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OTTOMAN WOMEN

(Embroidered on the Heart) and made her his favorite. She rose to the status of fourth kadin and found herself in the political crossfire of the harem: the first kadİn, Nükhet Seza, and the second kadin, Mihrimah, were each trying to put their sons on the throne. Nakshedil observed, and she leamed.
In 1789, the year of the French Revolutİon, Abdulhamid died. At the age of twenty-seven, Selim III became sultan. He asked Nakshedil to remaİn at the Seraglio harem with her son, Mahmud his nephew. For Selim, Nakshedil was a personification of the France he had always admired. She became his confidante. She taught him French; and for the first time, a permanent ambassador was sent from Istanbul to Paris. Selim started a French newspaper and let Nakshedil decorate the palace in rococo style.

These Francophile reforms cost him his life. Selim was assassinated in 1807 by religious fanatics who disapproved of his liberalism. The assassins also sought to kill Mahmud, but Nakshedil saved her son by concealing him inside a fumace. Thus Mahmud became the next Sultan, accomplishing sİgnificant reforms in the empire that are, for the most part, attributed to the intiuence of his mother.

Although Aimee accepted Islam as part of the harem etiquette, she always remained a Christian in her heart. Her last wish was for a prİest to perform the last rİtes. Her son did not deny her this: as Aİmee lay dying, a Catholic priest passed-for the first tİme-through the Gates of Felicitiy and into the harem.

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