Hortense bonaparte biography
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Hortense Beauharnais
(Hortense Bonaparte)
&#;Born in Paris, the younger sister of Eugene de Beauharnais lost her father to the instigators of the French Revolution and their deadly guillotine. Her mother married Napoleon two years later, and Hortense was educated alongside Napoleons youngest sister. She became an accomplished amateur musical composer, and she provided lively anthems during her stepfathers marches. At Napoleons request, Hortense married Louis Bonaparte and became queen of Holland, a move that dissatisfied her because it removed her from the Parisian court and forced her nearer her husband, whom she disliked. She did come to enjo
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BEAUHARNAIS, Hortense de
Hortense&#;s premature birth, on 10 April, , was the pretext for the separation of her parents, Alexandre and Rose de Beauharnais. Alexandre even initially denied that he was Hortense&#;s father (though he later recognised her as his), and Hortense was taken by her mother to the Antilles in Whilst such an experience certainly left her with a feeling of distrust and fear regarding marriage, and she came to recognise separation as an acceptable state for a relationship, nevertheless one should not overemphasise the effect of this first experience. Later events – the rise and fall of a famous father, the reconciliation of her parents, her last view of her father through a window, and his tragic death on the guillotine (15 July ) – helped her forget her parents&#; initial complications. Hortense and Eugène (her brother) were closely bonded by the memory of their father and in the affection of their mother, whom they always tried to protect and to whom Hortense
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Eugène and Hortense de Beauharnais
Eugène dem Beauharnais
Born in , Eugène dem Beauharnais became aide-de-camp to his stepfather Bonaparte in He served in Egypt and at the Battle of Marengo and pursued a distinguished military career before being named Viceroy of Italy, a daunting task which he fulfilled to the best of his abilities and the relative freedom given to him bygd the Emperor. Officially adopted bygd Napoleon in , he married the daughter of the King of Bavaria, Augusta Amalia. Their marriage was a happy one and they had six children.
Highly decorated during the Russian campaign, his loyalty to the kejsare earned him the respect of his contemporaries and proved him worthy of the motto he had adopted: "Honour and loyalty". After Waterloo he fled to Munich where his father-in-law named him Duke of Leuchtenberg, and devoted himself to his properties. Eugène remained the close friend and confidant of his sister Hortense, who he visited at her retreat in Arenenberg, bu