Julie de Saint-Laurent----

Julie de Saint-Laurent
@Wikipedia

Julie de Saint Laurent

Comtesse de Montgenet
(1760-1830)

Lover in 1790-1818
of

Edward, Duke of Kent

Edward, Duke of Kent

(1787-1820)

Daughter of Jean-Claude Mongenêt, an engineer, & Jeanne-Claude Pussot.

Wife of:
1. Jean Charles de Mestre, Baron de Fortisson, a colonel in the French Army.
2. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
3. Prince Prospero Colonna

Julie's physical appearance & personal qualities.
Everyone said she was beautiful. She was talented, gentle, and well-bred. In May 1794, Governor John Wentworth wrote from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in a private letter to his friend John King, Under-Secretary of State in London, 'She is an elegant, well bred, pleasing, sensible woman, far beyond most . . . I never yet saw a woman of such intrepid fortitude yet possessing the finest temper and refined manners.' In 1806, a young protege wrote from London to his sister in Quebec, 'She is certainly the most kind, the best natured and the most amiable of all women; the beauties of her mind can only be equalled by those of her lovely person.'" (The Prince and His Lady: The Love Story of the Duke of Kent and Madame de St. Laurent in Georgian Halifax: 2)

First encounter.
" . . . In Canada he also renewed his acquaintance with a French-Canadian prostitute, Madame Julie de St. Laurent. She had originally been procured to provide sexual services for him in Gibraltar in 1790. The Duke's relationship with his 'French Lady,' as she became known to the family, developed into something deeper than a business relationship as they stayed together for the best part of thirty years." (Royal Babylon: 224)

"When the French Revolution began on July 14, 1789, the Fortissons fled France for Geneva, Switzerland. They found shelter in the home of Auguste Vasserot, Baron de Vincy. One night Vincy introduced them to Edward, who was then a twenty-one-year-old officer cadet under training in Geneva." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Affair with Madame de Sa. Laurent.

"In November 1790 Therese-Bernardine Mongenêt, as Mlle de Saint-Laurent, agreed to join Prince Edward Augustus, the fourth son of George III, then serving in Gibraltar. He had sent an intermediary to France to find "a young lady to be my companion and mistress of my house." She left her current lover, a countryman of her own who calls himself the Marquis de Permangle,  and became Mme de Saint-Laurent, with an hundred names and titles, among them Baronne de Fortisson, a title adopted, it seems, from an earlier lover. She charmed the prince, spurned a bribe to leave him, and accompanied him in the summer of 1791 to his military command in Quebec, beginning a 27-year liaison of great mutual happiness." (Dictionary of Canadian Biography) 

" . . . She was a French woman of dubious provenance, several years Edward's senior, known as Mme de St Laurent, which was not her real name. The Duke had, however, lived with her, it seems happily, since about 1790, but she had borne him no children. Latterly they had for financial reasons lived an almost bourgeois existence in Brussels. . . ." (Albert and Victoria: The Rise and Fall of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: 4)

Castle Lodge Hill, Ealing, 1814

"From Mrs. Fitzherbert, Edward and Julie bought a house at Ealing — Castle Hill Lodge — which later became their favorite home. In London society Edward and Julie appeared openly together. Julie's demeanor was so prudent that her association with Edward never provoked in the press the bitter ribaldry that other unofficial royal liaisons aroused. To discourage questions Julie placed Melanie with some of her own French refugee relatives who were living in London." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

The Duke's love nest with Julie.
"While serving in Canada, the duke took as his mistress a French widow, Madame Julie de St. Laurent (in fact, Therese Bernardine Mongenêt, an actress from Besançon who kept from him the fact she was seven years his senior). . . After his return, the duke lived briefly and extravagantly with Madame de St. Laurent, at his home near Ealing, where he continued to observe a strictly regimented routine involving close daily checks on the domestic bills, and the conduct of his servants. . . ." (Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion: 222)

"Julie became Edward’s chatelaine at 25 Rue St. Louis, a fifteen-room granite house of spare Georgian design. It still stands in the shadow of the Château Frontenac, overlooking the crooked streets of the Lower Town." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

"In the spring of 1792 Edward and Julie rented as a summer home Montmorency House, a graceful wooden mansion by the Falls of Montmorency, six miles east of Quebec City. Today the place is a Dominican retreat and tourist attraction." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Life near the Halifax Citadel.

