While in Geneva, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, was introduced to the de Fortissons. Soon afterward Julie and Edward became lovers. The Duke's father, King
George III, enrolled Edward in the army and had him posted to
Gibraltar, where Edward made arrangements for her to be smuggled so that they could be together. George III later found out about the affair, and so sent the Duke to
Quebec City as colonel of the
7th Fusiliers. Humiliated, he at first refused to go, but in August 1791 arrived accompanied by his
chatelaine, introduced as Julie de Saint-Laurent and reputed to be a widow. Shortly after his arrival in Quebec, Prince Edward leased Judge Mabane's house for £90 per annum. Madame de Saint Laurent lived with him at the
Duke of Kent House in Quebec City for three years before he was posted to
Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1794. It has been claimed by several writers that she was secretly married to the Duke of Kent at a Roman Catholic church in
Quebec. Recent scholarship (particularly by
Mollie Gillen, who was granted access to the Royal Archive at
Windsor Castle) has established that no children were born of the 27-year relationship between Prince Edward and Madame de Saint-Laurent; although many Canadian families and individuals (including the Nova Scotian soldier Sir William
Fenwick Williams, 1st Baronet) have claimed descent from them, such claims can now be discounted in light of this new research. For twenty-eight years Madame de Saint-Laurent presided over the Duke's household, as a local chronicler records, "with dignity and propriety". She is described as having been beautiful, clever, witty and accomplished. Many of her letters will be found in Anderson's
The Life of Edward, Duke of Kent (Quebec: 1870). After the Duke's marriage in 1818 to the
Dowager Princess of Leiningen, Madame de Saint-Laurent retreated to Paris where she lived out her days amongst her family and friends. She died in 1830 and was buried with her sister, Jeanne-Beatrix, Comtesse de Jansac, at
Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. == Legacy ==