BARON

See also:

• MARQUIS

MARQUIS DE COURTANVAUX GILLES DE

See also:

• BARON MARQUIS DE COURTANVAUX GILLES DE SOUVREI

SOUVREI  , DE LEZINES (c . 1540-1626), marshal of France, belonged to an old family of the Perche . He accompanied the duke of Anjou to Poland in 1573, and was appointed master of the ward-robe and captain of Vincennes when Anjou became Henry III . He remained in favour, despite the opposition of the queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, fought at Contras, defended Tours against the Leaguers, was named chevalier de Saint Esprit and governor of Touraine (1585), and was one of the first to recognize Henry IV . (1589), who subsequently entrusted him with the education of the dauphin . Louis XIII. rewarded him with the title of marshal in 1613 . He died in Paris in 1626 . SOUZA-BOTELHO, ADELAIDE FILLEUL, MARQUISE DE (1761—1836), French writer, was born in Paris on the 14th of May 1761 . Her mother, Marie Irene Catherine de Buisson, daughter of the seigneur of Longpre, near Falaise, married a bourgeois of that town named Filleul . It was reported, though no proof is forthcoming, that Mme Filleul had been the mistress of Louis XV . Her husband became one of the king's secretaries, and lime Filleul made many friends, among them Marmontel . Their eldest daughter, Julie, married Abel Francois Poisson, marquis de Marigny (1727—1781); Adelaide married in 1779 Alexandre Sebastien de Flahaut de la Billarderie, comte de Flahaut, a soldier of some reputation, who was many years her senior .

In Paris she soon gathered

round her a salon, in which the principal figure was Talleyrand . There are many allusions to their liaison in the diary of Gouverneur Morris . In 1785 was born her son Auguste Charles Joseph de Flahaut (q.v.), who was generally known to be Talleyrand's son . Mme de Flahaut fled from Paris in 1792 and joined the society of emigres at Mickleham, Surrey, described in Mme d'Arblay's Memoirs . Her husband remained at Boulogne, where he was arrested on the 29th of January 1793 and guillotined . Mme de Flahaut now supported herself by writing novels, of which the first, Adele de Sennange (London, 1794), which is partly autobiographical, was the most famous . She presently left London for Switzerland, where she met Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans . She travelled in his company to Hamburg, where she lived for two years, earning her living as a milliner . She returned to Paris in 1798, and on the 17th of October 1802 she married Jose Maria de Souza-Botelho Mourao e Vasconcellos (1758—1825), Portuguese minister plenipotentiary in Paris . Her husband was recalled in 1804, and was offered the St Petersburg embassy; but in the next year he resigned, to settle permanently in Paris, where he had many friends, among them the historian Sismondi . He spent his time chiefly in the preparation of a beautiful edition of the Lusiads of Camoens, which he completed in 1817 . Mme de Souza lost her social power after the fall of the First Empire, and was deserted even by Talleyrand, although he continued his patronage of Charles de Flahaut .

Her husband died in 1825, and after the

accession of Louis Philippe she lived in comparative retirement till her death on the 19th of April 1836 . She brought up her grandson, Charles, duc de Morny, her son's natural son by Queen Hortense . Among her later novels were La Cozntesse de Fargy (1822) and La Duchesse de Guise (1831) . Her complete works were published in 1811—1822 . See Baron A. de Maricourt, Madame de Souza et sa fanzille (1907) Lettres inedites de J . C . L. de Sismondi . . . et de Madame de Souza (Paris, 1863), ed . St Rene Taillandier; Sainte-Beuve, Portraits de femmes (x844); and for Mme de Filleul, MM. de Goncourt, Les Mattresses de Louis XV . (1860) and J . F . Marmontel (1804) .