1. Iseult Lucille Germaine Gonne was the daughter of the Irish republican revolutionary Maud Gonne and the French politician and journalist Lucien Millevoye.
11 Facts About Iseult Gonne
1. 2.
Iseult's mother Maud Gonne had conceived a child, Georges, with her French Boulangist lover, the prominent anti Dreyfusard journalist and politician Lucien Millevoye.
3.
Iseult Gonne's purpose was to conceive a baby with the same father, to whom the soul of Georges would transmigrate in metempsychosis.
4.
Iseult Gonne was educated at a Carmelite convent in Laval, France; when she returned to Ireland she was referred to as Maud's niece or cousin rather than daughter.
5.
In 1903, Maud Gonne married John MacBride; Iseult's half-brother Sean MacBride was born in 1904.
6.
Iseult Gonne was widely considered a great beauty, and temperate, able to speak her mind.
7.
Iseult Gonne attracted the admiration of literary figures including Ezra Pound, Lennox Robinson and Liam O'Flaherty.
8.
In 1916, in his fifties, Yeats proposed to the 22-year-old Iseult Gonne, who refused his advances.
9.
Iseult Gonne had known her since she was four and often referred to her as his darling child.
10.
Iseult Gonne made headlines during the Second World War when she was brought to trial for harboring Hermann Gortz, a Nazi spy who parachuted into Ireland, a crime to which she confessed but was acquitted.
11.
Iseult Gonne died aged 59 from heart disease less than a year later.