Zoé Talon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zoé Talon with her two children in a painting by François Gérard , 1825

Zoé Victoire Talon (* August 2 or August 25, 1785 in Boullay-Thierry , † March 19, 1852 in Saint-Ouen ) was a confidante and mistress of the French King Louis XVIII. By marrying Achille Pierre Antoine de Baschi she became Countess of Cayla, which is why she is also known in history as Comtesse du Cayla . In her honor, the French rose breeder Pierre Guillot named a rose species "Comtesse du Cayla" in 1902 .

Life

Zoé Victoire came as the second of three children Jeanne Agnès Gabrielle de Pestre de Seneffes, maid of honor Maria Josepha of Savoy , and her husband Antoine Omer Talon, Marquis of Boullay-Thierry and advocat général in Paris Parlement , to the world. Towards the end of 1790, as a supporter of the royalist side, her father was forced to emigrate first to England and then to the United States . He took his family with him. During the directorate , the Talons returned to France in 1796, and Zoé was sent to the Madame Campans boarding school in Saint-Germain-en-Laye for training. There she made friends with Napoleon's stepdaughter Hortense de Beauharnais , who later became Queen of Holland .

When she was 17 years old, she married on August 3, 1802 in Paris the 27-year-old Achille Pierre Antoine de Baschi, comte du Cayla (1775-1851) , from the Tuscan nobility . Her father had meanwhile come to a lot of money through speculation and was therefore able to provide his daughter with a generous dowry of 300,000  francs . After Antoine Omer Talon was arrested at Napoleon's behest in 1804 and sentenced to death for not bowing to the authority of the First Consul, Zoé Victoire was also suspected of supporting activities against the new regime. To get rid of it, she went to the head of Napoleon's secret police , Anne-Jean-Marie-René Savary , before. She managed to convince Savary of her innocence while at the same time getting him to commute the death sentence passed on her father into a life sentence on Sainte-Marguerite . In return, Zoé became Savary's lover. The relationship between the two would last for several years.

In 1804 Madame du Cayla gave birth to a son (1804–1828) who was baptized Ugolin. Two years later their daughter Ugoline Louise Josephine Valentine (1806-1885) was born, who married Edmond Henry Étienne Victurnien de Beauvau-Craon in 1825 into the family of the princes of Beauvau-Craon . The Count of Cayla denied the paternity of the two children, which was an expression of the increasing estrangement of the couple. The dispute finally culminated in the fact that the couple, although still living under one roof, fought over the custody of the two children in a lengthy divorce process from 1817 onwards, because according to the law, Achille Pierre Antoine de Baschi was the legal father of the two . In desperation, Zoé asked for an audience with the king, which was actually granted to her on the basis of a letter of recommendation from her mother-in-law, who like her mother had been the Countess of Provence's maid of honor . According to another version, there were compromising documents in Zoé's possession, which came from her father's estate, with which she was able to obtain an audience with the king. The countess managed to win the elderly king over for herself and her cause, and he promised her protection from her husband's attacks. However, it did not stop at this one meeting of the two, because Louis XVIII. appreciated the company of the pretty 32 year old and the witty conversation with her. The appointments became more frequent, so that they eventually became three fixed, afternoon appointments per week. The connection between the two, however, was not a sexual relationship, but rather had the character of a close and very intimate friendship. Zoé Victoire exercised a not inconsiderable influence on the king, which the ultra- royalists around Sosthène de La Rochefoucauld used for their own purposes.

On October 29, 1822, the King donated the Saint-Ouen Castle to Madame du Cayla , which he had completely rebuilt. Actually, a ducal title and corresponding income should be connected with the property , but Zoé Victoire refused this. After Charles X ascended the throne , Zoé retired to her castle. There she devoted herself to agricultural studies and was particularly concerned with the breeding of merino sheep . She died there at the age of 65 on March 19, 1852 in great financial difficulties because the citizen-king Louis-Philippe had canceled all support for her.

literature

  • Jean Baptiste Honore Raymond Capefigue: La comtesse du Cayla, Louis XVIII et les salons du Faubourg Saint-Germain sous la Restauration. Amyot, Paris 1866 ( online ).
  • Jean François Chiappe: Le monde au féminin. Encyclopédie des femmes célèbres. Somogy, 1976, p. 68.
  • Catherine Decours: La dernière favorite. Zoé du Cayla, le grand amour de Louis XVIII. Perrin, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-262-01044-7 .
  • Claude Dufresne: Zoé Talon dans l'ombre de Louis XVIII. In: Historama. No. 34, 1986, ISSN  0018-2273 , pp. 72-77.
  • Charles Nauroy: Les derniers Bourbons. Le duc de Berry et Louvel, les favorites de Louis XVIII, la dernière maitresse du comte d'Artois, la femme du duc d'Enghien. Charavay frères, Paris 1883, pp. 152-158.
  • Arthur-Léon Imbert de Saint-Amand: La Cour de Louis XVIII. Dentu, Paris 1891, pp. 535-541 ( online ).
  • Gilbert Stenger: Grandes dames du XIXe siècle. Chronique du temps de la restoration. Perrin, Paris 1911, pp. 385-420 ( online ).
  • Joseph Turquan: Souveraines et grandes dames. Les favorites de Louis XVIII. Montgredien, Paris 1899, pp. 166-193.
  • Hugh Noel Williams: A princess of adventure. Marie Caroline, duchess de Berry. Charles Scribner's sons, New York 1911, pp. 203-209, 213 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Antoine-Mathurin Casenave: Les tribunaux civils de Paris pendant la Revolution (1791-1800). Volume 2, part 1. Cerf, Paris 1907, p. 388, note 3 ( online ).
  2. ↑ Short biography on chateau-boullaythierry.webou.net  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed February 27, 2012.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.chateau-boullaythierry.webou.net  
  3. ^ C. Nauroy: Les derniers Bourbons , p. 158.
  4. ^ C. Nauroy: Les derniers Bourbons , p. 152.
  5. ^ Claude Liprandi: Sur un personnage du "Rouge et la Noir". La Maréchale de Fervaques (= Collection stendhalienne . Volume 2). Librairie Droz, Paris 1959, p. 46.
  6. ^ Albert Mathiez: Conference. Syndicat National des Instituteurs et Institutrices de France et des Colonies, Section de l'Aube. Troyes 1927, p. 9 ( online ).
  7. ↑ G. Stenger: Grandes dames du XIXe siècle , p. 393
  8. ↑ A.-L. Imbert de Saint-Amand: La Cour de Louis XVIII , p. 536.
  9. ↑ Alphonse de Lamartine: Histoire de la Restoration. Volume 5. Self-published, Paris 1861–1862, p. 180 ( online )
  10. ↑ Fernand Bourbon: Saint-Ouen. Notice historique et renseignements administratifs. École d'Alembert, Montévrain 1902, p. 18 ( online ).
  11. ↑ Oscar de Poli. Louis XVIII 4th edition. Bureaux de la Civilization, Paris 1880, p. 329 ( online ).
  12. ^ Agnès Walch: Histoire de l'adultère. (XVIe - XIXe siècle). Perrin, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-262-02430-7 , p. 182.
personal data
SURNAME Talon, Zoé
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Comtesse du Cayla; Cayla, Talon, Zoé Victoire, comtesse you
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mistress of the French King Louis XVIII.
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1785 or August 25, 1785
PLACE OF BIRTH Boullay-Thierry
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1852
Place of death Saint-Ouen