village she passed through the young Empress received the homage of the
authorities. Groups of girls, dressed in white, offered her flowers;
bells were rung; and the enthusiasm of the country people was quite as
warm as that of the Viennese. Marie Louise spent the night at Saint
Pölten, where she met her father, who had gone thither incognito,
in order to embrace her for the last time. The Empress, the bride's
stepmother, went there also unexpectedly, and threw herself for the last
time into the arms of the Empress of the French. Ried she reached the
15th of March, 1810, and thence Marie Louise started on the 16th, at
eight in the morning, after hearing mass. By eleven she had reached
Altheim, close to the Bavarian frontier, and here she made a stop for
the purpose of exchanging her travelling-dress for a finer one. Bavaria,
as part of the Confederation of the Rhine, could be regarded as a
province of the French Emperor, since Napoleon was the Protector of the
Confederation. It had hence been decided that on the frontier, between
Austria and Bavaria, close to Braunau, should take place the ceremony of
handing her over to her French escort with all formality. The scene was
a close imitation of what had taken place forty years before, on the
occasion of the marriage of Marie Antoinette. On the frontier line
between Austria and Bavaria three pavilions were set up, opening from
one to the other: the first of these was regarded as Austrian; the
second, as neutral; and the third, as French. These three connected
buildings formed a wooden edifice in three compartments, and was placed
between Altheim and Braunau. It was furnished with care, and provided
with fireplaces. The central pavilion, or hall, which was destined for
the ceremony, was adorned with a canopy, beneath which, on a platform,
there was an armchair for the Empress, covered with a cloth of gold. To
the left of the canopy, on the Bavarian side, towards Braunau, was set a
large table with a velvet cloth, on which the plenipotentiaries were to
write their signatures. Two lines of young green trees had been set out,
one leading to the French hall, the other to the Austrian. On the side
of the first, towards Braunau, were drawn three regiments, in full
uniform, two of infantry and one of cavalry, under the command of
Generals Friant and Pajol. On the other, the Austrian, side, towards
Altheim, there were neither troops nor sentinels, in token of the
temporary neutrality of the territory. The French Commissioner was
Marshal Berthier, the Prince of Neufchâtel, and his secretary, Count
Alexandre de La Borde. The Austrian Commissioner was the Prince of
Trautmannsdorf: M. Thedelitz was his secretary. The French party, which
was to meet Marshal Berthier at Braunau, and to serve as an escort to
the Empress for the rest of the journey, was composed of the following
people: Caroline, Queen of Naples, Murat's wife and Napoleon's sister;
the Duchess of Montebello, lady of honor, the widow of Marshal Lannes;
the Countess of Luçay, lady of the bed-chamber; the Duchess of Bassano,
the Countesses of Montmorency, of Mortemart, and of Bouillé, maids of
honor; the Bishop of Metz, Monsignor Jauffret, almoner; the Count of
Beauharnais, lord-in-waiting; the Prince Aldobrandini Borghese, chief
equerry; the Counts d'Aubusson, of Béarn, d'Angosse, and of Barol,
chamberlains; Philip de Ségur, lord steward; the Baron of Saluces and
the Baron d'Audenarde, equerries; the Count of Seyssel, master of
ceremonies; M. de Bausset, steward.
March 16, at half-past one, the Prince of Neufchâtel, with the rest of
his company, made their way to the French division of the building; they
were all, men and women, in full dress. Towards two o'clock Marie Louise
entered the Austrian room, and after resting a moment she was ushered
into the middle room, the neutral one, by the Austrian master of
ceremonies; there a throne had been set, and the formal ceremony was to
take place. Marie Louise seated herself on the throne. The Prince of
Trautmannsdorf took his station before the table where the papers were
to be signed, with the Aulic Counsellor, Hudelitz, the secretary, behind
him. The men and women of the Austrian party ranged themselves around
the Empress. At the back and on the two sides of the hall were twelve
Noble Hungarian Guards and twelve German guardsmen, armed and in full
uniform.
While the Austrians were thus getting ready, the French were waiting in
the next room, and displayed great impatience to get a sight of their
new sovereign. M. de Bausset, an eye-witness of the ceremony, tells us
in his Memoirs: "I was naturally anxious to see the Empress as soon as
she should reach the middle room to take a place on the throne, and
give her courtiers time to arrange themselves about her, before we were
introduced. I had brought a gimlet, and with this I had bored a good
many holes in the door of our room. This little indiscretion, which
was not mentioned in our report, gave us an opportunity to inspect the
appearance of our young sovereign at our ease. I need not say that it
was the ladies of our party who were most anxious to make use of the
little holes I had provided. The impression produced by the grace
and majesty of the Empress upon these inquisitive peepers was very
favorable. Marie Louise," M. de Bausset goes on, "sat straight on the
throne. Her erect figure was fine; her hair was blond and very pretty;
her blue eyes beamed with all the candor and innocence of her soul. Her
face was soft and kindly. She wore a dress of gold brocade, caught up
with large flowers of different colors, which must have tired her by its
weight. Hanging from her neck was a portrait of Napoleon surrounded by
sixteen magnificent solitaire diamonds, which together had cost five
hundred thousand francs."
