Bonaparte, and created Duchess of St Leu by Louis XVIII., was in Paris,
much suspected by the Bourbons, but really engaged in a lawsuit with her
husband about the custody of her sons. She had to go into hiding when
the news of the landing arrived, but her empty house, left unwatched,
became very useful for receiving the Bonapartists, who wished for a place
of concealment, amongst them, as we shall see, being, of all people,
Fouche! Hortense was met by Napoleon with some reproaches for accepting
a title from the Bourbons, but she did the honours of the Elysee for him,
and it is creditable to both of them that, braving the vile slanders
about their intercourse, she was with him to the end; and that one of the
last persons to embrace him at Malmaison before he started for the coast
was his adopted daughter, the child of his discarded wife. Hortense's
presence in Paris was thought to be too dangerous by the Prussian
Governor; and she was peremptorily ordered to leave. An appeal to the
Emperor Francis received a favourable answer, but Francis always gave way
where any act against his son-in-law was in question, and she had to
start at the shortest notice on a wandering life to Aix, Baden, and
Constance, till the generosity of the small but brave canton of Thurgau
enabled her to get a resting-place at the Chateau of Arenenberg.
In 1831 she lost her second son, the eldest then surviving, who died from
fever in a revolutionary attempt ill which he and his younger brother,
the future Napoleon. III., were engaged. She was able to visit France
incognita, and even to see Louis Philippe and his Queen; but her presence
in the country was soon thought dangerous, and she was urged to leave.
In 1836 Hortense's last child, Louis Napoleon, made his attempt at an
'emeule' at Strasburg, and was shipped off to America by the Government.
She went to France to plead for him, and then, worn out by grief and
anxiety, returned to Arenenberg, which her son, the future Emperor, only
succeeded in reaching in time to see her die in October 1837. She was
laid with Josephine at Rueil.
Hortense's brother, Prince Eugene, the Viceroy of Italy, was at Vienna
when Napoleon returned, and fell under the suspicion of the Allies of
having informed the Emperor of the intention of removing him from Elba.
He was detained in Bavaria by his father-in-law the King, to whose Court
he retired, and who in 1817 created him Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince
of Eichstadt. With the protection of Bavaria he actually succeeded in
wringing from the Bourbons some 700,000 francs of the property of his
mother. A first attack of apoplexy struck him in 1823, and he died from
a second in February 1824 at Munich. His descendants have intermarried
into the Royal Families of Portugal, Sweden, Brazil, Russia, 'and
Wartemberg; his grandson now (1884) holds the title of Leuchtenberg.
Except Louis, an invalid, all the brothers of the Emperor were around him
in the Cent Jours, the supreme effort of their family. Joseph had left
Spain after Vittoria, and had remained in an uncomfortable and
unrecognised state near Paris until in 1814 he was again employed, and
when, rightly or not, he urged the retreat of the Regency from Paris to
Blois. He then took refuge at his chateau of Prangins in the canton Vaud
in Switzerland, closely watched by the Bourbonists, who dreaded danger
from every side except the real point, and who preferred trying to hunt
the Bonapartists from place to place, instead of making their life
bearable by carrying out the engagements with them.
In 1816, escaping from the arrest with which he was threatened, after
having written to urge Murat to action with fatal effect, Joseph joined
Napoleon in Paris, and appeared at the Champ de Mai, sitting also in the
Chamber of Peers, but, as before, putting forward ridiculous pretensions
as to his inherent right to the peerage, and claiming a special seat. In
fact, he never could realise how entirely he owed any position to the
brother he wished to treat as an equal.
He remained in Paris during the brief campaign, and after Waterloo was
concealed in the house of the Swedish Ambassador, where his sister-in-
law, the Crown Princess of Sweden, the wife of Bernadotte, was living.
Muffling, the Prussian Governor of Paris, wished to arrest him, but as
the Governor could not violate the domicile of an Ambassador, he had to
apply to the Czar, who arranged for the escape of the ex-King before the
Governor could seize him Joseph went to the coast, pretty much following
the route of Napoleon. He was arrested once at Saintes, but was allowed
to proceed, and he met his brother on the 4th of July, at Rochefort.
