Napoleon III was not related by blood to Napoleon I, and may be Talleyrand's grandson

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Lucotte et al. published in October 2013 the extended Y-STR of Napoleon I based on descendant testing, and the descendants were E-M34, just like the emperor's beard hair tested a year before. The persons tested were the patrilineal descendants of Jérome Bonaparte, one of Napoleon's brothers, and of Alexandre Colonna-Walewski, Napoleon's illegitimate son with Marie Walewska. These three tests all yielded the same Y-STR haplotype (109 markers) confirming with 100% certainty that the first Emperor of the French belonged to the M34 branch of haplogroup E1b1b.

However, Professor Lucotte also tested the Y-DNA of Napoleon III's hair and that Jean-Marc Banquet d'Orx, a presumed descendant through one of Napoleon III's illegitimate sons, the Count of Orx. The results revealed that Jean-Marc Banquet d'Orx was indeed Napoleon III's patrilineal descendant, but that the two men belonged to haplogroup I2, and therefore did not share the same paternal lineage as Napoleon I.

Napoleon III was presumably the son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense de Beauharnais (Joséphine's daughter, and therefore Napoleon I's stepdaughter). It has been claimed that Louis Bonaparte was a homosexual, and his wife was known for her rather promiscuous lifestyle.

Hortense is known to have had at least one other illegitimate son (Charles de Morny, Duke of Morny), who bears an uncanny resemblance with Napoleon III, and could therefore both have been sired by the same man. This man, Hortense's lover and Charles de Morny's father, was Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut. What's even more interesting is that he was himself the son of Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, possibly the greatest statesman of the French Revolution and the Bourbon Restoration, and the man most responsible for Napoleon I's downfall. Napoleon I famously told him that he was "a turd in a silk stocking". It would be an ironic twist of history if Napoleon III was really Tayllerand's grandson and not Napoleon I's !

Besides, if this is true and Napoleon III is I-M223, it would also be the haplogroup of the House of Talleyrand-Périgord. This house is a cadet branch of the Count of La Marche, whose oldest patrilineal ancestor is Boso I (958–988), himself a probable descendant of the House of Limoges, from whom are also descended the Viscounts of Turenne, the Viscounts of Rochechouart, and the Dukes of Mortemart, among others. The House of Limoges itself was founded as a cadet branch of the Counts of Toulouse-Rouergue, dating back to the 9th century. I-M223 would be a very possible haplogroup for an old Frankish noble family.

Another possibility is that Napoleon III was the son of Carel Hendrik Verhuell, a Dutch admiral and statesman who is rumoured to have had a liaison with Hortense when she was Queen of Holland. This affair hasn't been proven though.
 
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So wait, let me get this straight; somewhere down the line the E3b changed into I2, meaning what? The wife of an E3b napoleon had an affair with an I2 man? Or did I inverse it?
 
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Napoleon III lost a major war against the German states in 1871;
Bavarians were marching in Paris and the German Empire proclaimed at Versailles;
quel désastre...sacré bleu
 
Comme d'habitude, les Francais ont perdu contre les peuples allemands. XD
 
adamo said:
So wait, let me get this straight; somewhere down the line the E3b changed into I2, meaning what? The wife of an E3b napoleon had an affair with an I2 man? Or did I inverse it?
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You've got it straight, it's looking like the wife of an E1b Bonaparte had an affair with an I2 man. The only two possibilities are the mother of Napoleon III (Hortense) or the mother of Napoleon III's legal father (Louis' mother Letizia). Between the two candidates, Hortense is considered by far the more likely candidate due to her having a proven affair and illegitimate child, not to mention that Napoleon III was rarely thought to look like Louis, and there have been rumors of Napoleon III's parentage since his reign.
 
Of particular interest to historians trying to resolve Napoleon III's parentage is who was with Hortense in Cauterets (where she was staying) 9 months before Napoleon III was born. Baguley 2000 has an interesting discussion of candidates, including:


  1. Carel Hendrik Verheull (as mentioned by Maciamo) who may have been in Cauterets, although his "less charming" brother Christian-Antoine may have actually been the Verheull who was there
  2. Élie Decazes, who was definitely in Cauterets at the time
  3. Charles Adam de Bylandt-Palstercamp, Hortense's equerry, who of course was there
  4. The Count de Villeneuve, who was there according to the same account asserting that Verheull was there
  5. Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut (as mentioned by Maciamo) although there's not much direct evidence that he was there, and he asserted himself that he was in Prussia at the time
  6. René Bertrand de Boucheporn, a chamberlain who traveled with Hortense's party briefly
  7. Anne-Claude Thiénon, a painter who spent one night with Hortense

Baguley also mentions Napoleon I, but of course any connection to him looks to be disproven.
 
