Catherine Grand

Catherine Noele Grand (née Worlée; 1762 – December 10 1834) was the mistress and later the wife of French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the first Prime Minister of France. From their marriage in 1802 until her death she was Catherine Noele Grand de Talleyrand-Périgord, Princesse de Bénévent. Madame Grand was known for her striking Nordic beauty [ http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/18wa/hod_50.135.2.htm retrieved on 10 August 2007] , as well as her ingenuous public comments [http://www.batguano.com/catno12.html retrieved on 10 August 2007] .

Catherine Grand was the daughter of an official in the French colony of Pondicherry. Upon moving to Chandernagore, she was married to George Francis Grand, an officer of the British Civil Service in Calcutta. They separated after a scandal (early in the marriage, she had a brief affair with Sir Philip Francis, deputy of Warren Hastings), and Madame Grand settled in London. By 1783, she had become a prostitute in Paris, although she returned to Britain just before the French Revolution in 1789. In 1794 she returned to France and attracted the attention of French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, whom she lived with until 1802, when Napoleon Bonaparte pressured Talleyrand to marry her. After marriage the two gradually drifted apart. Madame Talleyrand began living alone, although her husband eventually gave her enough money to live luxuriously in London. For the last few years of her life she returned to Paris, dying there on 10 December, 1834.

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