Henriette Deluzy-Desportes
Henriette Deluzy-Desportes[a] (1813–1875) was a French governess who was the subject of a scandal with Charles Laure Hugues Théobald, duc de Choiseul-Praslin.
[3] The story of her life in Paris was the basis for a book written by her great-niece and made into the movie All This, and Heaven Too starring Bette Davis in 1940.
[3][7] Lucile, who had been accustomed to a life of luxury, worked to pay for her daughter's education after her father was no longer able to consistently provide her an income.
After her mother died of cholera in 1832, Lucile's uncle, Benjamin Desportes, brought Henriette into his home.
Even so, she was an orphaned child of unmarried parents, so she did not have the opportunities afforded to other young ladies from aristocratic families.
[5] The only advance that materialized was a gift of some savings by two of the Praslin's daughters, Louise and Berthe, to pay for a small room at the home of Mme Closter-Lemaire in The Marais in Paris.
[3] On August 17, 1847, Fanny was stabbed and bludgeoned in her bedchamber in Paris,[3][11] just a few hours after the duke and their children visited Henriette at her new residence.
[3] Praslin was kept under guard to await a trial, but he committed suicide seven days after the murder by consuming two doses of arsenic.
[7] Fanny had kept journals, expressing how upset she was about "Mademoiselle D." Henriette became the topic of conversation at the time and was despised by many of the French people.
Newspapers of the day carried impassioned invectives against the king and court as well as excerpts from the diaries and letters of the unfortunate Duchesse.
Her writings inflamed public opinion even more as they revealed the extent of domestic unhappiness which had plagued the house at 55 rue Faubourg Saint-Honore for years.
Throughout Paris the Duc was decried as a vicious and brutal killer, his dead wife as a martyr, and the governess--held for questioning at the Conciergerie and not released until November 17, 1847--as an instigator of their unhappiness and a possible conspirator in the murder of the Duchesse.Parisian ministers Adolphe and Frédéric Monod arranged for her travel to the United States.
Desportes, she came to New York on September 13, 1849, where she worked as an art and French teacher for Miss Henrietta B. Haines.
[7] The newspapers portrayed her as a party to Fanny's murder in 1847, but her American friends considered her a brave, innocent woman.
[10] She was introduced to the minister Henry Martyn Field by the Monod brothers[14] in France[7][8] or soon after she arrived in New York.
They were married in New York City on May 20, 1851, by his father, Reverend David Dudley Field, a Congregational minister.
[2] The Fields entertained a large group of friends who were eminent in art and literature,[16] like Eastman Johnson[17] who painted her portrait in 1875.
[18] Samuel Morse, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Fanny Kemble, and William Cullen Bryant regularly attended their salon in Gramercy Park.
[6] Henriette was a member of the Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art, which was first convened by Thomas Charles Farrer in January 1863.
[28][22] The funeral, led by William Adams, was held at the Madison Square Presbyterian Church in New York City.
[28] Looking back on her life, she quoted Matthew Henry (1662-1714) "All this, and Heaven, too", which became the name of the book written about her by Rachel Field, her grand-niece.
[7] The book Home sketches in France, and other papers of the late Mrs. Henry M. Field was published the year of her death.
