[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