thumb|Portrait of Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères, by [[Alexis Leon Louis Valbrun]]
Sophie Dawes (29 September 1790 – 15 December 1840), Baroness de Feuchères by marriage, was an Anglo-French adventuress, born at St Helens, Isle of Wight, in 1790, the daughter of a drunken fisherman named Dawes. After working as a maid she became the English mistress of Louis Henry II, Prince of Condé.
Early life
thumb|Birthplace of Sophie Dawes at St Helens, Isle of Wight
Dawes was born in 1790 at St Helens, Isle of Wight, the daughter of a fisherman named Richard Daw (or Dawes) by Jane Callaway, After a short period of employment with a local farmer, she worked as a chambermaid in Portsmouth, then went to London, where she was seduced and fell into great poverty. An army officer took her as his mistress, and when they split up he settled an annuity of £50 a year on her. She sold this and in 1809 placed herself at a school in Chelsea. and also in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Paris on 26 August 1818, and the duke settled 72,000 francs on them. As the parish register at St Helen's had no record of her baptism, Sophia had received adult baptism in 1817, when she reduced her age by three years. For her marriage licence she described herself as a widow, and in her marriage contract she said she was the daughter of a Richard Clark and the widow of a William Dawes. All these inventions later gave her heirs much trouble.
Again Dawes was in high favour. Charles X received her at court, Talleyrand visited her, her niece married a marquis Hugues de Chabannes La Palice, and her nephew was made a baron.
Hated as she was by the French, the baroness returned to England, where she died in December 1840.
In 1934, the story of her life was told in the book The Scandal of Sophie Dawes by Marjorie Bowen.
Notes
References
- Marjorie Bowen (1934) The Scandal of Sophie Dawes.
- Victor Macclure, She Stands Accused, chap 5. online version
- Violette Montagu, Sophie Dawes, Queen of Chantilly (John Lane, 1912)