Three sisters in Europe: Jeromes in the court of Napoleon III

The Jerome sisters: Jennie (1854-1921), Clara (1851-1935) and Leonie. Their mother wanted them to marry well. She was successful. This is the second in a short series on the life and times of Captain Hugh Frewen 

In 1867, Clarrisa (Clara) Jerome and her three daughters – Jennie, Leonie and Clarita (also Clara) - sailed for Paris and the Court of Emperor Napoleon the Third. There Clara expected to find husbands for the girls that would fulfill her most ambitious dynastic ambitions. 

Napoleon III was then near the end of his reign, although that was not clear at the time.

A nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, he had become President of the French Republic on 20 December 1848. Four years later he seized direct power to reestablish the Napoleonic Empire.

Napoleon III was a considerable reformer who shared his uncle’s vision of a great French empire. He reformed public administration, expanded French power and rebuilt Paris.

The Paris you see today with its boulevards, a Paris much loved by many Australians, is the creation of Napoleon III and his main agent, Baron Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine.

Napoleon III may have been a reformer, but he had failed to modernize the French military. When war began with Prussia in 1870, the French suffered a humiliating defeat. Napoleon III was captured and then deposed.

Clara Jerome moved the girls to London where they cut a considerable swath through London society. They were young, wealthy and attractive.

The beautiful Jennie was the first to marry. On 15 April 1874 she married Lord Randolph Spencer-Churchill at the British Embassy on Paris.

The couple had met the previous August at a sailing regatta at Cowes on the Isle of Wright, introduced by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. Randolph was quickly smitten.  They became engaged within three days, although it took several months to agree marriage settlements.

Jennie was a remarkable woman, the subject of many stories, some even true! What is relevant from our viewpoint is that in November 1874 their first son, Winston, was born.

In 1984 the eldest Leslie sister, Leonie, married the wealthy Irish landowner and Baronet Sir John Leslie. They would have four sons.

Between these two weddings, Clara (Clarita) married Moreton Frewen at Grace Church New York on 2 April 1881. Frewen came from an old and wealthy English-Irish county family. This marriage marks the start of the New England connection in our story.

Looking back, Clara Jerome’s dynastic objectives for her daughters may have seemed ambitious, but certainly they had all married well with multiple connections into the British upper class.  

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 17 July 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Postscript

I love my readers.I Got this nice email from Associate Professor Richard Scully from the University of New England. Richard is an expert in this area of European history.

Dear Jim, 

I enjoyed your piece on the Jerome sisters in the Express. 

Would just note that Louis Napoleon actually seized dictatorial power a little shy of three years (not four) after his election as President (on 2 December, 1851). His coup established him as President for 10 Years, and enabled him to consolidate his personal power.  

Once totally secure, he called a national plebiscite a year later (November 1852) which asked the people whether he should become Emperor of the French. The vote was affirmative, and he assumed the title one year exactly after his original coup. 

It would also be contentious to argue that the French army was not modernised. The experience of the Italian war of 1859 and the conflicts in Mexico, Africa, China, and Indochina would belie this. Rather, it was a failure of command and strategy that toppled the French in 1870-1, when faced with German armies (and commanders) hardened by two more recent wars (1864 & 1866) with lessons learned from the American Civil War as well. French re-modernisation had commenced in earnest, but the emperor (by now quite enfeebled) misjudged his timing and diplomacy completely, giving his armies too little time to implement everything. 

Best,
Richard

They are fair points. Checking around, I found this rather nice piece on Quora, Why did France lose to Prussia so quickly in the Franco-Prussian war?, which provides more information on the reasons why the French lost.