It is significant as to the possibility of the escape of Napoleon that
Joseph succeeded in getting on the brig Commerce as "M. Bouchard," and,
though the ship was thrice searched by the English, he got to New York on
the 28th of August, where he was mistaken for Carnot. He was well
received, and, taking the title of Comte de Survilliers, he first lived
at Lansdowne, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, where he afterwards always
passed part of the year while he was in America. He also bought the
property of Point Breeze, at Bordentown, on the Delaware, where he built
a house with a fine view of the river. This first house was burnt down,
but he erected another, where he lived in some state and in great
comfort, displaying his jewels and pictures to his admiring neighbours,
and showing kindness to impecunious nephews.
The news of the Revolution of July in 1830, which drove Charles X. from
the throne, excited Joseph's hopes for the family of which he considered
himself the Regent, and he applied to Metternich to get the Austrian
Government to allow or assist in the placing his nephew, the Duke of
Reichstadt, on the throne of France. Austria would not even answer.
In July 1832 Joseph crossed to England, where he met Lucien, just arrived
from Italy, bringing the news of the death of his nephew. Disappointed,
he stayed in England for some time, but returned to America in 1836. In
he finally left America, and again came to England, where he had a
paralytic stroke, and in 1843 he went to Florence, where he met his wife
after a long separation.
Joseph lived long enough to see the two attempts of another nephew, Louis
Napoleon, at Strasburg in 1836, and at Boulogne in 1840, which seem to
have been undertaken without his knowledge, and to have much surprised
him. He died in Florence in 1844; his body was buried first in Santa
Croce, Florence, but was removed to the Invalides in 1864. His wife the
ex-Queen, had retired in 1815 to Frankfort and to Brussels, where she was
well received by the King, William, and where she stayed till 1823, when
she went to Florence, dying there in 1845. Her monument is in the
Cappella Riccardi, Santa Croce, Florence.
Lucien had retired to Rome in 1804, on the creation of the Empire, and
had continued embroiled with his brother, partly from his so-called
Republican principles, but chiefly from his adhering to his marriage,
his second one, with Madame Jouberthon,--a union which Napoleon steadily
refused to acknowledge, offering Lucien anything, a kingdom or the hand
of a queen (if we take Lucien's account), if he would only consent to the
annulment of the contract.
In August 1810, affecting uneasiness as Napoleon stretched his power over
Rome, Lucien embarked for America, but he was captured by the English and
taken, first to Malta and then to England, where he passed the years till
1814 in a sort of honourable captivity, first at Ludlow and then at
Thorngrove, not far from that town.
In 1814 Lucien was released, when he went to Rome, where he was welcomed
by the kindly old Pope, who remembered the benefits conferred by Napoleon
on the Church, while he forgot the injuries personal to himself; and the
stiff-necked Republican, the one-time "Brutus" Bonaparte, accepted the
title of Duke of Musignano and Prince of Canino.
In 1815 Lucien joined his brother, whom he wished to abdicate at the
Champ de Mai in favour of the King of Rome, placing his sword only at the
disposal of France. This step was seriously debated, but, though it
might have placed the Allies in a more difficult position, it would
certainly have been disregarded by them, at least unless some great
victory had given the dynasty firmer footing. After Waterloo he was in
favour of a dissolution of the Chambers, but Napoleon had become hopeless
and almost apathetic, while Lucien himself, from his former connection
with the 18th and 19th Brumaire, was looked on with great distrust by the
Chambers, as indeed he was by his brother. Advantage was taken of his
Roman title to taunt him with not being a Frenchman; and all his efforts
failed. At the end he fled, and failing to cross to England or to get to
Rochefort, he reached Turin on the 12th of July only to find himself
arrested. He remained there till the 15th of September, when he was
allowed to go to Rome. There he was interned and carefully watched;
indeed in 1817 the Pope had to intervene to prevent his removal to the
north of Germany, so anxious were the Allies as to the safety of the
puppet they had put on the throne of France.
The death of Napoleon in 1821 released Lucien and the Bonaparte family
from the constant surveillance exercised over them till then. In 1830 he
bought a property, the Croce del Biacco, near Bologna. The flight of the
elder branch of the Bourbons from France in 1830 raised his hopes, and,
as already said, he went to England in 1832 to meet Joseph and to plan
some step for raising Napoleon II. to the throne. The news of the death
of his nephew dashed all the hopes of the family, and after staying in
England for some time he returned to Italy, dying at Viterbo in 1840, and
being buried at Canino, where also his second wife lies. Lucien had a
taste for literature, and was the author of several works, which a kindly
posterity will allow to die.
