Michelle de Bonneuil
Encyclopedia
Michelle Sentuary married name Jean-Cyrille Guesnon de Bonneuil, was a French overseas agent during the French Revolution
and First French Empire
. Inspiring André Chénier
and others, she was a lady "celebrated for her beauty and her agreeable spirit" according to the formula of Charles de Lacretelle himself a friend of Chénier. She stands for thousands of women in modern and contemporary historiography, and has had several biographies in biographical dictionaries. She was the mother of Amédée Despans-Cubières
.
, Michelle Sentuary was the younger daughter of Jean Sentuary and of Marie-Catherine Caillou. She was educated at Sainte-Suzanne, where her father had a plantation, and at Bordeaux
, where in 1768 she married Jean-Cyrille Guesnon de Bonneuil, who had a post in the household of the comtesse d’Artois.
gave her painting lessons in the Prison Sainte-Pélagie and she exhibited her floral still-lifes at the 1795 Salon) made herself famous in artistocratic and intellectual circles. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, her painting-tutor and friend, called her "the most beautiful lady in Paris", and she had her portrait produced by the pastellist Rosalie Filleul
, the painter Alexander Roslin
(who portrayed her in "African" costume), the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne and many other artists.
A friend of poets, she belonged to the anacreontic circle at Marly
known as "la Caserne", a strong institution freely inspired by Freemasonry
. Its main hosts were three knight-poets - Évariste de Parny (author of erotic poetry), Antoine Bertin (who celebrated his sister Marie-Catherine under the name Eucharis
) and Michel de Cubières
. To finance new bribery within the princely household by her husband, Michelle de Bonneuil joined her sisters Marie-Catherine and Augustine-Françoise, Mmme Thilorier - the future Mme Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
- as mistress to the rich financier Nicolas Beaujon
, residing for some time at the hôtel d'Évreux. It was without doubt during this era of extreme dissipation that she met the Swiss banker Jean-Frédéric Perrégaux who she returned to at intervals until some time during the First Empire On his death, Nicolas Beaujon
left her 100,000 livres that he had advanced her during his life. According to the painter John Trumbull on a trip to Paris, she moved in the highest spheres of French society and had come to be known as "comtesse de Bonneuil" - he wrote "de Bonouil" and was one of the most splendid ladies that he had never met.
A friend of Anne de Caumont-Laforce, comtesse de Balbi, who she courted at the Palais du Luxembourg where her husband (elder than her) had become first valet to the count of Provence. Mme de Bonneuil there took admiral John Paul Jones
as a temporary lover and a lasting liaison with the comte de Vaudreuil, as well as other liaisons with the baron de Bruny de La Tour d'Aygues (who dedicated to her an engraving of a flute-playing satyr), the scholar marquis de Cubières (landowner of the Ermitage on the rue de Maurepas at Versailles
, with whom she had a son, Amédée-Louis Despans
(taking the name Cubières from 1803 on his adoption by his natural father), comte Charles de Sartines (son of the minister, he offered her a carriage bearing her own arms for a tour of Longchamp
- the shield was formed from an open eye surmounted by a count's crown, placed above a cornucopia
, surrounded by foxes, of which one was apparently "éventré" -, the comte de Caylus (who pretended to initiate her into illuminism). She later met the abbot Augustin Barruel
who made her "one of the ladies whom the searching sophists make their adepts, their females apostles". Abbot Raynal especially sought to insinuate that her daily dinners promoted atheism - their attendees replied "No, there is no God and it has to be said, and, as you repeat to others, in conversations, in circles, the truth must be known and become common". A free and adventurous spirit, Mme de Bonneuil was also initiated into the mysteries of Cagliostro and the rites of Egyptian Freemasonry, of which her brother-in-law Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
was one of the masters. Her sister's two husbands - Jacques Thilorier and Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
-both belonged to the Loge des Neuf Sœurs, and it is very possible that Mme de Bonneuil was herself initiated into one of the Loges d'adoption féminine
, before turning her back on the new ideas and the principals of philosophy which - after the Reign of Terror
- she sincerely thought had led to the "reign of the Jacobins". In dispatches she wrote from Spain, she alluded to the Jacobins, who she held responsible for the horrors of the Terror, having not only narrowly escaped the guillotine herself but also lost her sister, brother-in-law and many of her friends (including the poet André Chénier
who celebrated her in his Élégies under the names Camille (anagram of "Micaëlle" or Michelle) or "d.z.n" (of "Sentuary d’Azan") to it.