"From 1794 to 1800, Prince Edward, his French mistress Julie St. Laurent and Julie's young daughter loved in a fine house on the southwest side of the hill. . . With Governor Wentworth's blessing, the Prince and Julie took over his private lodge in Bedford, and Edward grew so fond of the place that he ordered a major renovation that included a round music room and a heart-shaped pond, named for Julie. They spent most of the summer months at the lodge, and in winter, snow covered roads were no obstacle. Edward would simply order soldiers to shovel a carriage-wide path along the more than eight miles between the Citadel and Bedford." (Harbour Hopper's Best Halifax Stories: 16)

Julie's life with Prince Edward.

"She made her sixth and last transatlantic crossing in August 1800 when the duke left the climatic rigours of North America forever. Over the next 16 years, including some ten months when the duke was governor and commander at Gibraltar, Madame created the “quiet & peaceable home” he valued. At his Ealing (London) estate, Castle Hill Lodge, or in his Kensington Palace suite, the duke’s “beloved companion” arranged intimate dinners, welcomed friends, read in his extensive library, sewed (“she makes the whole of her clothes herself”), or scribbled in her commonplace-book. Frequent visitors were the four Salaberry sons, delighted by her kindness and charm. She and the duke shepherded the youngest, Édouard-Alphonse* (their godson), through his studies and grieved over his death in April 1812 at Badajoz, Spain; he was the third of the brothers to die. Madame also followed with close interest the education at Ealing of Charles-Jean Mongenet, elder son of her brother Jean-Claude; the duke was godfather to Édouard, the younger son." (Dictionary of National Biography)

". . . For three decades he had lived with his mistress, Therese-Bernardine Mongenêt of Besancon, a woman seven years older than he, who went by the name of Julie de St. Laurent. On learning of Princess Charlotte's death, the Duke of Kent reluctantly abandoned his mistress and sought out a suitable wife who would provide him with a legitimate heir. At forty-nine years of age, corpulent and balding, the duke was no longer a prize catch, and his opportunities were thus considerably reduced. . . ."  (Twilight of Splendor. . . : 27)

Madame de St. Laurent's personal & family background.

"Julie, born around 1764 as Therese-Bernardine de Montgenet, was raised in Besancon, France, near the Swiss border in Franche-Comte.The middle child of five born to Claudine Pussot and Montgenet, an engineer in France's department of highways, she had a quiet childhood, although her early childhood would be dominated by the violence of the French Revolution." (Prince Edward, Duke of Kent: Father of the Canadian Crown: 61)

"Her name was Alphonsine Thérèse Bernadine Julie de Montgenet, Baronne de Fortisson. She was born in the late 1760s into the titled Montgenet family at St. Laurent-sur-Mcr in Calvados, France. As a girl she was taken to Martinique in the French West Indies, where her parents owned sugar plantations. At Trois Ilets. Martinique, she attended a convent school. One of her fellow pupils was Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, daughter of a French officer and later the wife of Napoleon. Both girls were reserved by their ambitious mothers for men of rank in France. In their late teens they were shipped home as brides, Josephine for the Marquis de Beauharnais and Julie for her own cousin Jean Charles de Mestre, Baron de Fortisson. Fortisson was a colonel in the French artillery. By him Julie had one child, a daughter named Melanie." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Julie & husband's child.
" . . . Back in France, she married her cousin Jean-Charles-Andre de Mestro, baron de Fortisson, and in 1789, to escape the Revolution, fled with him and their baby daughter Melanie to the safety of Geneva."  (The Prince and His Lady: 2)