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sparkey said:
You've got it straight, it's looking like the wife of an E1b Bonaparte had an affair with an I2 man. The only two possibilities are the mother of Napoleon III (Hortense) or the mother of Napoleon III's legal father (Louis' mother Letizia). Between the two candidates, Hortense is considered by far the more likely candidate due to her having a proven affair and illegitimate child, not to mention that Napoleon III was never thought to look like Louis, and there have been rumors of Napoleon III's parentage since his reign.
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Even without studying facial traits in details, Napoleon III's blue eyes and blondish beard don't look particularly Corsican.

19th-century people wouldn't have known that, but it would have been extremely improbable genetically for Napoleon III to have been Louis Bonaparte's son, because all seven siblings of Napoleon Bonaparte and both his parents had brown eyes, which means that all would have had two copies for brown eyes. In order to have blue eyes both parents need to contribute one blue eye allele.

This also makes me wonder whether Napoleon II was Napoleon I's biological son. This case is even more suspicious since the boy had both blue eyes and blond hair and looked nothing like his father. I have always suspected a Habsburg conspiracy. Since the Habsburgs and other European royals couldn't stand Napoleon I and certainly didn't want to recognise them as one of theirs, least of all let him marry a "real" princess, Marie Louise's father might have asked her to make sure she got pregnant by another man (perhaps designated in advance and ready to accomplish his task) to make sure that the Bonaparte bloodline didn't "pollute" the noble Habsburg lineage. Isn't it strange that the Marie Louise's second husband, the Count von Neipperg, who fathered her three other children, happened to be appointed at the Austrian embassy in Paris exactly from the time Marie Louise arrived in Paris to marry Napoleon ?

The Austrian embassy would have been a place where Marie Louise could have gone easily without Napoleon, and where the perfidious manoeuvre could have taken place, with the benediction of the Austrian emperor. Then, as good Catholics, the same man who fathered Napoleon II would have been forced to marry Marie Louise once Napoleon I was out of the picture. Note that Adam Albert von Neipperg had curly blond hair, just like Napoleon II.
 
sparkey said:
You've got it straight, it's looking like the wife of an E1b Bonaparte had an affair with an I2 man. The only two possibilities are the mother of Napoleon III (Hortense) or the mother of Napoleon III's legal father (Louis' mother Letizia). Between the two candidates, Hortense is considered by far the more likely candidate due to her having a proven affair and illegitimate child, not to mention that Napoleon III was rarely thought to look like Louis, and there have been rumors of Napoleon III's parentage since his reign.
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The story was IIRC, that the Bourbon French house wanted nothing to do with the Corsican/Italian house of Napoleon I , his father was originally named Luciano and you will find that all his family changed their christian names from italian to french sounding. Corsica was more Italian/genoese than french at the time.
 
Maciamo said:
Even without studying facial traits in details, Napoleon III's blue eyes and blondish beard don't look particularly Corsican.

19th-century people wouldn't have known that, but it would have been extremely improbable genetically for Napoleon III to have been Louis Bonaparte's son, because all seven siblings of Napoleon Bonaparte and both his parents had brown eyes, which means that all would have had two copies for brown eyes. In order to have blue eyes both parents need to contribute one blue eye allele.

This also makes me wonder whether Napoleon II was Napoleon I's biological son. This case is even more suspicious since the boy had both blue eyes and blond hair and looked nothing like his father. I have always suspected a Habsburg conspiracy. Since the Habsburgs and other European royals couldn't stand Napoleon I and certainly didn't want to recognise them as one of theirs, least of all let him marry a "real" princess, Marie Louise's father might have asked her to make sure she got pregnant by another man (perhaps designated in advance and ready to accomplish his task) to make sure that the Bonaparte bloodline didn't "pollute" the noble Habsburg lineage. Isn't it strange that the Marie Louise's second husband, the Count von Neipperg, who fathered her three other children, happened to be appointed at the Austrian embassy in Paris exactly from the time Marie Louise arrived in Paris to marry Napoleon ?

