Nakşidil Sultan
[5][6] There is a fanciful legend that she was Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, who had gone missing at sea in 1788, and was a distant cousin-in-law of the former Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.According to this myth, Aimée du Buc de Rivéry was captured by Barbary pirates and sold as a harem concubine, but modern historian have debunked this.In later times this and similar harem tales have been used in France to perpetuate a view of Turkey, the Middle East and the Islam in general as mysterious and despotic in nature, despite more accurate accounts available.On 22 October 1783, she gave birth to her first child, a son, Şehzade Murad Seyfullah, who died at the age of two of smallpox on 21 January 1785.The chief physician advised Nakşidil to have some rest at the mansion of Gümrükçü Osman Ağa at Çamlıca, but the weather there affected her health, and so she returned to Beşiktaş Palace, where she died on 22 August 1817 of tuberculosis.It is said that the deceased Sultane was French, of American origin, and that she was born in Nantes; it is added that at barely two years old, her parents embarked with her for America and they were captured by a corsair who took them to Algiers, where they perished.The little girl was purchased by a slave merchant, who judged by her beauty at such a tender age, that she would one day amply compensate him for the care that he lavished upon her.