After his divorce from the Empress Josephine, the Emperor appeared much
preoccupied; and as it was known that he thought of marrying again, all
persons at the chateau and in his Majesty's service were greatly
concerned about this marriage, though all our conjectures concerning the
princess destined to share the Imperial crown proved to be wrong. Some
spoke of a Russian princess, while others said the Emperor would marry
none but a French woman; but no one thought of an Austrian archduchess.
When the marriage had been decided, nothing was spoken of at the court
but the youth, grace, and native goodness of the new Empress. The
Emperor was very gay, and paid more attention to his toilet, giving me
orders to renew his wardrobe, and to order better fitting coats, made in
a more modern style. The Emperor also sat for his portrait, which the
Prince de Neuchatel carried to Marie Louise; and the Emperor received at
the same time that of his young wife, with which he appeared delighted.
The Emperor, in order to win Marie Louise's affection, did more
undignified things than he had ever done for any woman. For instance,
one day when he was alone with Queen Hortense and the Princess Stephanie,
the latter mischievously asked him if he knew how to waltz; and his
Majesty replied that he had never been able to go beyond the first
lesson, because after two or three turns he became so dizzy that he was
compelled to stop. "When I was at l'ecole militaire," added the Emperor,
"I tried again and again to overcome dizziness which waltzing produced,
but I could not succeed. Our dancing-master having advised us, in
learning to waltz, to take a chair in our arms instead of a lady, I never
failed to fall with the chair, which I pressed so lovingly that it broke;
and thus the chairs in my room, and that of two or three of my
companions, were destroyed, one after the other." This tale told in the
most animated and amusing manner by his Majesty excited bursts of
laughter from the two princesses.
When this hilarity had somewhat subsided, Princess Stephanie returned to
the charge, saying, "It really is a pity that your Majesty does not know
how to waltz, for the Germans are wild over waltzing, and the Empress
will naturally share the taste of her compatriots; she can have no
partner but the Emperor, and thus she will be deprived of a great
pleasure through your Majesty's fault."--"You are right!" replied the
Emperor; "well, give me a lesson, and you will have a specimen of my
skill." Whereupon he rose, took a few turns with Princess Stephanie,
humming the air of the Queen of Prussia; but he could not take more than
two or three turns, and even this he did so awkwardly that it increased
the amusement of these ladies. Then the Princess of Baden stopped,
saying, "Sire, that is quite enough to convince me that you will never be
anything but a poor pupil. You were made to give lessons, not to take
them."
Early in March the Prince de Neuchatel set out for Vienna commissioned to
officially request the hand of the Empress in marriage. The Archduke
Charles, as proxy of the Emperor, married the Archduchess Marie Louise,
and she set out at once for France, the little town of Brannan, on the
frontier between Austria and Bavaria, having been designated as the place
at which her Majesty was to pass into the care of a French suite. The
road from Strasburg was soon filled with carriages conveying to Brannan.
the household of the new Empress. Most of these ladies had passed from
the household of the Empress Josephine into that of Marie Louise.
The Emperor wished to see for himself if the trousseau and wedding
presents intended for his new wife were worthy of him and of her,
consequently all the clothing and linen were brought to the Tuileries,
spread out before him, and packed under his own eyes. The good taste and
elegance of each article were equaled only by the richness of the
materials. The furnishers and modistes of Paris had worked according to
models sent from Vienna; and when these models were presented to the
Emperor he took one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, and with
it gave me a blow on the cheek in the form of a caress. "See, Constant,"
said his Majesty, "that is a shoe of good augury. Have you ever seen a
foot like that? This is made to be held in the hand."
Her Majesty the Queen of Naples had been sent to Brannan, by the Emperor
to receive the Empress. Queen Caroline, of whom the Emperor once said
that she was a man among her sisters, as Prince Joseph was a woman among
his brothers, mistook, it is said, the timidity of Marie Louise for
weakness, and thought that she would only have to speak and her young
sister-in-law would hasten to obey. On her arrival at Brannan the formal
transfer was solemnly made; and the Empress bade farewell to all her
Austrian household, retaining in her service only her first lady of
honor, Madame de Lajanski, who had reared her and never been absent from
her. Etiquette required that the household of the Empress should be
entirely French, and the orders of the Emperor were very precise in this
regard; but I do not know whether it is true, as has been stated, that
the Empress had demanded and obtained from the Emperor permission to
retain for a year this lady of honor. However that may be, the Queen of
Naples thought it to her interest to remove a person whose influence over
the mind of the Empress she so much feared; and as the ladies of the
household of her Imperial Majesty were themselves eager to be rid of the
rivalry of Madame de Lajanski, and endeavored to excite still more the
jealousy of her Imperial highness, a positive order was demanded from the
Emperor, and Madame de Lajanski was sent back from Munich to Vienna.