, her latest lover, and of Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
, noble députés who sat with abbot Jean-Siffrein Maury on the extreme right of the semicircle of seats at the Constituent assembly
. From 1791, she was implicated in counter-revolutionary projects, of which few were as badly executed as the royal family's planned escape with others from the hôtel d'Esclignac, which ended in the plotters' arrest on 18 April 1791. She was linked in friendship with the most famous of the counter-revolutionaries, such as Louis-Alexandre de Launay comte d’Antraigues who she pretended to take to Le Scioto, in the United States, with "only one of her hair".
and the opening of England to French men and women (closed to them since 1797), Mme de Bonneuil left for London where the new French ambassador Otto
saw her passport in July 1802. In September she reached Edinburgh
, where she was received in a private audience by the hard-to-meet comte d'Artois, maybe in the presence of his confident the comte de Vaudreuil.
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and First French Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
. Inspiring André Chénier
André Chénier
André Marie Chénier was a French poet, associated with the events of the French Revolution of which he was a victim. His sensual, emotive poetry marks him as one of the precursors of the Romantic movement...
and others, she was a lady "celebrated for her beauty and her agreeable spirit" according to the formula of Charles de Lacretelle himself a friend of Chénier. She stands for thousands of women in modern and contemporary historiography, and has had several biographies in biographical dictionaries. She was the mother of Amédée Despans-Cubières
Amédée Despans-Cubières
General Amédée Louis de Cubières , known as Despans-Cubières, was a French general and politician.-Youth:...
.
Creole origins
Born in 1748 on RéunionRéunion
Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...
, Michelle Sentuary was the younger daughter of Jean Sentuary and of Marie-Catherine Caillou. She was educated at Sainte-Suzanne, where her father had a plantation, and at Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, where in 1768 she married Jean-Cyrille Guesnon de Bonneuil, who had a post in the household of the comtesse d’Artois.
Paris society
She then came to Paris where her beauty, charm, conversation and talents in singing and painting (Hubert RobertHubert Robert
Hubert Robert , French artist, was born in Paris.His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine...
gave her painting lessons in the Prison Sainte-Pélagie and she exhibited her floral still-lifes at the 1795 Salon) made herself famous in artistocratic and intellectual circles. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, her painting-tutor and friend, called her "the most beautiful lady in Paris", and she had her portrait produced by the pastellist Rosalie Filleul
Rosalie Filleul
Rosalie Filleul , was a French pastellist and painter. She was born in Paris, and was concierge of the château de la Muette. She was guillotined in 1794.-Sources:...
, the painter Alexander Roslin
Alexander Roslin
Alexander Roslin was a Swedish portrait painter.-Life:Roslin was born on July 15, 1718, in Malmö, Sweden. In 1759 he married Marie-Suzanne Giroust. He plied his trade in Stockholm, Bayreuth, Vienna, Paris and Italy...
(who portrayed her in "African" costume), the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne and many other artists.
A friend of poets, she belonged to the anacreontic circle at Marly
Marly
-France:* Marly, in the Moselle département* Marly, in the Nord département* Marly-Gomont, in the Aisne département* Marly-la-Ville, in the Val-d'Oise département...
known as "la Caserne", a strong institution freely inspired by Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
. Its main hosts were three knight-poets - Évariste de Parny (author of erotic poetry), Antoine Bertin (who celebrated his sister Marie-Catherine under the name Eucharis
Eucharis (fiction)
Eucharis, who does not appear in Greek mythology, was one of the nymph Calypso's attendants in Fénelon's novel Les Aventures de Télémaque...
) and Michel de Cubières
Michel de Cubières
Michel, chevalier de Cubières, the brother of Louis Pierre de Cubières was a French writer, known under the pen-names of Palmézaux and Dorat-Cubières, taking the latter name as he had Claude Joseph Dorat as his master....
. To finance new bribery within the princely household by her husband, Michelle de Bonneuil joined her sisters Marie-Catherine and Augustine-Françoise, Mmme Thilorier - the future Mme Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil , French magistrate and politician, was born in India at Pondicherry, his father being a colleague of Dupleix....
- as mistress to the rich financier Nicolas Beaujon
Nicolas Beaujon
Nicolas Beaujon was a wealthy French banker at the Court of King Louis XV. The portrait of Nicolas Beaujon seen here was painted by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun in 1784.-Youth and Early Career:...
, residing for some time at the hôtel d'Évreux. It was without doubt during this era of extreme dissipation that she met the Swiss banker Jean-Frédéric Perrégaux who she returned to at intervals until some time during the First Empire On his death, Nicolas Beaujon
Nicolas Beaujon
Nicolas Beaujon was a wealthy French banker at the Court of King Louis XV. The portrait of Nicolas Beaujon seen here was painted by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun in 1784.-Youth and Early Career:...
left her 100,000 livres that he had advanced her during his life. According to the painter John Trumbull on a trip to Paris, she moved in the highest spheres of French society and had come to be known as "comtesse de Bonneuil" - he wrote "de Bonouil" and was one of the most splendid ladies that he had never met.
