WASHINGTON – Former President Bill Clinton stunned listeners Wednesday when he claimed at Ethel Kennedy's funeral that the late widow of Robert F. Kennedy was “flirting with me.”

“I thought your mother was the cat’s meow. She would flirt with me in the most innocent way possible,” Clinton, 78, said in his eulogy at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in downtown Washington.

The notoriously lewd former president, who was impeached in 1998 over his affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky, recalled Valentine's Day cards and conversations with the Kennedy matriarch, who died Oct. 10 at age 96 .

“She was an amazing fireball of non-stop energy. “It was wonderful to be around her,” Clinton said of Ethel Kennedy, a mother of 11 who was widowed in 1968 when her husband, then a senator from New York, was assassinated while running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“I remember one of them – I loved all those Valentine's Day cards and there's a lot of them at the bottom and they're very political,” Clinton continued, reading a poem from one of them.

“Roses are red, violets are blue, I am surrounded by love but there is still room for you,” the poem read.

“I think that's the way she made all of us feel,” Clinton said.

The ex-president's eulogy was well received, and one of Ethel's daughters, Kerry Kennedy, who later praised her mother during the marathon three-hour funeral with performances by Sting and Stevie Wonder, confirmed her mother's alleged willingness to flirt.

“President Clinton said that mom flirted with him and you know she loved every one of you,” Kerry Kennedy said to Clinton, former President Barack Obama and outgoing President Biden, who sat in the front row of the church, which also hosted former President John F. Kennedy's funeral in 1963.

“A few weeks ago I called her from Italy and said, 'Mommy, I'm in Italy.' Can I bring you something?' And she said, 'An Italian would be nice.'”

Biden, who last spoke at the funeral, said he also received Valentine's Day cards from Ethel Kennedy, including one with “a picture of me and Ethel surrounded by hearts” and a poem that read, “I'm not Biden my.” It's a long time waiting for you, Valentine, because he's not an ordinary Joe.”

“I don’t know how many of you got that damn Valentine, but I’ll tell you what, it meant a lot to me,” the outgoing president said.