Aimée du Buc de Rivéry (4 December 1768 – July or August 1788) was a French heiress, distantly related to

Joséphine de Beauharnais Joséphine Bonaparte (, born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie; 23 June 1763 – 29 May 1814) was the first wife of Emperor Napoleon I and as such Empress of the French from 18 May 1804 until their marriage was annulled on 10 Janua ...

(first wife of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

) who went missing at sea as a young woman. She was thought by some to have been captured by

Barbary pirates The Barbary corsairs, Barbary pirates, Ottoman corsairs, or naval mujahideen (in Muslim sources) were mainly Muslim corsairs and privateers who operated from the largely independent Barbary states. This area was known in Europe as the Barba ...

, sold as a

harem A harem is a domestic space that is reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A harem may house a man's wife or wives, their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic Domestic worker, servants, and other un ...

concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal relationship, interpersonal and Intimate relationship, sexual relationship between two people in which the couple does not want to, or cannot, enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarde ...

, and was the same person as Nakşîdil Sultan, mother of Sultan

Mahmud II Mahmud II (, ; 20 July 1785 – 1 July 1839) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. Often described as the "Peter the Great of Turkey", Mahmud instituted extensive administrative, military, and fiscal reforms ...

of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

; but this has been debunked.

Life

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 Martinique ( ; or ; Kalinago language, Kalinago: or ) is an island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It was previously known as Iguanacaera which translates to iguana island in Carib language, Kariʼn ...

. She was a distant cousin-in-law of Empress JosephineYvan Brunet du Buc de Mannetot, ''Si la Martinique m'était contée à travers l'histoire des chevaliers du Buc de la Normandie à la Martinique... en passant par la Turquie'', 2008, Ed. du Buc. through Josephine's first marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais, who was executed during the

Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...

. After being sent to a convent school in France, Aimée was returning home in July or August 1788 when her ship vanished at sea. It was popularly theorized that

attacked and captured the ship. Some theories suggest she was sold into the Barbary slave trade and eventually sent to

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

as a gift to the Ottoman

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

's Imperial harem by the

Bey Bey, also spelled as Baig, Bayg, Beigh, Beig, Bek, Baeg, Begh, or Beg, is a Turkic title for a chieftain, and a royal, aristocratic title traditionally applied to people with special lineages to the leaders or rulers of variously sized areas in ...

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

Legend about her being Valide Sultan Nakşidil

According to the legend, Aimée becomes the wife of the Sultan Abdul Hamid I, taking the name of Nakşidil. She supposedly teaches the Sultan French and introduces French ideas to him, and so to the Ottoman people. For the first time, a permanent ambassador is sent from Constantinople to Paris. The legend credits her with influencing the Sultan to make French-style

reforms Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

which then lead to his death at the hands of the

Janissaries A janissary (, , ) was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops. They were the first modern standing army, and perhaps the first infantry force in the world to be equipped with firearms, adopted du ...

and the

Ulema In Islam, the ''ulama'' ( ; also spelled ''ulema''; ; singular ; feminine singular , plural ) are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam. "Ulama ...

, since both groups oppose liberalization of the empire. After his death, Nakşidil continues to hold influence over

, either as his biological or as his foster mother, having had a hand in his education. When Mahmud II succeeds Abdul Hamid as Sultan, he starts a French newspaper and allows Nakşidil to decorate the

Topkapı Palace The Topkapı Palace (; ), or the Seraglio, is a large museum and library in the east of the Fatih List of districts of Istanbul, district of Istanbul in Turkey. From the 1460s to the completion of Dolmabahçe Palace in 1856, it served as the ad ...

rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

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. This was taken to explain the Ottomans conceding in their war with Russia (to enable their resistance against Napoléon) as well as the Ottomans siding with England over France during the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

.see for uncritical biographical entries:
Jean-François Chiappe (editor) and Ghislain de Diesbach (author): ''Le Monde Au Féminin - Encyclopédie Des Femmes Célèbres''; entry of ''Valide, Aimée Dubucq de Rivery''. Éditions Aimery Somogy, Paris, ca. 1976.
Antonius Lux (editor): ''Große Frauen der Weltgeschichte. 1000 Biographien in Wort und Bild''; entry of ''Rivéry, Aimée Dubucq''. Sebastian Lux Verlag, Munich, 1963 The legend of Aimée as Nakşidil ends with claiming that she accepted

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

as part of the harem etiquette, since it was the religion of her husband, yet always remained a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

in her heart. Supposedly, her last wish was for a Christian priest to perform the last rites. Her son,

, did not deny her this: as Aimée lay dying, a priest passed for the first time through the Seraglio, to perform the Holy Sacrament before her death. Her tomb lies not far from the

Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia (; ; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (; ), is a mosque and former Church (building), church serving as a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The last of three church buildings to be successively ...

