Duchess of Baltimore Betsy Bonaparte

Had it not been for Napoleon Bonaparte, Betsy Patterson of Baltimore might have borne a royal title. Visting Maryland, the last stop of an American tour, in 1803, Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome, was so smitten by Betsy that he married her. Napoleon, newly crowned as emporor of France, however, had other plans. He intended to marry his siblings off to royalty, install them on their own thrones, and create a transcontinental, imperial family. Jerome's rash marriage was not part of that grand plan, and Napoleon demanded that he return to Europe- alone.

Jerome Bonaparte

Trusting that his brother would relent once he met Betsy, Jerome sailed home with his bride. But when his ship landed in Portugal, he was ordered to proceed to France without her. Betsy, six months pregnant, traveled on to London where she gave birth to a son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, known as Bo, and eventually returned to the United States.

Once the marriage had been annulled, Jerome was wed to a German princess. Betsy, on the other hand, never remarried. Having once been married to the brother of an emperor, she haughtily explained, "I had not the meaness of spirit to descend from such an elevation to the deplorable condition of being the wife of an American." Fellow Baltimoreans snidely referred to her as "the duchess," but she ignored them.

Betsy petitioned Napoleon for a title and a pension, and though he refused her the title, he did pay her 60,000 francs a year until his abdication in 1814. Investing the money carefully, Betsy lived in comfort with Bo on both sides of the Atlantic and later put her son through Harvard. In her old age she was still shrewdly tending her investments. "Once I had everything but money," she quipped at 90. "Now I have nothing but money."
- Discovering America's Past