Talk:William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher
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I have edited this article to introduce a note of caution to the astonishing suggestion that Euegenie Mayer (my great great great grandmother) was "probably" the illegitimate daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte. This is news to me and I would love to know the source for this facinating claim. Fanny Mayer (nee Kreisammer) was certainly famed for her beauty and there is considerable mystery surrounding Eugenie's date of birth, but it would be surprising if Fanny's second husband Colonel John Gurwood, a self-publicist of some record, knew about her connection to the emperor and never mentioned anything about it. --Mattbrett 13:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi.
The idea Eugénie was an illegitimate daughter of Napoleon is something I've seen a few times and had the impression it was a myth perpetuated by Dorothy (Reginald 2nd Viscount Esher's eldest daughter) in the States where she spent much of her life.
Two references I have to hand are :
Nimrod - a literary review (University of Tulsa Spring/Summer 1973 - page 5) in which John Manchester, Dorothy's agent/publicist in New Mexico writes
"Her grandmother was French and was rumored to be the illegitimate daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte."
But some years later in
Brett - From Bloomsbury to New Mexico (Hodder & Stoughton 1984 - page 10) her biographer Sean Hignett says
"Dorothy Brett's grandmother, Eugénie, from whom she took her middle name, had a romanticised, rather more Bohemian background. Family myth - in which Dorothy strongly believed - held Eugénie to be a foundling on the field of battle after Waterloo. In her unpublished autobiography Brett wrote: "A prodigious hunt took place for the mother and eventually she was found, a very beautiful woman but of somewhat strange habits."
What the strange habits were, other than hanging around an otherwise undistinguished Flemish village during a ferocious battle, Dorothy Brett does not relate, but she became convinced that this camp follower was a mistress of Napoleon and that the Emperor himself may have been her great-grandfather. Despite the Napoleonic mementoes gathered by Reginald, this is almost certainly a family fancy. Eugénie is more authentically provided with a conventional birth in Lyons, as daughter of Louis Meyer or Mayer, an Alsatian."
Regards --Ernie Fortnum 10:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
