THE CALUMNY.
The union of Hortense with Bonaparte's brother had not been followed by
such good results for her as Josephine had anticipated. She had made a
most unfortunate selection, for Louis Bonaparte was, of all the first
consul's brothers, the one who concerned himself the least about
politics, and was the least likely to engage in any intrigue. Besides,
this alliance had materially diminished the affection which Louis had
always previously manifested for Josephine. He blamed her, in the depths
of his noble and upright heart, for having been so egotistic as to
sacrifice the happiness of her daughter to her own personal welfare; he
blamed her, too, for having forced him into a marriage which love had
not concluded, and, although he never sided with her enemies, Josephine
had, at least, lost a friend in him.
The wedded life of this young couple was something unusually strange.
They had openly confessed the repulsion they felt for each other, and
reciprocally made no secret of the fact that they had been driven into
this union against their own wishes. In this singular interchange of
confidence, they went so far as to commiserate each other, and to
condole with one another as friends, over the wretchedness they endured
in their married bondage.
They said frankly to each other that they could never love; that they
detested one another: but they so keenly felt a mutual compassion, that
out of that very compassion--that very hatred itself--love might
possibly spring into being.
Louis could already sit for hours together beside his wife, busied with
the effort to divert her with amusing remarks, and to drive away the
clouds that obscured her brow; already, too, Hortense had come to regard
it as her holiest and sweetest duty to endeavor to compensate her
husband, by her kindly deportment toward him, and the delicate and
attentive respect that distinguished her bearing, for the unhappiness he
felt beside her; already had both, in fine, begun to console each other
with the reflection that the child which Hortense now bore beneath her
heart would, one day, be to them a compensation for their ill-starred
marriage and their lost freedom.
"When I present you with a son," said Hortense, smiling, "and when he
calls you by the sweet name of 'father,' you will forgive me for being
his mother."
"And when you press that son to your heart--when you feel that you love
him with boundless affection," said Louis, "you will pardon me for being
your husband, and you will cease to hate me, at least, for I will be the
father of your darling child."
Had sufficient time been allotted to these young, pure, and innocent
hearts, to comprehend one another, they would have overcome their
unhappiness, and love would have sprung up at last from hatred. But the
world was pitiless to them; it had no compassion for their youth and
their sufferings; with cruel hands it dashed away this tender blossoming
of nascent affection, which was beginning to expand in their hearts.
Josephine had wedded Hortense to her brother-in-law in order to secure
in him an ally in the family, and to keep her daughter by her side; and
now that daughter was made the target of insidious attacks and malicious
calumnies--now another plan was adopted in order to remove Hortense from
the scene. The conspirators had not succeeded in their designs by means
of a matrimonial alliance, so they would now try the effect of calumny.
They went about whispering from ear to ear that Bonaparte had married
his step-daughter to his brother, simply because he was attached to her
himself, and had been jealous of Duroc.
These slanders were carried so far as to hint that the child whose birth
Hortense expected was more nearly related to Bonaparte than merely
through the fact that his step-daughter was his brother's wife.
This was an infernal but skilfully-planned calumny; for those who
devised it well knew how Bonaparte detested the merest suspicion of such
immorality, how strict he was in his own principles, and how repulsive
it therefore would be to him to find himself made the object of such
infamous slanders.
The conspirators calculated that, in order to terminate these evil
rumors, the first consul would send his brother and Hortense away to a
distance, and that the fated Josephine, being thus isolated, could also
be the more readily removed. Thus Bonaparte, being separated from his
guardian angel, would no longer hear her whispering:
"Bonaparte, do not ascend the throne! Be content with the glory of the
greatest of mankind! Place no diadem upon thy brows; do not make
thyself a king!"
In Paris, as I have said, these shameful calumnies were but very lightly
whispered, but abroad they were only the more loudly heard. Bonaparte's
enemies got hold of the scandalous story, and made a weapon of it with
which to assail him as a hero.
One morning Bonaparte was reading an English newspaper which had always
been hostile to him, and which, as he well knew, was the organ of Count
d'Artois, then residing at Hartwell. As he continued to read, a dark
shadow stole over his face, and he crumpled the paper in his clinched
fist with a sudden and vehement motion. Then as suddenly again his
countenance cleared, and a proud smile flitted across it. He had his
master of ceremonies summoned to his presence, and bade him issue the
necessary invitations for a court ball to be given, on the evening of
the next day, at St. Cloud. He then went to Josephine to inform her in
person of the projected _fête_, and to say that he wished her to tell
Hortense, who had been ailing for some time, that he particularly
desired her to be present.
