fiefoe

The material is really quite thin for a whole book, so Carol Berkin repeated herself quite a bit. I might have seen this portrait in real life.

.. continued to cling to her dream that one day the American Bonapartes would take their place in that family's reviving power and privilege. This delusion was the burden she could not escape.
He boasted that he had none of the civic pride that drove poor men to military service or rich men to philanthropy.
displaced Acadians ; John Adams ... diplomatic slight known as the XYZ affair
(William) saw to it that a prenuptial agreement was drawn up.
Thomas Jefferson hoped to succeed in this acquisition of a vast territory (Louisiana) without any over signs of support for France that could lead to war with England.
The bridal gown was little more than "a mere suspicion of a dress".
Would the recent effort to refine American society weaken it?
She would not trade prestige and reflected glory for mere money.
Betsy was.. a valuable asset in the (British) propaganda war to win support from the United States.
the distrust of other people's motives that was the darker side of self-reliance

“The Kindness of my ExHusband the King was ever of the unremitting kind as no money accompanies it."
The confidences she shared in this correspondence over the years often bore the mark of 19th century romanticism, with its emphasis on ennui, sadness, and tragic experiences.
Marianne, the widow of her own brother, Robert Patterson.. It was a great blow to Betsy when Marianne married Wellington's older brother, Lord Wellesley.
Her anger, her sense of betrayal by an ungrateful son, was a distant, ironic echo of Napoleon Bonaparte's reaction to her marriage to his favorite brother.
"He had flattered himself, that his firmness of purpose & his cunning could defraud Death of the right to freeze that torrent of injuries & of misfortunes of which he my father had been to me the first, the copious & the unfailing Source."
"grown fat, old and dull, all good reasons for people not to think me an intelligent hearer or listener."
"I could never endure universal suffrage until it elected the nephew of an emperor for the chief of a republic."
"This drop in eternity that we call life has no greater value than the one that teaches us never to forsake ourselves."

"Wondrous Beauty" (Reply)