>6=B=1@327B5=B6/;0==9##'>B
&
E 6 3 @ 3 5 C3AB0==9
BLTGB_130900_f-Bonaparte.indd 18
9/4/13 9:26:13 AM
Belle
C:65@H=ACF9
5fcmU`¾=Xc¿UbXh\Ydifgi]hcZUb]adYf]U``Y[UWm
0G93:A3G0A<3::
IT’S 1805. FROM HER BALTIMORE HOME, 20-year-old Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte writes a letter to the most powerful man
in the world. She declares to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte that he will acknowledge her as French royalty.
The brief marriage in 1803 of Elizabeth, also known as “Betsy,” and Jerome, Napoleon’s youngest brother, colors the rest
of her existence, a life torn between two worlds: Baltimore and Europe. Napoleon declares the two-year marriage null and
void, yet it’s not this forbidden love that leaves Elizabeth in pursuit of something more.
Determined to be known, she once told her father, “Nature never intended me for obscurity.” And she was right. Her name
brings many to the Maryland Historical Society (MDHS) for Woman of Two Worlds: Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte and Her
Quest for an Imperial Legacy, an exhibition that tells the story of her “love affairs” with untethered travel, self-made wealth,
glittering trappings and royal blood.
Elizabeth’s wanderlust began at a young age as she attended Madame Lacombe’s French Academy in Fells Point. She
became infatuated with Parisian style and society and wrote letters in French to be critiqued by instructors. (Her French dictionary is on view in the exhibit.) But at home in her Mount Vernon neighborhood, the excelling student continually failed
E 6 3 @ 3 5 C 3 AB 0 = = 9
BLTGB_130900_f-Bonaparte.indd 19
'
9/4/13 9:38:46 AM
their invitations to Elizabeth, and in Washington, D.C., first lady Dolley
Madison invited her to the White House. “In America, a woman’s intelligence wasn’t part of the ‘proper woman’ formula, but in Europe, intellect
was regarded as an attribute,” Deutsch says. “Elizabeth saw a European
society that valued what she deemed to be important.”
her father William Patterson, at the time Maryland’s
second-wealthiest man. He disapproved of Elizabeth’s
independence, intellect and scandalous beauty (5-foot-4
in stature with a 35-inch bust and 20-inch waist) that
she flaunted. These attributes undoubtedly attracted
frivolous Jerome Bonaparte who’d fled to the U.S. from
a Caribbean naval post to avoid capture by the British.
He wooed and married the “belle of Baltimore.”
As Jerome’s legal guardian, Napoleon refused to
acknowledge the union, so two years later the couple
sailed to France to attempt a reconciliation, but port
guards denied their entry. Succumbing to Napoleon’s
threats, Jerome abandoned his seven-months-pregnant
wife, and she was forced to find shelter in London. Three decades passed
before the next, and last, time she saw him.
B63/<=;/:G Elizabeth gave birth to Jerome “Bo” Bonaparte in London
and soon returned to Baltimore to find that Napoleon had annulled her
marriage. Without a moment of self-pity, she began her new life as a single
mother, an intellectual in the upper echelons of enlightened Europe and
America and a businesswoman who amassed millions. The retrospective at
MDHS focuses on Elizabeth’s 54 years after her marriage to Jerome, living
true to her motto, “Always move forward; never rest.”
B634@33 A>7@7B The traveling trunk belonging to “Madame Bonaparte
née Patterson” sits in the center of the gallery floor, a symbol of Elizabeth’s
nomadic life that defied 19th-century social conventions. Dissatisfied with
America, she took eight trips to Europe in her lifetime, and when she returned
to Baltimore, she refused to establish a home, hire slaves or remarry. “She
didn’t want to be encumbered,” says exhibit curator Alexandra Deutsch.
Always with ambitious intention, she navigated European society. In
Paris, the intellectual salons of elite female writers and thinkers extended
Elizabeth’s self-discipline and
sacrifice for her child came from the hope she clung
to—that her descendants would be acknowledged as
rightful heirs to the French throne. She indoctrinated
Bo and her grandsons, Jerome and Charles Joseph, with
their heritage from a young age. Although Bo grew up
in Baltimore apart from Elizabeth, at age 15 he joined
his mother in Geneva and in his adolescence grew close
to the Bonaparte family. Despite Napoleon’s “break” with Elizabeth and Bo,
the royal family cared for them by keeping in contact.
Much to his mother’s chagrin, Bo returned home to attend Harvard
and marry an American, and his sons too pledged allegiance to the New
World. Bo’s eldest Jerome became the first associate professor of French at
West Point military academy and later gained honors fighting with cousin
Napoleon III in France. Brother Charles Joseph, 20 years younger, served
in Theodore Roosevelt’s administration and became the founder of the
Department of Justice’s “G-men” agency that evolved into the FBI.
After a failed French court case in 1860, more than a half-century after
her marriage, Elizabeth finally relented. She declared to her family, “As long
as the Bonapartes exist, you will have no justice in the French courts.”
In her last years, Elizabeth enjoyed frequent visits from Charles Joseph
and wife Ellen Channing-Day to her Mount Vernon boarding house (on that
site today is specialty grocer Milk & Honey), and she died in 1879. Gilbert
Stuart’s portraits of her resplendent self as well as one of the young Jerome
Bonaparte hung in her rented room, and in her trunk, fine Parisian dresses,
gilded diadems and account books. With a moment’s notice, all could be
swept up for the next transatlantic traverse to her promised land.
