ANOTHER WIFE
THUS at the beginning of 1810 Napoleon found himself once more
unmarried, and free to choose himself a new bride. There never was a
choice so fraught with possibilities of disaster. It was not so much a
matter of making the most advantageous selection, as of making the least
dangerous. If he married a woman of inferior rank, all Europe would
exultantly proclaim that it was because no royal family would admit him.
If he married a princess of one of his subject kingdoms, Bavaria,
Würtemberg or Saxony, the others would become instantly jealous. A
Bourbon bride was obviously out of the question, seeing that he was
keeping all three royal branches out of their patrimonies. Should he
choose a Hohenzollern, then the countries which held territories which
had once been Prussian would become justifiably uneasy. There only
remained the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs, and a marriage with either
would annoy the other. The best thing Napoleon could do was to ally
himself with the more powerful, which was undoubtedly the royal house of
Russia.
But here Napoleon met with an unexpected reverse. The Czar Alexander was
at once a realist and an idealist, and he could not decide anything
without months of cogitation. Moreover, the clever advisers round him
foresaw that Napoleon’s demands of their country must increase
unbearably, and they had no intention of tying their ruler’s hands in
this fashion. Torn between his ministers’ advice and the urging of his
old admiration for Napoleon, between his pride of race and his desire
for a powerful alliance, Alexander temporized and then temporized again.
He explained that all the Grand Duchesses were members of the Greek
Church, and he had qualms about the necessary change of religion. He
tried to show that they were all already affianced. He said, literally,
that his mother would not allow him to act.
In the end, Napoleon, fearing a rebuff, and conscious that delay would
weaken his position, abandoned the project and turned his attention to
Austria. Alexander was naturally annoyed. 1812 may be said to have begun
in 1810.
However, if a Grand Duchess were unavailable, an Archduchess would
certainly bring Napoleon compensations. The House of Hapsburg-Lorraine
was the most celebrated in Europe; it had supplied Holy Roman Emperors
since the thirteenth century. After Napoleon and Alexander, Francis was
easily the most powerful continental ruler, despite his recent defeats;
Aspern and Wagram had just shown how delicately the balance was poised.
But more than this; the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons had repeatedly
intermarried; if there were anything that would convince the doubters
that Napoleon was a real, permanent monarch, it would be his marriage
with the niece of Louis XVI, the daughter of His Imperial, Royal and
Apostolic Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, King of
Bohemia, Duke of Styria, of Carinthia and of Carniola, erstwhile Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire, and titular King of Jerusalem.
The achievement would be deficient in some respects. Tyrol and Dalmatia
no longer figured in the Emperor’s resounding list of titles—France
ruled one and Bavaria the other, and Austria might easily demand
restitution as the price of Marie Louise’s hand. The very name of the
new Empress would remind people of Marie Antoinette, her ill-fated aunt,
and a family alliance between Napoleon and the autocrat of autocrats
might well give the _coup de grâce_ to the moribund belief in Napoleon
as the Apostle of the Revolution.
Be that as it may, Napoleon had already gone too far to draw back, and
early in 1810 he prevailed on Francis I. to make a formal offer of his
daughter’s hand.
They were an oddly contrasting couple. He was forty, she was eighteen.
He was an Italian-Corsican-French hybrid of unknown ancestry, she was of
the bluest blood in Christendom. He was the victorious leader of the new
idea, she was the scion of a dying autocracy. Three times had Marie
Louise fled with her family from the wrath of the French; all her life
she had heard the man who was about to become her husband alluded to as
the embodiment of evil, as the Corsican Ogre, as the Beast of the
Apocalypse. They had never met, and she had certainly not the least idea
as to what kind of a man he was. All things considered, it was as well
that she had been trained all her life to accept her parents’ decision
on her marriage without demur.
Her training had been what might have been expected of the
etiquette-ridden, hidebound, conservative, dogmatic House of Hapsburg.
She was familiar with every language of Europe, because it could not be
foreseen whom she would eventually marry. Music, drawing, embroidery,
all those accomplishments which permitted of surveillance and which did
not encourage thought were hers. But she was proudest of the fact that
she could move her ears without moving her face.
Every possible precaution that she would retain her valuable innocence
had been taken. She had never been to a theatrical performance. She had
never been allowed to own a male animal of any species; her principal
pets were hen canaries. Her reading matter was closely scrutinized
beforehand, and every single word which might possibly hint at
difference of sex was cut out with scissors. It seems probable that she
had spoken to no man other than her father and her uncles. One can
hardly be surprised at reading that her mental power was small, after
being stunted in its growth in this fashion for eighteen years.
Napoleon sent as his proxy to Vienna Berthier, his trusted chief of
staff. One can find nowhere any statement that the Austrians were
pleased to see their princess standing side by side with a general whose
latest acquired title was Prince of Wagram.
Perhaps as a sop to the national pride of Austria, Napoleon sent the
bride he had not yet seen presents which have never been equalled in
cost or magnificence. The trousseau he sent cost a hundred thousand
francs; it included a hundred and fifty chemises each costing five
pounds sterling, and enormous quantities of all other necessary linen.
