[2] Aimée was born on 4 December 1768, the daughter of wealthy French plantation owner Henri du Buc de Rivéry (1748–1808) and Marie Anne Arbousset-Beaufond (1739–1811) in Pointe Royale, south-west of Le Robert on the Caribbean island of Martinique.

When Mahmud II succeeds Abdul Hamid as Sultan, he starts a French newspaper and allows Nakşidil to decorate the Topkapı Palace in rococo style, which is popular in France at that time.

Several retellings of the legend claim that she even exerted influence in foreign policy, and that the Ottoman ruler's attitude towards the French deteriorated as a consequence of Napoléon's divorce of Aimée's cousin-in-law, Joséphine Bonaparte, in order to marry Marie Louise.

[5] The legend of Aimée as Nakşidil ends with claiming that she accepted Islam as part of the harem etiquette, since it was the religion of her husband, yet always remained a Roman Catholic in her heart.

Robert Vine wrote: "The myth of two cousins from a Caribbean island becoming respectively the wife of the French Emperor and the mother of the Ottoman Sultan has an obvious romantic attraction – but by the same token, is highly improbable, unless provided with solid factual proof".

[2] In times of monarchy, the stories about abducted French princesses weren't repudiated to maintain good relations – in fact, both Napoleon III and Abdülaziz were pleased to announce their kinship to each other, years later.

[2] The legend furthermore reinforced prejudices of the Ottoman Empire as a backwater country, where even a western slave consort was able to initiate an overdue modernization while the primitive natives couldn't conceive necessary reforms.