Baron von Lohr, the Austrian master of ceremonies, having knocked at
the door of the next room, where were the Prince of Neufchâtel and the
Empress's French court, announced to the Count of Seyssel, the French
master of ceremonies, that the ceremony might begin; thereupon the
Prince of Neufchâtel entered the neutral room, followed by Count de
Laborde, his secretary for this occasion. After them entered the Duchess
of Montebello, the Count of Beauharnais, and the rest of the French
party, who stationed themselves at the end of the hall opposite the
Austrians. The two commissioners, the Prince of Neufchâtel and the
Prince of Trautmannsdorf, after an exchange of compliments, signed and
sealed the two documents, each retaining one of the copies. Then the
Prince of Trautmannsdorf approached the Empress, bowing, and asked
permission to kiss her hand in bidding her farewell. This permission
was readily granted to him, and to all the ladies and gentlemen who had
accompanied her from Vienna.
While the French and Austrian secretaries were counting the
dowry--five hundred thousand francs in new golden ducats--and verifying
the Empress's jewels and precious stones, the French commissioners
giving a receipt for the dowry and jewels as enumerated in an inventory
attached to the document, the Austrian party drew up before the throne
of Marie Louise, and each one, according to his or her rank, went up
and kissed her hand with deep emotion. Even the humblest servants were
admitted to present their respects and best wishes. "Her Majesty's eyes
were filled with tears," M. de Bausset tells us, "and this emotion
touched every heart."
When they had all regained their places, Prince Trautmannsdorf offered
his hand to the Empress, to help her down from the platform and to lead
her to the Prince of Neufchâtel, who took her by the hand and led her
towards the French courtiers. He named them all to the Empress; then the
door of the French room was opened, and the Queen of Naples, who had
been standing there during the whole ceremony, went up to her, and the
two sisters-in-law kissed each other and chatted for a few moments. Then
the Archduke Antoine was announced; he had been sent by the Emperor of
Austria to present his compliments to the Queen of Naples, and was to
return at once to Vienna to bring tidings of the Empress Marie Louise.
After the Queen had welcomed and thanked the Archduke, the two
sisters-in-law got into a carriage and drove to Braunau, followed by the
Prince of Neufchâtel and all the court. On both sides of the way troops
were drawn up in order of battle, and artillery salutes were fired.
The Prince of Neufchâtel, on the suggestion of the Emperor Napoleon,
invited the ladies and gentlemen of the Austrian party to spend the day
at Braunau, to take part in the rejoicings which were to be celebrated
there. Marie Louise also invited them in her own name. General de
Ségur, who was present, thus describes the mingling of the French and
Austrians: "The only thing that I remember is that the men moved about
together and exchanged words very politely; but I never saw a company of
women sitting more constrainedly, with less ease, than on this occasion,
when the Austrian ladies were haughtily cold and silent. These ladies,
who had been compelled to offer up the Princess as their part of the war
indemnity, seemed to take no part in the submission which the government
had forced upon them. They handed over to us the pledge of defeat with
a bad grace which their husbands, who were weary of war, did not show."
Generals Friant and Pajol gave a grand dinner to the Austrian officers
in the citadel of Braunau, and the courtesy of both sides was worthy of
note. Three toasts were drunk,--the first to the Emperor Napoleon, the
second to the Empress Marie Louise, the third to the Emperor of Austria.
There was a salute of thirty guns after each toast.
At Braunau the Empress occupied the house of a rich wine-merchant
opposite the town-hall. The house was decorated with flags, and before
it a triumphal arch was set up. Marie Louise rested there, and changed
everything she had on, according to the custom, which demands that a
foreign princess on entering her new country must leave behind her
everything that attaches her to the country, the people and the ways she
has left. The Parisian shopkeepers had made everything for her from
measures and models sent from Vienna. Napoleon had had these models
shown him, and taking one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, he
had sportively stroked his valet's cheek with it, and said, "See there,
Constant; here's a shoe that will bring good luck with it. Did you ever
see feet like those?"
After the Empress had received the authorities of Braunau and the
generals commanding the French troops, she sought retirement, and
wrote to her father this touching letter, of which M. von Helfert has
published the German text: this is the translation:--
"DEAR FATHER--Excuse me for not writing yesterday, as I should have
done. The journey, which was long and very fatiguing, prevented me.