The Empress obeyed without complaint, but knowing who had instigated the
blow, cherished a profound resentment against her Majesty the Queen of
Naples. The Empress traveled only by short stages, and was welcomed by
fetes in each town through which she passed. Each day the Emperor sent
her a letter from his own hand, and she replied regularly. The first
letters of the Empress were very short, and probably cold, for the
Emperor said nothing about them; but afterwards they grew longer and
gradually more affectionate, and the Emperor read them in transports of
delight, awaiting the arrival of these letters with the impatience of a
lover twenty years of age, and always saying the couriers traveled
slowly, although they broke down their horses.
The Emperor returned from the chase one day holding in his hands two
pheasants which he had himself killed, and followed by footmen bearing in
their hands the rarest flowers from the conservatory of Saint-Cloud. He
wrote a note, and immediately said to his first page, "In ten minutes be
ready to enter your carriage. You will find there this package which you
will give with your own hand to her Majesty the Empress, with the
accompanying letter. Above all do not spare the horses; go as fast as
possible, and fear nothing. The Duke of Vicenza shall say nothing to
you." The young man asked nothing better than to obey his Majesty; and
strong in this authority, which gave him perfect liberty, he did not
grudge drink money to the postilions, and in twenty-four hours had
reached Strasburg and delivered his message.
I do not know whether he received a reprimand from the grand equerry on
his return; but if there was any cause for this, the latter would not
have failed to bestow it, in spite of the Emperor's assurance to the
first page. The Duke of Vicenza had organized and kept in admirable
order the service of the stables, where nothing was done except by his
will, which was most absolute; and it was only with the greatest
difficulty that the Emperor himself could change an order which the grand
equerry had given. For instance, his Majesty was one day en route to
Fontainebleau, and being very anxious to arrive quickly, gave orders to
the outrider who regulated the gait of the horses, to go faster. This
order he transmitted to the Duke of Vicenza whose carriage preceded that
of the Emperor; and finding that the grand equerry paid no attention to
this order, the Emperor began to swear, and cried to the outrider through
the door, "Let my carriage pass in front, since those in front will not
go on." The outriders and postilions were about to execute this maneuver
when the grand equerry also put his head out of the door and exclaimed,
"Keep to a trot, the first man who gallops I will dismiss on arriving."
It was well known that he would keep his word, so no one dared to pass,
and his carriage continued to regulate the pace of the others. On
reaching Fontainebleau the Emperor demanded of the Duke of Vicenza an
explanation of his conduct. "Sire," replied the duke to his Majesty,
"when you allow me a larger sum for the expenses of the stables, you can
kill your horses at your pleasure."
The Emperor cursed every moment the ceremonials and fetes which delayed
the arrival of his young wife. A camp had been formed near Soissons for
the reception of the Empress. The Emperor was now at Compiegne, where he
made a decree containing several clauses of benefits and indulgences on
the occasion of his marriage, setting at liberty many condemned, giving
Imperial marriage dowries to six thousand soldiers, amnesties,
promotions, etc. At length his Majesty learned that the Empress was not
more than ten leagues from Soissons, and no longer able to restrain his
impatience, called me with all his might, "Ohe ho, Constant! order a
carriage without livery, and come and dress me." The Emperor wished to
surprise the Empress, and present himself to her without being announced;
and laughed immoderately at the effect this would produce. He attended
to his toilet with even more exquisite care than usual, if that were
possible, and with the coquetry of glory dressed himself in the gray
redingote he had worn at Wagram; and thus arrayed, the Emperor entered a
carriage with the King of Naples. The circumstances of this first
meeting of their Imperial Majesties are well known.
In the little village of Courcelles, the Emperor met the last courier,
who preceded by only a few moments the carriages of the Empress; and as
it was raining in torrents, his Majesty took shelter on the porch of the
village church. As the carriage of the Empress was passing, the Emperor
made signs to the postilions to stop; and the equerry, who was at the
Empress's door, perceiving the Emperor, hastily lowered the step, and
announced his Majesty, who, somewhat vexed by this, exclaimed, "Could you
not see that I made signs to you to be silent?" This slight ill-humor,
however, passed away in an instant; and the Emperor threw himself on the
neck of Marie Louise, who, holding in her hand the picture of her
husband, and looking attentively first at it, then at him, remarked with
a charming smile, "It is not flattered." A magnificent supper had been
prepared at Soissons for the Empress and her cortege; but the Emperor
gave orders to pass on, and drove as far as Compiegne, without regard to
the appetites of the officers and ladies in the suite of the Empress.