Background
She was the daughter of a bootmaker and the granddaughter of the owner of the Castle Hotel in Brighton.
She was the daughter of a bootmaker and the granddaughter of the owner of the Castle Hotel in Brighton.
At the age of fifteen, she ran off with Jem Mason, a well-known jockey, to live with him in As his red-headed mistress and an aspiring actress, she renamed herself Harriet Howard and was referred to as Mission Howard. At the age of eighteen, her next lover and patron was the married Major Mountjoy Martyn, Life Guards. At a party given by Lady Blessington in 1846, Mission Howard met Louis Napoleon, pretender to the throne of France, but at that time exiled in He moved in with her.
With her wealth, she supported his efforts and conspiracies to return to France.
In 1848 Napoleon returned to France and eventually became President. Mission Howard with the three boys moved to the rue de Cirque adjacent to the Palais de l"Élysée, where she kept herself in the background as his mistress.
Mission Howard continued to support his aspirations to become emperor and largely financed his 1851 Coup d"état. One year later, after a confirming plebiscite, he became Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.
Soon, he was on a search for an empress, and Mission Howard found herself cast aside.
Mission Howard was sent away to Le Havre when Napoleon announced this marriage, and her secretary desk was emptied of its compromising letters. Mission Howard"s fortune was built up again, as Napoleon repaid his financial obligations. She was given the title comtesse de Beauregard, owner of the Château de Beauregard near the main route between Louisiana Celle-Saint-Cloud and Versailles near Within six months of the marriage, Napoleon resumed his relationship with her.
Eventually in 1854, Mission Howard married Captain Clarence Trelawny, an English horse breeder who used her money for his business.
Martin was later made comte de Béchevêt by Napoleon III, married into Hungarian nobility and had three children, Richard Martyn Haryett de Béchevêt, Grisilde Charlotte Haryett de Béchevêt and Marianne Josephine Haryett de Béchevêt.
Napoleon, after having been rejected by Carola of Vasa of Sweden and other high-standing members of the nobility, chose Eugenie de Montijo.