Harriet Howard
Harriet Howard (born on 13. August 1823 when Elizabeth Ann Haryett in Brighton , died on 19th August 1865 ) was the mistress and financial patron of Napoleon III. in the years 1846 to 1848.
Life
She was born the daughter of a shoemaker in Brighton and was the granddaughter of a hotel owner there. In 1838 she became the lover of Jem Mason, a jockey and son of a horse dealer, who "kidnapped" her from her parents' house to London . The young woman aspiring to an acting career renamed herself Harriet Howard, and found a new lover in 1841, the married Major Mountjoy Martyn. She gave birth to his son Martin Constantin Haryett, who was passed off as her younger brother when he was baptized. Mountjoy Martyn endowed them with an unusually large fortune and property.
In 1846 in the house of her friend Marguerite, Countess of Blessington , she met Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been imprisoned in the French fortress of Ham after two coup attempts in recent years and had just fled to England. With Mountjoy Martin's consent, she rented the destitute exile a house on Berkeley Street and moved in with Napoleon. Napoléon's two young sons also came into the household and were raised together with Howard's son. The affair severely damaged Napoleon's reputation in London.
She used her fortune to support his return efforts. In fact, Napoléon was able to win the presidential elections in France against incumbent Louis-Eugène Cavaignac in December 1848 , whereupon Howard followed him to Paris and moved into a house near the Élysée Palace . Napoléon, still her lover, then put himself on the throne of the Second Empire in 1851/52, while Miss Howard supported him with her funds.
On the day of the plebiscite, with which Napoléon legitimized himself as emperor in 1852, he returned the favor to Miss Howard by conferring the title of Countess de Beauregard and the awarding of the associated Beauregard castle in La Celle-Saint-Cloud . Since he had resigned his lover, he was able to marry Empress Eugenie without major court scandals . Nevertheless, he visited her again six months later, until Eugenie forbade him to have further contact.
Miss Howard married the horse breeder Clarence Trelawny in 1852, from whom she divorced in 1865. She died that same year and was buried in Le Chesnay .
Her son Martin (died 1907) was also raised to the nobility by Napoléon and married into the Hungarian nobility.
swell
- Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 234
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Howard, Harriet |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Howard, Elizabeth Ann; Haryett, Elizabeth Ann; Beauregard, Comtesse de |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Mistress of Napoleon III. |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 13, 1823 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brighton |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 19, 1865 |