Controversy over the legend

Some researchers have looked into the alleged history of Aimée du Buc de Rivéry in the royal harem and found it implausible. According to Turkish historian Necdet Sakaoğlu, Nakşîdil Sultan was ethnically Georgian in origin. While several stories claimed that Aimée was abducted in 1781 – early enough that the seventeen year old could have been the mother of Mahmud II, born in 1785 – other stories took into account that Aimée was well in France with her family until the year 1788 at least.Christine Isom-Verhaaren
''Royal French Women in the Ottoman Sultans' Harem: The Political Uses of Fabricated Accounts from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-first Century'', '' Journal of World History'', vol. 17, No. 2, 2006. In the latter recounts of the tale, Aimée is only the foster mother to Mahmud II, while his birth mother died in his childhood. None of those accounts however are considering a contemporary source from the year 1817: Nakşidil was reportedly abducted when she was still two years old. That version of her story, if true, would make it impossible for her to be identical with the missing Aimée. 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".Robert D. Vine, "Myth and Fact in History", p. 57 There are however indications that seeds of the legend have been carefully planted. Several older myths, dating back even to the early 16th century, already purported connections between the French and the Ottoman monarchy. These have been traced to be politically motivated fabrications, so that alliances between the respective monarchs were seen as justifiable. The Aimée-Nakşidil tale distinctly parallels these older tales. In times of monarchy, the stories about abducted French princesses weren't repudiated to maintain good relations – in fact, both

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

and

Abdülaziz Abdulaziz (; ; 8 February 18304 June 1876) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876, when he was 1876 Ottoman coup d'état, overthrown in a government coup. He was a son of Sultan Mahmud II and succeeded his brother ...

were pleased to announce their kinship to each other, years later. In later times this and similar harem tales have been used to perpetuate the prejudice of Turkey, the Middle East and the Islam in general as mysterious and despotic in nature, despite more accurate accounts available. 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.

Popular fiction and uncritical recounts

*''The Veiled Empress: An Unacademic Biography'' by Benjamin A. Morton. (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1923) *''Seven League Boots'' by Richard Halliburton (Lowe and Brydone, 1936); Halliburton recounts a fairly complete version of the legend as fact in chapter XX. *'' The Wilder Shores of Love'' by Lesley Blanch, London: Phoenix Press and New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954 *''The Veiled Sultan'' by March Cost (pen name of Margaret Mackie Morrison) (NY: Vanguard Press, 1969) *''A Distant Shore'' by Susannah James (Signet, 1981), *''Sultana'' by Prince Michael of Greece (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), *''Valide'' by Barbara Chase-Riboud, 1986 * Aimée's story, further fictionalized, was told in the 1989 movie '' Intimate Power'' (a.k.a. ''The Favorite''), in which she was portrayed by Amber O'Shea, and which also starred F. Murray Abraham. It was based on the novel ''Sultana'' by Prince Michael of Greece. *''The Palace of Tears'' by Alev Lytle Croutier (Delecorte Press, 2000) *''Seraglio'' by Janet Wallach (NY: Nan A. Talese, 2003), (0-385-49046-1) *'' The Janissary Tree'' by Jason Goodwin (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux div. of Macmillan, 2006), /978-0374178604; not just about her, but she is a major character in this and four subsequent novels in the Yashim investigator series. *''Si la Martinique m'était contée à travers l'histoire des chevaliers du Buc de la Normandie à la Martinique... en passant par la Turquie'' by Y.B. du Buc de Mannetot, member of the family Du Buc (NY: du Buc, histoire coloniale et patrimoine antillais, 2008) *''The French Odalisque'' by Sean Graham (London: Orbach and Chambers, 2009) *''The Stolen Girl'' and ''The French Sultana'' by Zia Wesley (ePublishing Works!, 2014)

References

External links

La légende de la sultane Validé
{{DEFAULTSORT:Du Buc De Rivery, Aimee 1768 births 1780s missing person cases 18th-century French nobility 18th-century French women Date of death unknown People from Le Robert People lost at sea Year of death unknown