Louis Bonaparte had fled from his Kingdom of Holland in 1810, after a
short reign of four years, disgusted with being expected to study the
interests of the brother to whom he owed his throne, and with being
required to treat his wife Hortense with ordinary consideration. He had
taken refuge in Austria, putting that Court in great anxiety how to pay
him the amount of attention to be expected by the brother of the Emperor,
and at the same time the proper coldness Napoleon might wish shown to a
royal deserter. Thanks to the suggestions of Metternich, they seem to
have been successful in this task. Taking the title of Comte de, St.
Len from an estate in France; Louis went first to Toplitz, then to Gratz,
and in 1813 he took refuge in Switzerland. In 1814 he went to Rome; and
then to Florence, where the Grand-Duke Ferdinand received any of the
family who came there with great kindness.
Louis was the least interesting of the family, and it is difficult to
excuse his absence from France in 1815. After all, the present of a
kingdom is not such an unpardonable offence as to separate brothers for
ever, and Napoleon seems to have felt deeply the way in which he was
treated by a brother to whom he had acted as a father; still ill-health
and the natural selfishness of invalids may account for much. While his
son Louis Napoleon was flying about making his attempts on France, Louis
remained in the Roman Palace of the French Academy, sunk in anxiety about
his religious state. He disclaimed his son's proceedings, but this may
have been due to the Pope, who sheltered him. Anyhow, it is strange to
mark the difference between the father and his two sons who came of age,
and who took to revolution so kindly.
In 1846 Louis was ill at Leghorn when his son escaped from Ham, where he
had been imprisoned after his Boulogne attempt. Passports were refused
to the son to go from Italy to his father, and Louis died alone on the
25th of July 1846. He was buried at Santa Croce, Florence, but the body
was afterwards removed to the village church of St. Leu Taverny, rebuilt
by his son Napoleon III.
Jerome, the youngest of the whole family, the "middy," as Napoleon liked
to call him, had been placed in the navy, in which profession he passed
as having distinguished himself, after leaving his admiral in rather a
peculiar manner, by attacking an English convoy, and eventually escaping
the English by running into the port of Concarneau, believed to be
inaccessible. At that time it was an event for a French man-of-war to
reach home.
Jerome had incurred the anger of Napoleon by marrying a beautiful young
lady of Baltimore, a Mica Paterson, but, more obedient than Lucien, he
submitted to have this marriage annulled by his all-powerful brother, and
in reward he received the brand-new Kingdom of Westphalia, and the hand
of a daughter of the King of Wartemberg, "the cleverest King in Europe,"
according to Napoleon. Jerome is said to have ruled rather more as a
Heliogabalus than a Solomon, but the new Kingdom had the advantage of
starting with good administrators, and with the example of "the Code."
In 1812 Jerome was given the command of the right wing of the Grand Army
in its advance against Russia, but he did not fulfil the expectations of
his brother, and Davoust took the command instead. Every king feels
himself a born general: whatever else they cannot do, war is an art which
comes with the crown, and Jerome, unwilling to serve under a mere
Marshal, withdrew in disgust. In 1813 he had the good feeling and the
good sense to refuse the treacherous offer of the Allies to allow him to
retain his kingdom if he joined them against his brother, a snare his
sister Caroline fell into at Naples.
On the downfall of Napoleon, Jerome, as the Count of Gratz, went to
Switzerland, and then to Gratz and Trieste.
His wife, the ex-Queen Catherine, fell into the hands of Maubreuil, the
officer sent on a mysterious mission, believed to be intended for the
murder of Napoleon, but which only resulted in the robbery of the Queen's
jewels and of some 80,000 francs. The jewels were for the most part
recovered, being fished up from the bed of the Seine, but not the cash.
In 1815 Jerome joined his brother, and appeared at the Champ de Mai. A
true Bonaparte, his vanity was much hurt, however, by having--he, a real
king--to sit on the back seat of the carriage, while his elder brother
Lucien; a mere Roman-prince, occupied a seat of honour by the side of
Napoleon. In the Waterloo campaign he was given the 6th division,
forming part of Reille's corps, General Guilleminot being sent with him
to prevent any of the awkwardnesses of 1812. His division was engaged
with the Prussians on the 15th of June, and at Quatre Bras he was
severely wounded. At Waterloo his division formed the extreme left of
the French infantry, opposite Hougomont, and was engaged in the struggle
for that post. Whatever his failings may have been, he is acknowledged
to have fought gallantly. After the battle he was given the command of
the army by his brother, and was told to cover the retreat to Laon, which
he reached on the 21st of June, with 18,000 infantry, 3000 cavalry and
two batteries which he had rallied. This, be it observed, is a larger
force than Ney told the Chambers even Grouchy (none of whose men are
included) could have, and Jerome's strength had swollen to 25,000
infantry and 6000 cavalry when he handed over the army to Soult at Laon.