The Austrian embassy would have been a place where Marie Louise could have gone easily without Napoleon, and where the perfidious manoeuvre could have taken place, with the benediction of the Austrian emperor. Then, as good Catholics, the same man who fathered Napoleon II would have been forced to marry Marie Louise once Napoleon I was out of the picture. Note that Adam Albert von Neipperg had curly blond hair, just like Napoleon II.
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Considering Marie Louise's morals, this is certainly a possibility. However, Napoleon himself had what have variously been described as blue, blue-grey or grey eyes. Virtually all of his portraits indicate this as well. So any child of his with a light eyed woman should have produced a light eyed child.
http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/napoleon/c_description.html
 
Very interesting....one would think napoleon had some sort of "advantage" owing to the fact that he was E3b, and thus had more recent continental African ancestry, but then again he was standing short at 5"6.
 
5'6" wasn't short, average height back then.
 
It's not a tiny height , it's fine. I'm about 5"10; pretty normal dude.
 
adamo said:
It's not a tiny height , it's fine. I'm about 5"10; pretty normal dude.
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If Napoleon was born at end of 20th century his height would have been 4 inches taller, similar to yours.
According to a study by Economist John Komlos and Francesco Cinnirella, in the first half of 18th century, the average height of English male was 165 cm (5 ft 5 in), the average height of Irish male was 168 cm (5 ft 6 in). The estimated mean height of English, German, and Scottish soldiers are 163.6 cm – 165.9 cm (5 ft 4.4 in – 5 ft 5.3 in) for the period as a whole, while that of Irish was 167.9 cm (5 ft 6.1 in). The average height of male slaves and convicts in North America was 171 cm (5 ft 7 in).[35]
American-born colonial soldiers of the late 1770s were on average more than three inches taller than their English counterparts who served in Royal Marines at the same time.[36]
Average height of Americans and Europeans decreased during period of rapid industrialization, possibly due to rapid population growth and increased economic inequality.[37] In early 19th century England, the difference between average height of English upper class youth (students of Sandhurst military academy) and English lower class youth (marine society boys) reached 22 cm (6.7 in), the highest that has been observed.[38]
Data derived from burials show that before 1850, the mean stature of male and female in Leiden, Netherlands was respectively 166.7 cm (5 ft 5.6 in) and 156.7 cm (5 ft 1.7 in). The average height of 19-year-old Dutch orphans in 1865 was 160 cm (5 ft 3 in).[39]
According to a study by J.W. Drukker and Vincent Tassenaar, the average height of Dutch decreased from 1830 to 1857, even while Dutch real GNP per capita was growing at an average rate of more than 0.5 percent per year. The worst decline were in urban areas that in 1847, the urban height penalty was 2.5cms (1 in). Urban mortality was also much higher than rural regions. In 1829, the average urban and rural Dutchman was 164 cm (5 ft 4.6 in). By 1856, the average rural Dutchman was 162 cm (5 ft 3.8 in) and urban Dutchman was 158.5 cm (5 ft 2.4 in)
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We eat so much better these days.
 
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Maciamo said:
Even without studying facial traits in details, Napoleon III's blue eyes and blondish beard don't look particularly Corsican.

19th-century people wouldn't have known that, but it would have been extremely improbable genetically for Napoleon III to have been Louis Bonaparte's son, because all seven siblings of Napoleon Bonaparte and both his parents had brown eyes, which means that all would have had two copies for brown eyes. In order to have blue eyes both parents need to contribute one blue eye allele.

This also makes me wonder whether Napoleon II was Napoleon I's biological son. This case is even more suspicious since the boy had both blue eyes and blond hair and looked nothing like his father. I have always suspected a Habsburg conspiracy. Since the Habsburgs and other European royals couldn't stand Napoleon I and certainly didn't want to recognise them as one of theirs, least of all let him marry a "real" princess, Marie Louise's father might have asked her to make sure she got pregnant by another man (perhaps designated in advance and ready to accomplish his task) to make sure that the Bonaparte bloodline didn't "pollute" the noble Habsburg lineage. Isn't it strange that the Marie Louise's second husband, the Count von Neipperg, who fathered her three other children, happened to be appointed at the Austrian embassy in Paris exactly from the time Marie Louise arrived in Paris to marry Napoleon ?

