Sophie Dawes

Biography

Girl of Richard Dawes (1751-1828), fisherman and alcoholic smuggler of the island of Wight, Sophie Dawes was sent to London as maidservant and became in 1810 the mistress of the duke of Bourbon (later on prince de Condé in 1818), which lived then in emigration. The duke, who then had about sixty, fell completely under the cut from the young woman which, according to an explanation more and more largely allowed and which makes it possible to explain the fine tragedy of the prince, had special talents to stimulate the sexual heats of the old man by the strangulation, which, applied advisedly, would be likely to produce an erection. The duke of Bourbon establishes in 1811 Sophie Dawes in a house of Gloucester Street and made him give a good education, making him learn the old and modern languages and the music. She thus learned how to speak French without fault, though not without accent.

To the Restoration, the duke of Bourbon turned over to France and had a connection with another English, Miss Harris. But Sophie Dawes joined it in 1815 after the Hundred Days and their connection began again. To avoid the scandal and to allow his mistress to appear at the court, the prince made him marry in 1818 the major Adrien Victor Feuchères (originating in Nimes). He equipped it, made of the husband, with whom one affirmed that the young woman was the natural girl of the duke of Bourbon, his assistance-of-camp and obtained for him a title of baron. Pretty, intelligent and ambitious, the baroness of Feuchères was not long in pointing out herself at the court of Louis XVIII and to that of the Palais Royal, because it had not been long in being presented.

In 1822, the baron de Feuchères ends up discovering the nature of the relations between his wife and the prince of Condé. Humiliated to have been about the only one to be held in the ignorance of an open secret which made gausser any Paris, it left his wife, not without restoring her dowry, by imposing in March 1824 a separation which made scandal and deprived the baroness of Feuchères of her statute society man (legal separation was marked only in 1827). This one was seen prohibiting to appear at the court and, consequently, also ceased being received in the Palais Royal at the duke of Orleans and a little everywhere in the world.

This situation was appropriate perfectly to prince de Condé, who was interested especially in hunting and was satisfied perfectly with this solitary life, but at all for the intrigante baroness. To restore its lost position, this one operated skilfully while being based on Talleyrand and the family of Orleans. She offered to the first to wash it, in the spirit of prince de Condé, the charge to have taken part in the execution of the duke of Enghien and in the seconds to convince the last of the Cop to write a will in favor of the youngest child of wire of the duke of Orleans, the duke of Aumale. She counted n the other hand on them to intervene with the king in order to raise the interdict which struck it.

In April 1827, via the intendant of prince de Condé, Mrs. de Feuchères invited to dine with the Palate-Bourbon the right-hand man on the duke on Orleans, the knight of Broval, and the market proposed to him. Talleyrand, on its side, came to the Palais Royal on June 13rd, 1827 and made share with the one of the aide-de-camps, Chabot, of the proposals of the baroness: one of his/her nieces, Mathilde Dawes (1811-1854), would marry Hugues Jean Jacques Frederic, marquis de Chabannes of Palice, nephew of Talleyrand, with the blessing of prince de Condé, which would seal the reconciliation of the two families, while it would lead the prince to choose the duke of Aumale for heir.

June 17th, the duke of Orleans, accompanied by his oldest son, the duke of Chartres, went to dine with Saint-Leu. July 3rd, Talleyrand came to the Palais Royal and advised with the duke of Orleans to make prepare an act of adoption of the duke of Aumale which it would be enough to make sign with prince de Condé, but the lawyer of Louis-Philippe, Tripier, consulted, objected that the adoption of a minor was legally impossible and recommended a donation inter vivos with reserve of usufruct. The 16, Talleyrand returned to dine in the Palais Royal and the duke of Orleans informed it of last arrangements by charging it making share with the baroness of Feuchères with it. August 6th at the evening, Talleyrand returned carrying a letter of the baroness ensuring the duke of Orleans that it “mettr any solicitude” to obtain the desired act and informing it of the next marriage of his/her niece with the marquis de Chabannes.

Ultimately, after two years of efforts, Mrs. de Feuchères managed to obtain from Cop whom it writes on August 29th 1829 a will bequeathing the sum of 2 franc million to him as well as the Château of Saint-Leu and his park, the castle and field of Boissy, Enghien, the forest of Montmorency, and the field of Mortefontaine, as well as the house which she occupied with the Palate-Bourbon, and the Château of Écouen in the condition of making of it an orphanage for the children of the soldiers of the armies of Cop and the Vendée, the remainder of its fortune - more than 66 million francs in capital, producing two million annual income - going to the duke of Aumale.

The family of Orleans then multiplied the steps to obtain the back in favor of the baroness of Feuchères. In January 1830, Charles X granted finally the return of this one to the court. For this occasion, the dauphine would have sighed: “After all, we receive so many rabbles… ”. The nephew of the baroness, James Dawes, was then made baron de Flassans. Cop, on his side planned to leave his mistress and France, and, lorqu' it was found hung with the catch of its window on August 27th 1830, she was suspected and an investigation took place, which could not prove that the death was due to a crime, so that she was not continued. According to certain historians, it was acted in fact neither of a suicide nor of an assassination, but of an unavowable accident unhappy result of the sexual plays of the prince and his mistress. Sophie Dawes, definitively splashed by the scandal, liquidated her properties and turned over to London where she died on December 15th 1840.

References

External bonds

Benoit de Diesbach Belleroche - Genealogy Dawes

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