Catherine Grand

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François Gerard : Madame Grand, oil on canvas, around 1805

Noëlle-Catherine Grand , better known as Madame Talleyrand-Périgord, Princesse de Bénévent (born November 21, 1762 in Tharangambadi , India , † December 10, 1834 in Pont-de-Sains near Paris ), was a French mistress , salonnière and a well-known beauty of the 19th century.

Life

Noëlle-Catherine Verlée (or Worlée) was the second daughter of the frigate lieutenant and port captain of Chandernagor Jean-Pierre Verlée and his wife Laurence Alleigne. In 1777 the family moved to Chandernagor. There she was with the Englishman with French origin , George Francis Grand, a lieutenant of the British Civil Service made known. She married him on April 7, 1778 in Chandernagor Church and on the same day in St. John's Church in Calcutta . The couple settled in Calcutta. Some time later rumors surfaced that she was in love with the wealthy Irish officer and politician Sir Philip Francis. At first, Grand brought his wife back to Chandernagore, but sent her to England by ship a few months later.

Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun : Madame Grand, oil on canvas, 1783

After some amorous adventures in England, Catherine Grand went to France in 1783 , where she ran a well-known literary salon in Paris on Rue du Sentier and rose to become one of the notorious Parisian courtesans . Among her lovers were the banker Valdec de Lessart and the entomologist Maximilian Spinola.

In 1792 the Palais des Tuileries was stormed by the Parisians and delegates from the provinces. Louis XVI was captured and taken to prison. Catherine Grand managed to escape from Paris back to England. She returned to France after Maximilien de Robespierre was overthrown and was imprisoned shortly afterwards on charges of espionage . She was charged before the Revolutionary Tribunal for supporting the counterrevolution and contact with emigrants and sentenced to death. From prison she asked the Foreign Minister, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838), for intervention . The young woman's beauty and grace influenced the minister, a former bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.

François Gérard: Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, oil on canvas, 1808

After her release, Madame Grand lived with Talleyrand in the official residence of the minister in a wild marriage . According to the Concordat of 1801, Napoléon Bonaparte asked Talleyrand to either marry his mistress or to give her up. In any case, Madame Grand could not represent the French state as mistress of the Foreign Minister. Grand's husband was generously compensated and rewarded with a post in the Cape Province after he consented to the divorce. The wedding of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord and Catherine Grand took place on September 9, 1802 in the Rue de Verneuil in the presence of Bonaparte and his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais . Talleyrand's interest in his wife cooled significantly after the wedding.

Madame Talleyrand then went to England. The French ambassador in London acted as an intermediary between the Talleyrand couple and they returned to Paris. In the following years Madame Talleyrand fulfilled her duties as the Minister's wife until her husband left for the Congress of Vienna . On this trip Talleyrand was accompanied by his niece, Countess Dorothea von Biron , and Madame Talleyrand left Paris again. She first moved to London , later to Brussels and finally took up residence north of Paris in Pont-de-Sains .

Name in different phases of life

  • 1762–1798 Noëlle-Catherine Verlée (or Worlée)
  • 1798–1802 Noëlle-Catherine Grand
  • 1802–1834 Noëlle-Catherine de Talleyrand-Périgord
  • 1806–1813 Noëlle-Catherine de Talleyrand-Périgord, Princesse de Bénévent

literature

  • Yvonne Robert Gaebele: Des Plages du coromandel aux salens du Consulat et de L'Empire

Web links

Commons : Catherine Grand  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Madame Grand, later Princess de Talleyrand
personal data
SURNAME Grand, Catherine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Verlée, Noëlle-Catherine; Talleyrand-Périgord, Noëlle-Catherine de; Talleyrand-Périgord, Noëlle-Catherine de Princess of Bénévent
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Courtesan, saloniere and beauty
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH Tharangambadi , India
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1834
Place of death Pont-de-Sains near Paris