It is with pleasure that I seize this occasion to give to Prince
Trautmannsdorf for you the assurance that my thoughts are always with
you. God has endowed me with strength to endure the cruel emotion which
this separation from all my family calls forth. In Him I confide. He
will sustain me and give me courage to fulfil my mission. My consolation
shall be the thought that the sacrifice is in your behalf. I reached
Ried very late, and I was much distressed by the thought that I was
departing from you perhaps forever. At two o'clock I arrived at the
French camp at Braunau. I stopped a few minutes in the Austrian
pavilion, and there I had to listen to the reading of the documents
about the limits of the neutral zone, in which a throne had been set.
All my people then came up to kiss my hand, and I could hardly control
myself. I shuddered, and I was so much moved that the Prince of
Neufchâtel had tears in his eyes. Prince Trautmannsdorf delivered me to
him, and my household was presented. Heavens, what a difference between
the French and the Austrian ladies!... The Queen of Naples came to greet
me, threw her arms about me, and was most kind; but yet I have not
perfect confidence in her: I can't think she took this long journey
merely to be of use to me. She came to Braunau with me, and then I
had to spend two hours in arraying myself. I assure you that now I am
already as much perfumed as the Frenchwomen. Napoleon sent me a superb
golden dress. He has not yet written. Now that I have had to leave you,
I had rather be with him than travel longer with these ladies. Heavens!
how I miss the happy moments I spent with you! Now, alone, I value
them at their true worth. I assure you, dear papa, that I am sad and
inconsolable. I hope you have got over your cold. Every day I pray
for you. Excuse my scrawl. I have so little time. I kiss your hands a
thousand times, and have the honor to be, dear papa, your obedient,
humble daughter,
"MARIE LOUISE.
"BRAUNAU, March 16, 1810."
That evening the Empress appeared again before the party that had
accompanied her from Vienna, to take a last farewell.
"Among them," we read in the Memoirs of Madame Durand, one of the suite
of the new Empress, "were many ladies who had known Marie Antoinette.
They all understood with what a heavy heart Marie Louise would come to
occupy a throne on which her great-aunt had suffered so sorely.... At
the moment when she was getting into the carriage that was to take her
to Munich, the grand master of the household, a man sixty-five years
old, who had accompanied her to this point, raised his joined hands
towards heaven, as if praying for a happy fate for his young mistress,
and blessing her as her own father might have done. His eyes indicated
a mind full of great thoughts and sad memories. His tears moistened the
eyes of all who witnessed this touching sight."
The Empress, with her French escort, started from Braunau for Munich
early March 17, in frightful weather; Only one of the Austrian suite
remained with her, the grand mistress, Countess Lazansky. She hoped that
this lady, whom she much loved, would remain another year with her. But
this hope was doomed to disappointment.
X.
THE JOURNEY.
In the course of the 17th the Empress reached Haag, where the Bavarian
Crown Prince received her, and at ten in the evening she was in Munich.
The next day, M. de Boyne, the French _chargé d'affaires_, wrote to the
Duke of Cadore: "Her Majesty the Empress has received all along her
route, and yesterday, on her arrival in Munich, countless expressions
of love and respect. This capital was illuminated with a taste and
magnificence that had never been seen here. The Crown Prince went as
far as Haag to pay his respects to her. The troops and the militia were
under arms, and the King and Queen, with the whole court, met her at the
foot of the staircase of honor." Marie Louise was not to leave Munich
till the 19th of March. On the 18th she received a letter from her
husband, brought by one of his equerries, the Baron of Saint Aignan.
That evening there was a state dinner at the palace, a levee, and a
theatrical representation. The next day, the 19th, the Empress was
destined to suffer a heavy blow. She had brought with her from Vienna to
Braunau, and from Braunau to Munich, her grand mistress, a confidential
friend, a woman who had had faithful charge of her infancy and
youth,--the Countess Lazansky. When she reached the Bavarian capital,
she was sure that this woman was not to leave her. Since the Countess
had not gone away at Braunau, she had every reason to suppose that she
would accompany her to Paris, and Marie Louise fully intended to keep
her with her at least a year. The Austrian court showed this belief, and
the French Ambassador had written March 6th to the Duke of Cadore: "I
shall not, even indirectly, oppose Madame Lazansky's going, since
His Majesty is willing to permit her accompanying the Empress. This
attention will be gratefully received." But that did not at all suit
Napoleon's sister, the Queen of Naples, who had not pleased the Austrian
lady, and who wished to control the new Empress without a rival.
The Queen of Naples was a very agreeable, very charming woman; but Count
Otto was mistaken when he wrote that the Austrian court was flattered
by hearing that Napoleon had chosen his sister Caroline to meet the new
Empress; the choice was not a happy one, and the Emperor would doubtless
have done better to send some other princess of his family. Could it be
forgotten that there was another woman, also a queen, and also bearing
the name of Caroline, Marie Louise's grandmother, whom Marie Louise
tenderly loved, and whose throne was occupied by Murat's wife? It should
have been remembered that in the eyes of the court of Vienna, the true,
the legitimate, queen of the Two Sicilies was not Caroline, Napoleon's
sister, but another Caroline, the daughter of the great Marie Thérèse,
the sister of Marie Antoinette.
