Adelaide Filleul, Marquise de Souza-Botelho

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Adélaïde-Emilie Filleul, Marquise de Souza-Botelho (May 14, 1761 - April 19, 1836) was a French writer

[edit] Biography

She was born in Paris.

Her mother, Marie Irene Catherine de Buisson, daughter of the Seigneur de Longpré, near Falaise, married a bourgeois of that town named Filleul. It was reported, though no proof is forthcoming, that Mme. Filleul had been the mistress of Louis XV. Her husband became one of the king's secretaries, and Mme. Filleul made many friends, among them Jean-François Marmontel. Their eldest daughter, Julie, married Abel François Poisson, marquis de Marigny (1727-1781); Adelaide married in 1779 Alexandre Sebastien de Flahaut de la Billarderie, comte de Flahaut, a soldier of some reputation, who was many years her senior.

In Paris she soon gathered round her a salon, in which the principal figure was Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. There are many allusions to their liaison in the diary of Gouverneur Morris, who was another of her lovers. In 1785 was born her son Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut, who was generally known to be Talleyrand's son. Mme de Flahaut fled from Paris in 1792 and joined the society of emigrés at Mickleham, Surrey, described in Mme. d'Arblay's Memoirs. Her husband remained at Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he was arrested on January 29, 1793 and guillotined. Mme. de Flahaut now supported herself by writing novels, of which the first, Adèle de Sénanges (London, 1794), which is partly autobiographical, was the most famous.

She presently left London for Switzerland, where she met Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans. She travelled in his company to Hamburg, where she lived for two years, earning her living as a milliner. She returned to Paris in 1798, and on 17 October 1802 she married José Maria de Souza-Botelho Mourão e Vasconcello (1758-1825), Portuguese minister plenipotentiary in Paris. Her husband was recalled in 1804, and was offered the Saint Petersburg embassy; but in the next year he resigned, to settle permanently in Paris, where he had many friends, among them the historian Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi. He spent his time chiefly in the preparation of a beautiful edition of the Lusiads of Luís de Camões, which he completed in 1817.

Mme. de Souza lost her social power after the fall of the First Empire, and was deserted even by Talleyrand, although he continued his patronage of Charles de Flahaut. Her husband died in 1825, and after the accession of Louis Philippe she lived in comparative retirement till her death. She brought up her grandson, Charles, duc de Morny, her son's natural son by Queen Hortense. Among her later novels were La Comtesse de Fargy (1822) and La Duchesse de Guise (1831). Her complete works were published between 1811 and 1822.