B63 @=G/: :7<3
4@=;B=>:34B1=C@B3AG;26A)4@/<13A1=3;/<C3:3A1=BB=&$1=C@B3AG;26A574B=4;@A16/@:3A8=A3>60=</>/@B3)1=C@B3AG;26A
16/@:3A8=A3>6¸A0=</>/@B3
µ;CA3C;¶7<B634/;7:G6=;3=<>/@9
/D3<C3)@756B83@=;30=</>/@B3)
03:=E0=</>/@B36=CA37<&$#
had become the first independently made female
millionaire in America. Her desire always was,
she said, “to be handsome, to be a wit, to have a
fortune, to live in Paris, and to have the freedom
of the best houses and the best circles there.”
Yet money still caused her extreme anxiety, and
according to Deutsch, Elizabeth lived a “Spartan
existence. She had beautiful things, but she
didn’t have a lot of things.” Her account books,
on view at MDHS, reveal rigid inventories of
her possessions from muslin and satin gowns
to tooth powder, jewelry and silverware. Also
among her possessions when she died at the astounding
age of 94 were more than 40 properties in Baltimore
County, which resulted in a fortune for her grandson
equivalent to an estimated $35 million today.
>@3D7=CAA>@3/257:03@BABC/@B&">@7D/B31=::31B7=<)1=C@B3AG;/@G:/<267AB=@71/:A=173BG;26A/@B7ABC<9<=E<)B67A>/531:=19E7A3
B63 ;7::7=</7@3 By the 1840s, Elizabeth
E 6 3 @ 3 5 C3AB0==9
BLTGB_130900_f-Bonaparte.indd 20
9/4/13 9:27:15 AM
?/eWbVbVS1c`Ob]`
3ZWhOPSbV¶7\\SO`Zg gSO`a]T
1=C@B3AG;26A574B=4;@A/<2@3E@=03A=<)1=C@B3AG;26A03?C3AB=4;/@73:=C7A3;/@?C3A/23>=H=@C07=)1=C@B3AG;26A574B=4;@A16/@:3A8=A3>60=</>/@B3
1:=19E7A34@=;B=>:34B47@;7<;/AA=B& !1=C@B3AG;26A574B=4;@A16/@:3A8=A3>60=</>/@B3)1=C@B3AG;26A574B=4;@A16/@:3A8=A3>60=</>/@B3)1=C@B3AG;26A)
/ZSfO\R`O2ScbaQV;26AQVWST
Qc`Ob]`µPSQO[SS\bV`OZZSRPg
Qc`Ob]`WOZe]`Y2ScbaQVaOga
µ<Obc`S\SdS`
W\bS\RSR[S
T]`]PaQc`Wbg¶
3>0
aVS¸a\SdS`Sf^Z]`SROab]`gOa
Q][^ZSfOabVS]\Se]dS\PgO`QVW
dOZ[O\caQ`W^baO\R[]`SbVO\$
0]\O^O`bSPSZ]\UW\UaPS_cSObVSR
b]bVSa]QWSbgPg3ZZS\1VO\\W\U
2OgO0]\O^O`bSRSaQS\RO\b6S`S
2ScbaQVaVO`SaVS`^S`a]\OZRWaQ]d
S`g]T3ZWhOPSbV
EVObOa^SQb]T3ZWhOPSbVWa]TbS\
]dS`Z]]YSR-
BVS`][O\bWQdWaW]\]TVS`OaOaSfg
VS`]W\S]TbS\]dS`aVOR]eaVS`Q][
^ZSfWbgOaOe][O\AVSVORbVS
b`W^ZSbV`SOb]TPSOcbgW\bSZZWUS\QS
O\ReWb0SQOcaS]TbVOb^S]^ZSaOe
VS`OaOQSZSP`WbgO\RaVSabOgSRW\
bVS^cPZWQSgSVS`eV]ZSZWTS3dS\
b]ROgeS¸`STOaQW\ObSRPgVS`
EVWZSQc`ObW\UbVWaaV]eeVOb
ac`^`WaSRg]c3ZWhOPSbVPSQO[SVc[O\AVS¸a
OZeOgaPSS\OTZObab]`g(AVS[O`
`WSReOadS`gPSOcbWTcZO\RRWSR
`WQV0cbT]`Oe][O\eV]^`]XSQbSR
b`S[S\R]caaSZTQ]\TWRS\QSaVS
eS\bbV`]cUV^S`W]Ra]TZ]e
aSZTSabSS[RSS^RS^`SaaW]\O\R
b`S[S\R]caR]cPbOP]cbVS`RSQW
aW]\aW\SdS`gOa^SQb]TZWTSAVS
Sd]ZdSRW\b]Oe][O\eWbVeV][
e][S\b]ROgQO\WRS\bWTg
7T3ZWhOPSbVeS`SOZWdSb]ROg¬
AVS¸RPS`c\\W\U5]]UZSAVSeOa
QOZQcZObSRO\RW\bS\bW]\OZBVS`S
eOa\]QSWZW\UT]`bVWae][O\
>@3D7=CAA>@3/2(57:03@BABC/@B¸A7<1=;>:3B3=7:A93B16=43:7H/
03B6&")E/B3@1=:=@=40/:B7;=@37<%$&/@B7ABC<9<=E<B67A>/53
1:=19E7A34@=;B=>:34B(3:7H/03B6E3/@7<5/B7/@/57D3<0G63@
A7AB3@1/@=:7<3)7<3:7H/03B6¸A1=::31B7=<(A1=BB7A6/5/B3/<2A7:D3@
0@/13:3B6/7@=@</;3<BE7B61/;3=A>/@7A7/<7131@3/;A=@03B73@A
A=C>BC@33<E7B6;=<=5@/;=403:=D325@/<2A=<16/@:3A8=A3>6
0=</>/@B3/;3B6GABABC2232B7/@//574B4@=;83@=;3
E 6 3 @ 3 5 C 3 AB 0 = = 9
BLTGB_130900_f-Bonaparte.indd 21
9/4/13 11:38:41 AM