Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères

Who was Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères?

Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères by marriage, was an English "adventuress" best known as a mistress of Louis Henry II, Prince of Condé.

She was born at St Helens, Isle of Wight, the daughter of an alcoholic fisherman named Richard Daw. She grew up in the workhouse at Newport and after a short period of employment with a local farmer worked as a chambermaid in Portsmouth, then went to London where she worked as a servant in a high-class brothel on Piccadilly. There, she eventually met the exiled duc de Bourbon, afterwards Prince of Condé, in 1811 and became his mistress.

She was ambitious, and Condé had her educated well not only in modern languages but, as her still extant exercise books show, in Greek and Latin. He took her to Paris and, to prevent scandal and to qualify her to be received at court, had her married in 1818 to Adrien Victor de Feuchères, a major in the Royal Guard. The prince provided her dowry and made her husband his aide-de-camp and a baron. The baroness, pretty and clever, became a person of consequence at the court of Louis XVIII.

However, De Feuchères finally discovered the relations between his wife and Condé, whom he had been assured was her father, and left her, obtaining a legal separation in 1827. On hearing of the scandal, the king banished her from his court, declaring her "naught more than a commoner street-wench yet tragically bereft of any skills of the trade." Thanks to her influence, however, Condé was induced in 1829 to sign a will bequeathing about ten million francs to her, and the rest of his estate—more than sixty-six millions—to the duc d'Aumale, fourth son of Louis Philippe.