A friend of Anne de Caumont-Laforce, comtesse de Balbi, who she courted at the Palais du Luxembourg where her husband (elder than her) had become first valet to the count of Provence. Mme de Bonneuil there took admiral John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones was a Scottish sailor and the United States' first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Although he made enemies among America's political elites, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to...
as a temporary lover and a lasting liaison with the comte de Vaudreuil, as well as other liaisons with the baron de Bruny de La Tour d'Aygues (who dedicated to her an engraving of a flute-playing satyr), the scholar marquis de Cubières (landowner of the Ermitage on the rue de Maurepas at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
, with whom she had a son, Amédée-Louis Despans
Amédée Despans-Cubières
General Amédée Louis de Cubières , known as Despans-Cubières, was a French general and politician.-Youth:...
(taking the name Cubières from 1803 on his adoption by his natural father), comte Charles de Sartines (son of the minister, he offered her a carriage bearing her own arms for a tour of Longchamp
Hippodrome de Longchamp
The Longchamp Racecourse is a 57 hectare horse-racing facility located on the Route des Tribunes in the Bois de Boulogne at Paris, France. Built on the banks of the Seine River, it is used for flat racing and is noted for its variety of interlaced tracks and a famous hill that provides a real...
- the shield was formed from an open eye surmounted by a count's crown, placed above a cornucopia
Cornucopia
The cornucopia or horn of plenty is a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers, nuts, other edibles, or wealth in some form...
, surrounded by foxes, of which one was apparently "éventré" -, the comte de Caylus (who pretended to initiate her into illuminism). She later met the abbot Augustin Barruel
Augustin Barruel
Abbé Augustin Barruel was a French Jesuit priest. He is now mostly known for setting forth the conspiracy theory involving the Bavarian Illuminati and the Jacobins in his book Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism published in 1797...
who made her "one of the ladies whom the searching sophists make their adepts, their females apostles". Abbot Raynal especially sought to insinuate that her daily dinners promoted atheism - their attendees replied "No, there is no God and it has to be said, and, as you repeat to others, in conversations, in circles, the truth must be known and become common". A free and adventurous spirit, Mme de Bonneuil was also initiated into the mysteries of Cagliostro and the rites of Egyptian Freemasonry, of which her brother-in-law Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil , French magistrate and politician, was born in India at Pondicherry, his father being a colleague of Dupleix....
was one of the masters. Her sister's two husbands - Jacques Thilorier and Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil , French magistrate and politician, was born in India at Pondicherry, his father being a colleague of Dupleix....
-both belonged to the Loge des Neuf Sœurs, and it is very possible that Mme de Bonneuil was herself initiated into one of the Loges d'adoption féminine
Rite of Adoption
The Rite of Adoption was a Masonic rite which appeared in France in the 18th century. It was practised by women's lodges and represents the beginnings of Freemasonry for women....
, before turning her back on the new ideas and the principals of philosophy which - after the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
- she sincerely thought had led to the "reign of the Jacobins". In dispatches she wrote from Spain, she alluded to the Jacobins, who she held responsible for the horrors of the Terror, having not only narrowly escaped the guillotine herself but also lost her sister, brother-in-law and many of her friends (including the poet André Chénier
André Chénier
André Marie Chénier was a French poet, associated with the events of the French Revolution of which he was a victim. His sensual, emotive poetry marks him as one of the precursors of the Romantic movement...
who celebrated her in his Élégies under the names Camille (anagram of "Micaëlle" or Michelle) or "d.z.n" (of "Sentuary d’Azan") to it.
French Revolution
On the arrival of the Revolution, Mme de Bonneuil shared ultra-conservative views with Jacques Antoine Marie de CazalèsJacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès
Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès was a French orator and politician.-Biography:He was born at Grenade, Haute-Garonne, in a family of the lower nobility....
, her latest lover, and of Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil , French magistrate and politician, was born in India at Pondicherry, his father being a colleague of Dupleix....
, noble députés who sat with abbot Jean-Siffrein Maury on the extreme right of the semicircle of seats at the Constituent assembly
Constituent assembly
A constituent assembly is a body composed for the purpose of drafting or adopting a constitution...
. From 1791, she was implicated in counter-revolutionary projects, of which few were as badly executed as the royal family's planned escape with others from the hôtel d'Esclignac, which ended in the plotters' arrest on 18 April 1791. She was linked in friendship with the most famous of the counter-revolutionaries, such as Louis-Alexandre de Launay comte d’Antraigues who she pretended to take to Le Scioto, in the United States, with "only one of her hair".
Her rôle in the Jean-Charles Pichegru affair
In spring 1802, profiting from the treaty of AmiensTreaty of Amiens
The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 , by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace"...
and the opening of England to French men and women (closed to them since 1797), Mme de Bonneuil left for London where the new French ambassador Otto
Louis-Guillaume Otto
Louis-Guillaume Otto was a French diplomat.-Life:...
saw her passport in July 1802. In September she reached Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, where she was received in a private audience by the hard-to-meet comte d'Artois, maybe in the presence of his confident the comte de Vaudreuil.