Hortense was a passionate woman who was under the spell of her stepfather Napoleon. Pretty much everyone around him was in love with him so she didn’t find it abnormal that she was as well. She found herself at a loss for words around him, as he was so intense and imposing.
When she got pushed into a marriage with Napoleon’s brother under the pretext of saving her mother’s marriage with Napoleon, she felt she should comply.
Her new husband was perfectly aware that Hortense did not want to marry him and he constantly made her life hell to retaliate.
Certainly, she was not going interfere with her mother’s marriage, no matter what she felt for Napoleon. Hortense focused her oceans of feeling into her sons. The stress of living with her psycho husband destroyed her health. She continued to grasp at life only for the sake of her sons.
While this women was wasting away from sheer misery, a dashing officer kept coming around. This handsome young man managed to capture her imagination with all his push me/pull you dramatics.
The work was successful. This charming man managed to seduce a woman barely clinging to life.
When finally Hortense had a respectable pretext for no longer living with her husband (Louis ran off), she permitted herself this liaison.
Hortense surrounded herself with friends, created a salon, and placed this officer in the middle of the scene.
The seductive young man, de Flahaut, left Hortense when she no longer had anything to offer him and he found other people who could give him whatever he needed to go on living as a fashionable rich guy.
Before de Flahaut moved on, Hortense and de Flauhaut secretly had a son together.
When Hortense was kicked out of France, she was always trying to get to Switzerland. The place where her son with de Flahaut was living. We’ll call him de Morny.
Given Hortense’s overly developed motherly instinct, I cannot imagine she abandoned this child. She did, however, keep the situation quiet. Based on what happened, it appears that she was doing everything in her power to help create a legitimate heir for Napoleon. This she could only do through the 1 son (out of 4) circumstances permitted her to keep - her precious Louis Napoleon.
Hortense had been cast out of society. After becoming Emperor and being an admirable French ruler, her Louis Napoleon was deposed.
The de Flahaut line managed to retain wealth long term better than the Napoleon/Hortense line could.
Based on my experience, it’s the sellouts that manage to stay at the “top”, no matter what occurs.
This hand gesture jumped out at me. The person who is known for this hand gesture, in my mind, is James I, an English monarch best known for pederasty and a dominant translation of the Bible.
There are innumerable paintings where James I subtly makes gestures that can be seen in the Masonic hand gesture list below.
What’s also interesting is that de Morny’s daughter Mathilde became a highly famous and celebrated cross dresser. In the late 1800s, every effort was made to create the impression that this person’s behavior was not only acceptable but superior.
The origin story of these circumstances can be found here.
https://www.thetanster.com/blog/2019/2/11/napoleon-memoirs-links
Google even incorrectly states that Hortense and de Flahaut were the parents of this person who achieved enormous fame through crossdressing. Mathilde de Morny was their granddaughter. Even today, anyone can see that the media has made great efforts to publicize this person’s behavior as absolutely terrific and wonderful.
