Hortense de Beauharnais

Born in 1783 to Joséphine de Beauharnais, Hortense became Napoleon's stepdaughter when he married her mother, then his sister-in-law when she married his brother Louis in 1806. That same year Louis was installed as King of Holland, making her queen consort of a realm neither wanted. The marriage was miserable. She bore three sons—Napoléon-Charles, the future Napoleon III, and Louis II—before the kingdom collapsed and the union dissolved. She also had an illegitimate son, Charles, Duke of Morny, with her lover the Comte de Flahaut. She died in 1837, having watched one son become emperor and liv…