Hortense had been too long accustomed to obey her step-father's
requests, to venture a refusal. She rose, therefore, from her couch on
which she had been in the habit, for weeks past, of reclining, busied
with her own dreams and musings, and bade her waiting women prepare her
attire for the ball. Still she felt unwell, and seriously burdened by
this festive attire, which harmonized so little with her feelings, and
was so far from becoming to her figure, for she was only a few weeks
from her confinement; but with her gentle and yielding disposition she
did not venture, even in thought, to murmur at the compulsion imposed
upon her by her step-father's command. She therefore repaired, at the
appointed hour, to the ball at St. Cloud. Bonaparte stepped forward to
meet her with a friendly smile, and, instead of thanking her for coming
at all, earnestly urged her to dance.
Hortense gazed at him with amazement. She knew that hitherto Bonaparte
had always sought to avoid the sight of a woman in her condition; he had
frequently said that he thought there was nothing more indecent than for
a female to join in the dance under such circumstances, and now it was
he who asked her to do that very thing.
For this reason Hortense hesitated at first to comply, but Bonaparte
grew only the more pressing and vehement in his request.
"You know how I like to see you dance, Hortense," he said, with his
irresistible smile; "so do this much for me, even if you take the floor
only once, and that for but a single _contredance_."
And Hortense, although most reluctant, although blushing with shame at
the idea of exposing herself in such unseemly shape to the gaze of all,
obeyed and joined the dances.
This took place in the evening--how greatly surprised, then, was
Hortense when next morning she found, in the paper that she usually
read, a poem, extolling her performance in words of ravishing flattery,
and referring to the fact that, notwithstanding her advanced state of
pregnancy, she had consented to tread a measure in the _contredance_, as
a peculiar trait of amiability!
Hortense, however, far from feeling flattered by this very emphatic
piece of verse, took it as an affront, and hastened at once to the
Tuileries, to complain to her mother, and to ask her how it was possible
that, so early as the very next morning, there could be verses published
in the newspapers concerning what had taken place at the ball on the
preceding evening.
Bonaparte, who happened to be with Josephine when Hortense came in, and
was the first to be questioned by her, gave her only an evasive and
jocose reply, and withdrew. Hortense then turned to her mother, who was
leaning over on the divan, her eyes reddened with weeping and her heart
oppressed with grief. To her, Bonaparte had given no evasive answer, but
had told the whole truth, and Josephine's heart was at that moment too
full of wretchedness, too overladen with this fresh and bitter trouble,
for her possibly to retain it within her own breast.
Hortense insisted upon an explanation, and her mother gave it. She told
her that Bonaparte had got the poet Esmenard to write the verses
beforehand, and that it was for this reason that he had urged her to
dance; that he had ordered the ball for no other purpose than to have
her dance, and have the poem that complimented her and referred to her
pregnancy published in the next day's paper.
Then, when Hortense, in terror, begged to be informed of the ground for
all these proceedings, Josephine had the cruel courage to tell her of
the slanders that had been circulated in reference to herself and
Bonaparte, and to say that he had arranged the poem, the ball, and her
participation in the dance, because, on the preceding day, he had read
in an English journal the calumnious statement that Madame Louis
Bonaparte had safely given birth to a vigorous and healthy child some
weeks previously, and he wished in this manner to refute the malicious
statement.
Hortense received this fresh wound with a cold smile of scorn. She had
not a word of anger or indignation for this unheard-of injury, this
shameless slander; she neither wept nor complained, but, as she rose to
take leave of her mother, she swooned away, and it required hours of
exertion to restore her to consciousness.
A few weeks later, Hortense was delivered of a dead male infant, and so
passed away her last dream of happiness; for thus was destroyed the hope
of a better understanding between her and her husband.
Hortense rose from her sick-bed with a firm, determined heart. In those
long, lonely days that she had passed during her confinement, she had
the time and opportunity to meditate on many things, and keenly to
estimate her whole present position and probable future. She had now
become a mother, without having a child; yet the resolute energy of a
mother remained to her. The youthful, gentle, dreamy, enthusiastic girl
had now become transformed into a determined, active, energetic woman,
that would no longer bow submissively to the blows of fortune, but would
meet them with an open and defiant brow. Since her fate could not be
changed, she accepted it, all the while resolved no longer to bend to
its yoke, but to subdue it, and try to be happy by force of resolution;
and, since a charming, peaceful, and harmonious fireside at home was
denied her, to at least make her house a pleasant gathering-point for
her friends--for men of scientific and artistic attainments, for poets
and singers, for painters and sculptors, and for men of learning. Ere
long, all Paris was talking about Madame Louis Bonaparte's
drawing-rooms, the agreeable and elegant entertainments that were given
there, and the concerts there arranged, in which the first singers of
the day executed pieces that Hortense had composed, and Talma recited,
with his wonderful, sonorous voice, the poems that she had written.