This is what the widow of General Durand says on the subject, in her
interesting Memoirs: "Princess Caroline, Madame Murat, then Queen of
Naples, had gone to Braunau to meet her sister-in-law. The Duchess of
Montebello, a beautiful, sensible woman, the mother of five children,
who had lost her husband in the last war, had been appointed a
maid-of-honor,--a feeble compensation on the part of the Emperor for
her sad bereavement. The Countess of Luçay, a gentle, kindly woman,
thoroughly familiar with the customs of good society, was lady of the
bedchamber. I shall speak later of the other ladies of the suite, whose
functions, as established by etiquette, brought them very little into
personal relations with the Empress. Each one of them had pretensions to
which the presence of Madame Lazansky was an obstacle. They complained
to Queen Caroline, and she decided on an act of despotism which deeply
wounded her sister-in-law." This act was the dismissal of Madame
Lazansky. By this course the Queen of Naples expected to add to her
influence over the Empress; but, on the contrary, she only diminished it
appreciably.
"Madame Murat," continues Madame Durand, "was very anxious to acquire
great power over Marie Louise, and she might have been successful had
she taken, more precautions. Talleyrand said of her that she had the
head of a Cromwell on the body of a pretty woman. Endowed by nature with
a marked character, great intelligence, far-reaching ideas, a supple and
crafty mind, with a grace and amiability that made her very charming,
she lacked nothing but the power of hiding her love of rule; and when
she missed her aim, it was because she had been too eager. The moment
she saw the Austrian Princess, she imagined that she had read her
character; but she was utterly mistaken. She took her timidity for
weakness, her embarrassment for awkwardness; and, fancying that she
needed only to give her orders, she hardened against her for all time
the heart of the woman whom she expected to control."
Madame Durand thus describes the conspiracy which these women formed:
"The presence of the Countess Lazansky had excited the jealousy and the
fears of all the ladies of the household. They intrigued and caballed,
telling the Queen of Naples that she could never win her sister-in-law's
confidence or affection so long as she kept with her a person whose
influence rested on so many years of devotion and intimacy. Her
maid-of-honor lamented that her functions would amount to nothing, if
the Princess were to keep near her this foreigner who looked after
everything. Finally they persuaded the Queen to ask Marie Louise to send
back her grand mistress, although she had been promised that she could
keep her for a year."
The Empress might have resisted. They showed her no order from the
Emperor; they merely said that the presence of the Austrian lady with a
French sovereign was something anomalous,--an infringement of the laws
of etiquette,--and that the best way for the Empress to please the
Emperor was by this voluntary sacrifice. Marie Louise yielded for the
sake of peace, and gave up her friend, as later she was to give up her
husband, out of weakness. Her decision gave her great pain, and it was
not without a pang that she parted from the Countess Lazansky. "How
agonizing this separation is!" she wrote to her father. "I really could
not make a greater sacrifice for my husband, and still I do not think
that this sacrifice was intended by him."
Another thing that added to the grief of the new Empress was that she
was compelled to part with a pet dog which she was very fond of: the
Countess was to carry it back to Vienna. They told Marie Louise that
Napoleon disliked dogs, that he could not endure Josephine's, and that
they were perpetual subjects of discord. Besides, was it not her duty,
on entering France, to give up everything that came from her former
home? General de Ségur, who had been part of the Empress's escort since
leaving Braunau, makes no mention of the Countess Lazansky, but
he speaks of the dog: "The complete change of dress was simply an
entertainment: that of the escort had been anticipated; it was
necessary to endure it. This painful change would have taken place
without too much evidence of grief, if the superfluously jealous
interference of Napoleon's sister had not extended itself to a little
dog from Vienna, which, it was insisted, must be sent back, though this
cost Marie Louise many tears." The acquisition of a colossal empire did
not console the sovereign for the loss of a little dog.
March 19, in the morning, Marie Louise and Countess Lazansky parted.
"The worst thing in the conduct of the Queen of Naples," writes Madame
Durand, who did not like her, "was that after having demanded the
Empress's consent to Madame Lazansky's departure, she gave orders to the
ladies-in-waiting not to admit that lady to the Empress if she came to
say good by. This order was not obeyed; the two ladies admitted her by
a secret door; she spent two hours with the Empress, and the ladies who
admitted her never regretted what they had done, in spite of the many
reproaches of the Queen of Naples."
While the Empress, leaving Munich March 19, continued her journey to
France, her old friend was journeying back to Vienna, where she arrived
March 22. Her unexpected return made a most unfavorable impression on
all classes of society.