much of what was written during the first two weeks of july , 1857 , was obviously untrue : that pierce lived with three mistresses in the same house , and was `` a human dynamo '' ; that he had been behind the great check swindle of 1852 ; that he was the illegitimate son of napoleon i ; that pierce took cocaine and laudanum ; that he had previously been married to a german countess and had murdered her in 1848 , in hamburg .