Edward & Julie's 1st son.
"In 1793 Julie gave birth in Quebec to a son by Edward. Though both parents were pleased and proud, the child presented problems. They felt compelled to keep its existence a secret from all but their closest friends. Edward feared that news of an addition to the collection of royal bastards already sired by his brothers in England would intensify the King's hostility toward him. So he decided to put the child out to foster parents. He selected for the foster father a man named Robert Wood, who had served in the Royal Navy as a chief petty officer. Edward secured for Wood the job of doorkeeper at the Legislative Assembly. Thus, while Prince William’s ten illegitimate children by Mrs. Jordan were raised openly in England and married off into the nobility, the first son of Edward and Julie was brought up covertly in a middle-class colonial home. The son was christened Robert Wood, after his foster father." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Edward & Julie's 2nd son.
"Julie sailed from Quebec City to Halifax in the spring of 1794. During the voyage she gave birth to a second son. Edward, who had sailed from the West Indies, met Julie in Halifax. Taking the child with them, they sailed together for Martinique. In Martinique the child was christened Jean de Mestre, the surname being one of the family names of the Baron de Fortisson. Julie’s mother, the Comtesse de Montgenet, agreed to bring up the baby in Martinique." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

A remarkably successful partnership and its aftermath.

At birth Victoria was only fifth in line to the throne. But in the years before, her father, Edward, Duke of Kent---the fourth son of King George III---had dramatically revised his life when he realized his siblings were not producing heirs and that the throne could someday pass to him and his offspring. He already had a partner, a gentle Frenchwoman named Julie de Saint-Laurent. Edward had ostensibly hired her to sing at a party with his band in 1790, during his first stint as governor in Gibraltar, but she was really brought into his house to share his bed. Despite these unromantic beginnings, and the fact that even if they had married, the king would never have recognized their union, they formed a remarkable partnership, which lasted through postings in Canada and Gibraltar as well as a scandalous mutiny by Edward's troops. But despite the three decades he had spent with the devoted Julie de Saint-Laurent, Edward had come to decide he needed a legitimate wife, one who would enable him to pay off his substantial debts, as princes were given additional allowances when they wed. When his niece, Charlotte, the presumptive heir to the throne, died in childbirth, it also became clear that if he found a younger wife, she might be able to bear a child who could reign over England." (The Prince and His Lady: 2)

Affair's effect of their spouses, families & society.
"In Edward, however, the Fortissons divined a protector. Was he not a prince of the most powerful nation on earth? Determined to develop a friendship with Edward, Julie relied heavily on her beauty. It is not known exactly when Julie, in trying to capture a benefactor, found herself confronted with a lover. But it was certainly very soon after that first meeting in Geneva. To Fortisson. brooding over the cataclysm in France, Julie’s infidelity was but a raindrop in a sea of trouble. Cynically, he shrugged his shoulders and became a mart complaisant." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Affair's end & aftermath.
". . . Retired from the British Army because of a taste for harsh for hard discipline which had provoked a mutiny at Gibraltar, permanently in debt, a bachelor at forty-eight, he lived mostly abroad with his mistress of twenty-eight years, a French-Canadian woman named Madame de St. Laurent. Inspired in 1818 by an offer of an increased parliamentary subsidy if he would marry and produce a child, he ushered Madame de St. Laurent to the door and proposed to a thirty-year-old widow, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg. They married and within ten months, on May 24, 1818, a daughter was born. Eight months later, the Duke of Kent, having made his contribution to history, died of pneumonia." (Dreadnought: 4)

Madame de St. Laurent's previous lover was:

"Philippe-Claude-Auguste de Chouly, Marquis de Permangle.

"By 1786, the twenty-two-year-old Therese-Bernardine de Montgenet had become the mistress of French aristocrat Philippe Claude Auguste de Chouly, Marquis de Permangle. Bankrupted after having all of his assets seized during the Revolution, the Marquis and his mistress travelled around Europe looking for work.  However, by 1790 there was no more money left to support Therese-Bernardine, and the Marquis had to part ways with her in Malaga, Spain. . . . " (Prince Edward, Duke of Kent: Father of the Canadian Crown: 61)