Dawes, Sophie, Baronne de Feuchères (1790-1840)

Dawes, Sophie, Baronne de Feuchères

COURTESAN (ENGLAND)

BORN 29 Sep 1790, St Helens, Isle of Wight - DIED 15 Dec 1840, London
GRAVE LOCATION London: Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, Kensal Green (016/PS (next to George Napoleon Epps))

Sophie Dawes was the daughter of the fisherman and smuggler Richard Dawes (1751-1828) from the Isle of Wight. The family moved to the workhouse at Newport in 1796 and Sophie lived there for nine years. She worked as a chambermaid in Portsmouth before she went to London. There she was the mistress of an officer. Later she worked as a servant in a high-class brothel in Piccadilly. There she was noticed by the exiled Louis Henri Joseph de Bourbon (1756-1830), the future Prince de Condé. She became his mistress and the duke set her up with her mother in a house in Gloucester Street. There she learned modern languages and Greek.

After the fall of Napoleon the duke took her to Paris. To prevent a scandal he married her to lieutenant-colonel Adrien Victor de Feuchères (1785-1857) in 1818. The duke provied a dowry for her and made her husband his aide-de-camp and a baron. Sophie was now a baroness and she was received at the court of Louis XVIII. Feuchères had assumed that Condé was her father, but in 1822 he found out that she was his mistress. In 1824 they separated and she was banished from the court. But she did not give up and managed to have Condé include her in his will and Charles X to giver her permission to appear at the court again. Marie-Thérèse, the daughter of the king, reputedly remarked on the occasion 'after all, we receive so many scoundrels'.

In 1830 Charles X was removed from the throne. Condé considered leaving France as well as his mistress, but he was found hanging deade from his window on 27 August at the Château de Saint-Leu. Sophie was suspected, but there was no evidence of a crime. It was even suggested that it was the result of an erotic game. Sophie was now detested in France. She sold her French properties and she returned to England. She died in London in 1840.

Images

The grave of Sophie Dawes at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.
Picture by Androom (28 May 2026)