Dorothea was born in
Friedrichsfelde Palace near
Berlin, the fourth and last daughter of Duchess Dorothea of Courland, who was by then separated from her husband, Duke Peter of Courland. Dorothea's paternity is disputed but generally assigned to
Count Aleksander Batowski, a Polish
envoy to the Duchy of Courland. Her biological father was a close associate of her uncle
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord during the Napoleonic period. Her three elder half sisters, all legitimate daughters of the Duke of Courland, were
Princess Wilhelmine, Duchess of Sagan,
Princess Pauline, Duchess of Sagan, and
Princess Johanna, Duchess of Acerenza. The Duke of Courland acknowledged her officially, which entitled her to be styled Princess of Courland. She was educated in
Germany.
Marriage Looking for a wealthy heiress for his nephew Edmond, Talleyrand asked Tsar
Alexander I of Russia to intervene with Dorothea's mother in favor of Edmond's marrying her. The marriage occurred on 21 and 22 April 1809 at
Frankfurt amidst the
Napoleonic Wars, presided over by Talleyrand's friend, Prince-Bishop
Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg. Dorothea became a member of the old French
House of Talleyrand-Périgord. After the marriage she was known as Comtesse Edmond de Talleyrand-Périgord and became great-niece by marriage of
Count Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince of Bénévent. Educated in Germany, she was plunged into French society, where she represented the enemy. Her three sisters, also very anti-French, did not help her marriage; and despite the birth of three children, the marriage became unhappy, with Edmond more concerned with gaming, war and other women than with his wife. The fall of the
First French Empire and the
Congress of Vienna, at which Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand was designated to represent France, favoured a close friendship between him and Dorothea. During his time in Vienna, she kept her household in the Palais Kaunitz, and it was at this time that Dorothea began to play a major part in Charles-Maurice's life. She accompanied him to the
Congress of Vienna, and it is even alleged that she became his mistress sometime after 1815. On 31 August 1817, Talleyrand was made a duke and peer of France by
Louis XVIII, and on 2 December he was also granted the duchy of Dino (a 1.5 km by 1.2 km
Calabrian island) by the
King of the Two Sicilies in recognition of his services at Vienna. The duchy of Dino was immediately handed down to his nephew and his wife, and Dorothea also became duchess of Dino. On 24 March 1818 she and her husband separated, though this was only pronounced formally on 6 November 1824.
Her life with Talleyrand On 3 July 1820 Talleyrand left Paris for Valençay accompanied by Dorothea, then pregnant with her third child,
Pauline, whose paternity is sometimes attributed to Talleyrand. Despite having been his companion (he was 39 years her senior) she took several lovers, gaining a reputation as a formidable seductress and bearing three illegitimate daughters. One, born in 1816, was perhaps
Božena Němcová, the great
Czech writer, fathered by Count Karel Jan
Clam Martinic, her lover at the Congress of Vienna; the two others, Julie Zulmé and Antonine Piscatory, were born in 1826 and 1827. When Talleyrand became French ambassador in London in 1830, she accompanied him and felt more comfortable there than in Paris, which she detested and where the whole
Faubourg Saint-Germain made her feel she was a foreigner. This was a theme throughout her life: in Prussia she was seen as too French, in Paris as too German. She became duchess of Talleyrand on 28 April 1838.
Duchess of Sagan On 6 (or 8) January 1845, the
king of Prussia invested Dorothea as duchess of Sagan (with the special privilege of the dukedom being able to descend via the female as well as the male line), with her son Louis-Napoléon, godson of
Napoleon and Louis-Napoléon's grandson
Boson de Talleyrand-Périgord immediately taking the title of prince of Sagan. She granted her Château de Rochecotte to her daughter Pauline de
Castellane in 1847, having chosen in 1843 to live in state at her castle at Sagan in Silesia (made up of 130 buildings on an estate of 1,200 hectares, bought by her father and then by her sister Pauline de Hohenzollern). She reigned over this immense and rich duchy alone, until she had a carriage accident in June 1861 and died on 19 September 1862 at
Sagan. Despite the wish she had expressed to her uncle Talleyrand in a letter of April 1838 and in her will, that her heart should be placed in his grave at Valençay, she was buried in the Kreuzkirche at Sagan, with her sister Wilhelmine and son Napoléon Louis. ==Issue==