In addition he sent another hundred thousand francs’ worth of lace and
twelve dozen pairs of stockings at from one to three pounds sterling a
pair. Dressing-table fittings and similar trifles cost nearly twenty
thousand pounds, but all this expenditure was a mere trifle compared to
the cost of the jewellery which Marie Louise received. The lowest
estimate of this is placed at ten million francs—four hundred thousand
pounds. Her dress allowance was to be over a thousand pounds a month.
Poor stupid Marie Louise might well fancy she was in Heaven. The
daughter of an impoverished emperor, she had never possessed any
jewellery other than a few corals and seed-pearls, and her wardrobe had
been limited both by her niggardly stepmother and by circumstances.
All her life she had been treated as a person of minor importance, but
suddenly she found even her pride-ridden father regarding her with
deference. Metternich and Schwartzenberg sought her favour. Her aunts
and cousins clustered eagerly round her, anxious to share in the spoils.
It certainly was a silver lining to the cloud of matrimony with an
unknown.
Napoleon on his side was enraptured with the prospect. His meanness of
soul is well displayed by his snobbish delight. He went to inordinate
lengths in order to secure the approval of the great lady who had
condescended to share his throne. He swept his palaces clear of anything
which might remind his wife of her predecessor, and refurnished them
with meticulous care. The fittings were standardized as far as possible,
so that she might feel at once at home wherever she might choose to
live; he even arranged a suite of rooms for her exactly like those she
had lived in at Schönbrunn. Napoleon gave his passion for organization
full rein in matters of this kind, and without doubt he achieved a
splendid success. “He was a good tenant, this Napoleon,” said Louis
XVIII., inspecting the Tuileries after the Restoration.
It was not merely her home that Napoleon adorned for Marie Louise, but
even himself. For a space the green coat was laid aside, and he arrayed
himself in a tunic stiff with embroidery. He tried to learn to waltz,
and failed miserably. In everything he acted in a manner which amazed
even those who had lived with him for years. No woman was half so
excited over her first ball as was Napoleon over the prospect of
marrying a Hapsburg.
He grew more and more excited as Marie Louise and her train journeyed
across Germany and drew nearer and nearer. From every halting place
despatches reached him in dozens. Marie Louise wrote to him, Caroline
Murat (whom he had sent to welcome her) wrote to him, Berthier wrote to
him, the ladies-in-waiting wrote to him, even the mayors of the towns
passed through wrote to him. The officers who brought the letters were
eagerly cross-questioned. The Emperor who, when on the brink of grand
military events, would tell his attendants only to awaken him for bad
news, passed his days waiting for his unknown bride in a fever of
impatience.
At last he could bear it no longer. Napoleon was at Soissons, where the
meeting had been arranged to take place, but, unable to wait, he rode
forward post haste through pelting rain, with only Murat at his side. At
Courcelles they met the Empress. At first the coachman was minded to
drive past the two muddy figures who hailed him, but Napoleon made
himself known, and clambered into the Imperial berline. He would brook
not another moment’s delay. The carriage pelted forward through all the
towns where addresses of welcome were ready, where droves of damsels all
in white were preparing to greet them, where banquets and fêtes were
ready. They drove past Soissons, where a wonderful pavilion had been
erected, in which the Imperial pair had expected to meet for the first
time during a ceremony more pompous even than epoch-making Tilsit; they
only stopped when they reached the palace of Compiegne, where, at nine
o’clock at night, a hurried dinner was prepared by the astonished
servants.
Even the dinner was cut short. Half-way through Napoleon asked Marie
Louise a question; she blushed, and was unable to answer. It is to be
doubted if she even knew what he was talking about. Napoleon turned to
the Austrian envoy. “Her Majesty is doubtful,” he said. “Is it not true
that we are properly married?” The envoy hesitated. No one had expected
that Napoleon would take the ceremony by proxy seriously; elaborate
arrangements had been made for a further ceremony in Paris. But it was
useless for the envoy to demur; Napoleon carried off Marie Louise to his
own apartments, and breakfasted at her bedside next morning. Later his
meanness of soul once more obtruded itself, when he hinted at his
experiences to one of his friends.
If Napoleon was a parvenu among monarchs, he was at least able to show
scoffers that his own royal ceremonies could put in the shade any
similar display by thousand-year-old dynasties. At Marie Louise’s
coronation four queens bore her train.
Characteristically they tried to trip her up with it. Never before had
the world beheld four queens bearing another woman’s robes, and
certainly never before had it seen anything parallel to the other
exhibition.
When we come to see who these queens were, we shall appreciate the
peculiar irony of the situation. First, there was the Queen of Spain,
Joseph’s wife, who was still angry about Napoleon’s jilting of her
sister Désirée, and who furthermore saw as a consequence of this
marriage the probability of the arrival of a direct heir and the
extinction of her husband’s chances of the succession. Secondly came
Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, Napoleon’s sister, violently jealous of
Napoleon, of Marie Louise, and of everyone else. Third came the wife of
Jerome Bonaparte, Catherine, Queen of Westphalia, whom Napoleon had torn
from the arms of her betrothed to give to his loose-living young
brother. The fourth was Hortense, Queen of Holland, whose mother
Napoleon had just divorced in order to marry the woman whose train
Hortense was carrying. Had Marie Louise been capable of any unusual
thought whatever, she must have felt that she would be safer entering a
powder magazine than going up the aisle of Nôtre Dame with those four
viragoes at her heels.
[Illustration: MARIE LOUISE
EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH]