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THE FRENCH CONNECTION
Azeline Monet Brewer was born in Shieldsborough. Miss, (later Bay St. Louis), in 1826. one of five children of Julius Caesar Monet and Louisa Martelv Monet.
She was of French heritage and a Roman Catholic. J.C. Monet -- as he was known -- was bom in or near Lyon, France, around the turn of the century. He (and probably his father as well) left France after the fall of Napoleon. He spent the next couple of years at sea. finally settling in the Bay St. Louis area around 1820.
There is little doubt that the Monets were Bonapartists. J.C.?s father named him after Julius Caesar, who was Napoleon's role model. J.C. Monet himself named his only son Napoleon and one of his daughters Desiree Irma. Napoleon Bonaparte's first love was Desiree Clary, the daughter of a Lyon silk merchant: they never married and she later married the king of Sweden.
What was the relationship between the Monets and Napoleon? Did Julius Caesar Monet's father merely serve under Napoleon? Was Julius Caesar Monet, in naming his children, merely being loyal to his father's cause? Was there a further connection? The father of Julius Caesar Monet would have been a contemporary of Napoleon. They were both at one time in Lyon. He was apparently familiar enough with Napoleon's philosophy to know that Napoleon's big hero was Julius Caesar.
J.C. Monet came to this country speaking only French after two years at sea. yet he had money enough apparently to buy land, build substantial houses, hire governesses for his children, grow orchards and buy expensive furniture. It appears that he married into a family of French colonials who had settled in the same area of the world (the Caribbean) as that in which the first wife of Napoleon (Josephine) was born.
Monet learned English, became a lawyer, a judge and a state legislator, and was active in all sorts of local politics. He was among the men who re-incorporated