Born in Baltimore to a wealthy family in 1785, Elizabeth Patterson shook local and Parisian society when she wed Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the Emperor Napoleon. Insisting on a better future for his brother, the emperor annulled the marriage, but not before it produced a son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. Betsy's failed quest to win royal status for her son and grandsons consumed the remainder of her seventy-four years, decades that transformed her from the glamorous "belle of Baltimore" into a shrewd and successful businesswoman determined to protect her family.