Napoleon had intended to leave Jerome with the command of the army, but
he eventually took him to Paris.
When Napoleon left the country Jerome was assured by the ambassador of
Wurtemberg that he would find a refuge in the dominions of his father-in-
law; but when he arrived there he was informed that if he did not wish to
be, according to the original intentions of the Allies, handed over to
the Prussians, and separated from his wife, he must sign an engagement to
remain in Wurtemberg under strict surveillance. He was then imprisoned
at Guppingen, and afterwards at Ellwangen, where he was not even allowed
to write or receive letters except through the captain of the chateau.
Part of Jerome's troubles came from the conduct of his wife Catherine,
who had the idea that, as she had been given in marriage by her father to
Jerome, as she had lived for seven years as his wife, and as she had
borne a child to him, she was really his wife, and bound to remain with
him in his misfortunes! The royal family of Wurtemberg, however,
following the illustrious example of that of Austria, looked on her past
life as a mere state of concubinage, useful to the family, and to be
respected while her husband could retain his kingdom, but which should
end the moment there was nothing more to be gained from Napoleon or his
brother. It was all proper and decorous to retain the title of King of
Wurtemberg, which the former Duke and then Elector had owed to the exile
of St. Helena, but King Frederick, and still less his son William, who
succeeded him in 1816, could not comprehend Catherine's clinging to her
husband when he had lost his kingdom. "I was a Queen; I am still a wife
and mother," wrote the Princess to her disgusted father. Another
complaint against this extraordinary Princess was that she actually saw
Las Cases on his return from St. Helena, and thus obtained news of the
exile.
After constant ill treatment Jerome and his wife, as the Count and
Countess of Montfort, a rank the King of Wurtemberg afterwards raised to
Prince, were allowed to proceed to Hainburg near Vienna, then to
Florence, and, later to Trieste, where Jerome was when his sister Elisa
died. In 1823 they were permitted to go to Rome, and in 1835 they went
to Lausanne, where his true-hearted wife died the same year. Jerome went
to Florence, and lived to see the revival of the Empire, and to once mare
enjoy the rank of a French Prince. He died in 1860 at the chateau of
Villegenis in France, and was buried in the Invalides.
The mother of the Emperor, Letitia, in 1814, had retained her title of
Imperatrice Mere, and had retired to Rome. She then went to Elba in
June, and stayed there with her daughter Pauline until Napoleon had
sailed for France. On 2d March 1814 she went from Elba to San Vicenzo
near Leghorn, and then to Rome. Her son sent a frigate for her, the
'Melpomene', which was captured by the English 'Rivoli'; another vessel,
the 'Dryade', brought her to France, and she joined Napoleon in Paris.
We must have a regard for this simple old lady, who was always careful
and saving, only half believing in the stability of the Empire; and,
like a true mother, always most attentive to the most unfortunate of her
children. Her life had been full of startling changes; and it must have
been strange for the woman who had been hunted out of Corsica, flying
from her house just in time to save her life from the adherents of Paoli,
to find herself in grandeur in Paris. She saw her son just before he
left, as she thought, for America, and then retired to the Rinuccini--now
the Bonaparte-Palace at Rome, where she died in 1836. She had been
anxious to join Napoleon at St. Helena, and had refused, as long as
Napoleon was alive, to forgive her daughter Caroline, the wife of Murat,
for her abandonment of her brother. She was buried at Albano.
Letitia's youngest daughter, the beautiful but frail Pauline, Duchess of
Guastalla, married first to General Leclerc, and then to Prince Camille
Borglle, was at Nice when her brother abdicated in 1814. She retired
with her mother to Rome, and in October 1814 went to Elba, staying there
till Napoleon left, except when she was sent to Naples with a message of
forgiveness for Murat There was a characteristic scene between her and
Colonel Campbell when the English Commissioner arrived to find Napoleon
gone. Pauline professed ignorance till the last of her brother's
intentions, and pressed the Colonel's hand to her heart that lie might
feel how agitated she was. "She did not appear to be so," says the
battered old Colonel, who seems to have been proof against her charms.
