Hortense/Origin

Hortense is a common French feminine name that is derived from the Latin word for gardener. The Hortense may refer to Hortense de Beauharnais, who was Napoleon's stepdaughter, and the daughter of his first wife Josephine de Beauharnais. At the time of the of the French Revolution her father had been executed, and her mother imprisoned at Carmes prison. Her mother was released though through the intervention of her friend Therese Tallien, and two years later she married Napoleon, birthing Hortense. She later became the wife of the Napoleon's brother, Louis Bonaparte (who was the King of Holand) and the mother of Napoleon III, who became the first President of the French Republic. Later by her lover Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut, she mothered an illigimate son by the name Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, duc de Monrny.