The Austrian embassy would have been a place where Marie Louise could have gone easily without Napoleon, and where the perfidious manoeuvre could have taken place, with the benediction of the Austrian emperor. Then, as good Catholics, the same man who fathered Napoleon II would have been forced to marry Marie Louise once Napoleon I was out of the picture. Note that Adam Albert von Neipperg had curly blond hair, just like Napoleon II.
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W-O-W. Oh how the rich are different than you and I.
 
These suppositions are possible. I imagine princesses back then as something between Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson. On the other hand, Napoleon was not exactly a one-woman man either.
 
Very good deduction lebrok.
 
Looking for portraits of Baguley's candidates for Napoleon III's parents, here's what I came up with:

c3v1.jpg


So, who does Napoleon III look most like?

Note that I couldn't find a portrait for Charles Bylandt, but I did find one for Willem Bylandt, who I think was his brother (unless I'm confusing two different Charles Bylandts). I also found a reference to a portrait of Claude Thiénon, but I couldn't find it digitized anywhere, so instead I put in a portrait of Thiénon's mother. I couldn't find a portrait of Boucheporn or his relatives anywhere.
 
sparkey said:
Looking for portraits of Baguley's candidates for Napoleon III's parents, here's what I came up with:

c3v1.jpg


So, who does Napoleon III look most like?

Note that I couldn't find a portrait for Charles Bylandt, but I did find one for Willem Bylandt, who I think was his brother (unless I'm confusing two different Charles Bylandts). I also found a reference to a portrait of Claude Thiénon, but I couldn't find it digitized anywhere, so instead I put in a portrait of Thiénon's mother. I couldn't find a portrait of Boucheporn or his relatives anywhere.
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It looks like candidate number 2, the Count Decazes to me, middle, top row...the eyebrows, eyes and nose mainly.

The Count de Blahaut, in that picture at least, first in the second row, seems to have pretty shallow set eyes. Also, I suppose historians have checked and there's some support for the fact that he was in Prussia at the time of the conception. On the other hand, I found this picture that is supposed to be him as well, and there's more resemblance here.
http://paristhefame.weebly.com/1/post/2012/06/charles-joseph-comte-de-flahaut-22.html

If the rumors about Louis Bonaparte are true, I think Hortense can be given a bit of a pass.

Convenient, isn't it, that the Code Napoleon provides that a child born during a marriage is automatically recognized as the child of the husband.

Also interesting what a "loose" period this was, even by the low standards of the aristocracy. I can't remember her name right now, but the children of an English Duchess, other than the first two boys, were supposedly all fathered by different men...and there were a lot of them.
 
Angela said:
It looks like candidate number 2, the Count Decazes to me, middle, top row...the eyebrows, eyes and nose mainly.

The Count de Blahaut, in that picture at least, first in the second row, seems to have pretty shallow set eyes. Also, I suppose historians have checked and there's some support for the fact that he was in Prussia at the time of the conception. On the other hand, I found this picture that is supposed to be him as well, and there's more resemblance here.
http://paristhefame.weebly.com/1/post/2012/06/charles-joseph-comte-de-flahaut-22.html

If the rumors about Louis Bonaparte are true, I think Hortense can be given a bit of a pass.

Convenient, isn't it, that the Code Napoleon provides that a child born during a marriage is automatically recognized as the child of the husband.

Also interesting what a "loose" period this was, even by the low standards of the aristocracy. I can't remember her name right now, but the children of an English Duchess, other than the first two boys, were supposedly all fathered by different men...and there were a lot of them.
Click to expand...

I agree with all of this. Interestingly, a photo of Decazes exists, which I'm not sure helps his case one way or another (he's bald in it).

I'm also surprised by how little Verhuell looks like Napoleon III, considering that he seems like the most likely candidate if all we go by is historical record and genetics pointing to a subclade that is notably common in the Netherlands (I2-M223). Another portrait of Verhuell is here. IMHO it doesn't help his case much.

I can see Verhuell or any of the others turning out to be the father, but my top three from what I've seen would be Decazes (although he came from an area low in I2-M223), Flahaut (although he was probably in Prussia), and an interesting wildcard, Bylandt. I see some definite similarities between the Bylandt relative and Napoleon III, and it's worth noting that Bylandt is a Dutch lineage. If anyone can find a portrait of the real Charles Bylandt, that would help a lot. In case it helps anyone find a portrait, it's worth noting that the Dutch form of his name was probably "Carel Adam van Bylandt."
 
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