She then went to Rome, and later to Pisa. Her health was failing, and,
unable to join her brother in France, she sent him her only means of
assistance, her jewels, which were captured at Waterloo. Her offer to go
to St. Helena, repeated several times, was never accepted by Napoleon.
She died in 1825 at Florence, from consumption, reconciled to her
husband, from whom she had been separated since 1807. She was buried at
Sta Maria Maggiore, Rome.
Elisa, the eldest sister of Napoleon, the former Grand Duchess of
Tuscany, which Duchy she had ruled well, being a woman of considerable
talent, was the first of all to die. In 1814 she had been forced to fly
from her Government, and, accompanied by her husband, she had attempted
to reach France. Finding herself cut off by the Austrians; she took
shelter with Augereau's army, and then returned to Italy. She took the
title of Comtesse de Campignana, and retired to Trieste, near which town,
at the Chateau of Sant Andrea, under a wearisome surveillance, she
expired in 1820, watched by her husband, Felix Baeciocchi, and her sister
Caroline. Her monument is in the Bacciocchi Chapel in San Petronio,
Bologna.
Caroline, the wife of Murat, was the only one of the family untrue to
Napoleon. Very ambitious, and forgetting how completely she owed her
Kingdom of Naples to her brother, she had urged Murat in 1814 to separate
from Napoleon, and, still worse, to attack Eugene, who held the north of
Italy against the Austrians. She relied on the formal treaty with
Austria that Murat should retain his Kingdom of Naples, and she may also
have trusted to the good offices of her former admirer Metternich. When
the Congress of Vienna met, the French Minister, Talleyrand, at once
began to press for the removal of Murat. A trifling treaty was not
considered an obstacle to the Heaven-sent deliverers of Europe, and
Murat, believing his fate sealed, hearing of Napoleon's landing, and
urged on by a misleading letter from Joseph Bonaparte, at once marched to
attack the Austrians. He was easily routed by the Austrians under
Neipperg, the future husband of Maria Louisa. Murat fled to France, and
Caroline first took refuge in an English man-of-war, the 'Tremendous',
being, promised a free passage to England. She was, however, handed over
to the Austrians; who kept her in confinement at Hainburg near Vienna.
In October 1815 Murat landed in Calabria in a last wild attempt to
recover his throne. He was arrested and immediately shot. After his
murder Caroline, taking the title of Countess of Lipona (an anagram of
Napoli), was permitted to retire to Trieste with Elisa, Jerome, and his
wife. Caroline was almost without means of existence, the Neapolitan
Bourbons refusing even to give up the property she had brought there.
She married a General Macdonald. When Hortense was buried at Rueil
Caroline obtained permission to attend the sad ceremony. In 1838 she
went to France to try to obtain a pension, and succeeded in getting one
of 100,000 francs. She died from cancer in the stomach in 1839, and was
buried in the Campo Santo, Bologna.
Cardinal Fesch, the half-uncle of Napoleon, the Archbishop of Lyons, who
had fallen into disgrace with Napoleon for taking the side of the Pope
and refusing to accept the see of Paris, to which he was nominated by
Napoleon, had retired to Rome in 1814, where he remained till the return
of Napoleon, when he went to Paris, and accepted a peerage. After
Waterloo he again sought the protection of the Pope, and he remained at
Rome till his death in 1839, a few days before Caroline Bonaparte's. He
was buried in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. He had for years been a great
collector of pictures, of which he left a large number (1200) to the town
of Ajaccio. The Cardinal, buying at the right time when few men had
either enough leisure or money to think of pictures, got together a most
valuable collection. This was sold in 1843-44 at Rome. Its contents now
form some of the greatest treasures in the galleries of Dudley House and
of the Marquis of Hertford, now Sir Richard Wallace's. In a large
collection there are generally some daubs, but it is an amusing instance
of party spirit to find the value of his pictures run down by men who are
unwilling to allow any one connected with Napoleon to have even taste in
art. He always refused the demands of the Restoration that he should
resign his see of Lyons, though under Louis Philippe he offered to do so,
and leave his pictures to France, if the Bonaparte family were allowed to
enter France: this was refused.