Every one was anxious for admission to these entertainments, in which
the participants not merely performed their parts, but greatly enjoyed
themselves as well; where the guests indulged in no backbiting or abuse,
but found more worthy and elevated subjects of conversation; where, in
fine, they could admire the works of poets and artists, and enjoy the
newly, awakened intellectual spirit of the age.
Hortense had firmly made up her mind that, since she had resigned
herself to accept the burden of existence, she would strive to render it
as agreeable as possible, and not to see any of its hateful and
repulsive features, but to turn away from them with a noble and
disdainful pride. She had never even referred to the frightful calumnies
which her mother had privately made known to her, nor had she deemed any
defence or proof of her innocence at all necessary. She felt that there
were certain accusations against which to even undertake defence is to
admit their possibility, and which, therefore, could only be combated by
silence. The slanders that had been flung at her lay in a plane so far
beneath her, that they could not rise high enough to reach her, but fell
powerless at her feet, whence she did not deem it even worth her while
to thrust them.
But Bonaparte continued to feel outraged and wounded by this vile story,
and it annoyed him deeply to learn that these rumors were still spread
abroad, and that his foes still bestirred themselves to keep him ever on
the alert, and, if possible, to dim the lustre of his gloriously-won
laurels by the shadow of an infamous crime.
"There are still rumors abroad of a _liaison_ between me and Hortense,"
said he one day to Bourrienne. "They have even invented the most
repulsive stories concerning her first infant. At the time, I thought
that these calumnies were circulated among the public because the
latter go earnestly desired that I might have a child to inherit my
name. But it is still spoken of, is it not?"
"Yes, general, it is still spoken of; and I confess that I did not
believe this calumny would be so long continued."
"This is really abominable!" exclaimed Bonaparte, his eyes flashing with
anger. "You, Bourrienne, you best know what truth there is in it. You
have heard and seen all; not the smallest circumstance could escape you.
You were her confidant in her love-affair with Duroc. I expect you to
clear me of this infamous reproach if you should some day write my
history. Posterity shall not associate my name with such infamy. I shall
depend on you, Bourrienne, and you will at least admit that you have
never believed in this abominable calumny?"
"No, never, general."
"I shall rely on you, Bourrienne, not only on my own account, but for
the sake of poor Hortense. She is, without this, unhappy enough, as is
my brother also. I am concerned about this, because I love them both,
and because this very circumstance gives color to the reports which idle
chatterboxes have circulated regarding my relations to her. Therefore,
bear this in mind when you write of me hereafter."
"I shall do so, general; I shall tell the truth, but, unfortunately, I
can not compel the world to believe the truth."
Bourrienne has, at all events, kept his word, and spoken the truth.
With deep indignation he spurns the calumny with which it has been
attempted to sully the memory of Bonaparte and Hortense, even down to
our time; and, in his anger, he even forgets the elegant and considerate
language of the courteous diplomat, which is elsewhere always
characteristic of his writings.
"He lies in his throat," says Bourrienne, "who asserts that Bonaparte
entertained other feelings for Hortense than those a step-father should
entertain for his step-daughter! Hortense entertained for the first
consul a feeling of reverential fear. She always spoke to him
tremblingly. She never ventured to approach him with a petition. She was
in the habit of coming to me, and I then submitted her wishes; and only
when Bonaparte received them unfavorably did I mention the name of the
petitioner. 'The silly thing!' said the first consul; 'why does she not
speak to me herself? Is she afraid of me?' Napoleon always entertained a
fatherly affection for her; since his marriage, he loved her as a father
would have loved his child. I, who for years was a witness of her
actions in the most private relations of life, I declare that I have
never seen or heard the slightest circumstance that would tend to
convict her of a criminal intimacy. One must consider this calumny as
belonging to the category of those which malice so willingly circulates
about those persons whose career has been brilliant, and which credulity
and envy so willingly believe. I declare candidly that, if I entertained
the slightest doubt with regard to this horrible calumny, I would say
so. But Bonaparte is no more! Impartial history must not and shall not
give countenance to this reproach; she should not make of a father and
friend a libertine! Malicious and hostile authors have asserted,
without, however, adducing any proof, that a criminal intimacy existed
between Bonaparte and Hortense. A falsehood, an unworthy falsehood! And
this report has been generally current, not only in France, but
throughout all Europe. Alas! can it, then, be true that calumny
exercises so mighty a charm that, when it has once taken possession of a
man, he can never be freed from it again?"