by now is gone through every penny of his wife and of his wifes father might come and try to claim that they are still married in america and he had possession of all of her wealth. So she divorces him finally. She is her fathers daughter, she really is. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] if you would mind Holding Fully up your chairs and we will start our signing line. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] booktv is on facebook. Like us to interact with the booktv guests and viewers. Watch videos and get uptodate information on events. Facebook. Com booktv. America ha has always had ths generation gaps because americans are a Dynamic Society and we always have younger adults to think different from the parents and grandparents. In this particular moment these gaps across all dimensions that were interested in have gotten very wide. The largest of those gaps is racial and ethnic. We are now 40 or 50 years into the third grade immigration weight in the countrys history. It began in the mid 60s when we pass legislation to open the borders from having close our borders back in the 1920s. In reaction to the previous immigration wave, and the borders sort stayed close through world wars and depression et cetera. Were ready to open them up. Personal and absolute numbers, more immigrants than the two previous waves put together although as a share of the population still not as big. But whats interesting is the first two is going back to late 19th and early target center, nine in 10 of our grandparents were from your. And this wave, half are from latin america, nearly 30 are from asia, only about 10 are from europe. To this wave is changing our racial complexion and makeup. We are now a country that is on a path to become majority nonwhite before the middle of this century, sometime in early 2040s according to the census bureau. Pretty dramatic change. So for someone, someone my age, and im one of those boomers was about to turn 55 this year, im bored into the country that 85 white and im going to be living in a country so that is 43 white. It is for people my age, it is disorienting. For people like children and grandchildrens agent its the only america they have known and its the most natural thing in the world. You can watch this and other programs on line at tdd. Org. You are watching booktv on on cspan2. Heres our primetime lineup for tonight. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. This is a report on the nato maneuvers of 1954. This is a gigantic land maneuver under the coordination of the fifth corps u. S. Seventh army. It has many training purposes but an additional purpose could be to display natos might be for the communist. This exercise is divided into two opposing forces called black and green. In this exercise, old sides have the american 280 member of atomic cannon. The atomic cannon has never been fired in europe. What youll see here is a simulated atomic explosion. The atomic canon can be fired in europe. The guns are ready. The men are ready. Should the soviets attacked anyone of natos 14 nations, atomic guns will fire