SISTERS
IF Napoleon’s brothers were all a generally hopeless lot, the same can
by no means be said of his sisters. These stood out head and shoulders
above the other women of the time; they were all distinguished by their
force of character; whether they were married to nonentities or
personalities they all did their best to wear the breeches—but they did
not flinch from wearing nothing at all if the whim took them. They were
all handsome women, and one of them, Pauline, was generally considered
to be the most beautiful woman of the time.
Napoleon’s sisters resembled him much more closely than did his
brothers. Xerxes, watching Artemisia fighting desperately at Salamis,
exclaimed, “This woman plays the man while my men play the woman,” and a
dispassionate observer of the conduct of the rulers of the countries of
Europe in the Napoleonic era might well say the same. One has only to
compare Joseph Bonaparte flying from Vittoria, or Murat flying from
Tolentino, with Caroline rallying the Neapolitans, Louise of Prussia
fighting desperately hard against fate at Tilsit, and Marie Caroline of
Bourbon directing Sicily’s struggle with the great conqueror.
There are obvious differences, too, between Napoleon’s treatment of his
brothers and his treatment of his sisters. Joseph and Jerome and Louis
he bullied unmercifully, but it was far otherwise with Pauline, Caroline
and Elise. He himself admitted that he always “formed into line of
battle” in preparation for an interview with Caroline, and although
authorities are at variance as to when he actually said to his family
that anyone would think he was trying to rob them of the inheritance of
the late King, their father, it is certain that the remark was addressed
to his sisters and mother. They were all of them women with a very keen
sense of what they wanted, and they fought like tiger-cats to obtain it.
The three girls all married before or during the Consulate, when
Napoleon had not yet attained the heights he reached later, so that the
marriages they made were by no means as brilliant as they might have
been, and fell far short of the marriages which Napoleon arranged for
much more distant relatives who became marriageable at a later period.
Elise was old enough to experience acutely the trials of poverty which
overtook the family before Napoleon was promoted to important commands.
She was sent as a child to school at St. Cyr, a state-supported
institution under the patronage of the Bourbons, and had to leave there
at the same time as the Bonaparte family had to fly from Corsica to
Marseilles. During the next few years she was rather a trial to her
family, for she flirted with every man she met, eligible and ineligible.
One of her admirers was Admiral Truguet, who was a thoroughly good
sailor and quite a good match at that time, but Madame Bonaparte
declined to allow the affair to develop. In the end it was a fellow
Corsican, Félix Baciocchi, who gained her hand. Baciocchi was a distant
connection of the Bonaparte family, and also, by a curious coincidence,
he was a relation of Charles Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, another Corsican,
who is believed to have been at feud with the Bonapartes, and who
certainly distinguished himself, while in the service of various
European monarchs, by his virulent hatred of Napoleon.
But Baciocchi did not distinguish himself at all. He was a complete
nonentity, with neither the desire nor the capacity to achieve power. At
the marriage Elise only brought him thirty thousand francs as dowry (her
share of the Bonaparte property, now recovered from the Paolists), but
after 1797 Napoleon was able to make Elise presents of considerably
greater value. Baciocchi was then a major of infantry; but during the
Consulate his wife endeavoured to obtain higher military command for
him. So persistently did she scheme to this end that at last in
self-defence Napoleon made him a senator in order to cut short his
military career.
Pauline, the next sister, married Leclerc, a capable soldier, who
rendered Napoleon valuable service during the _coup d’état_ of Brumaire.
He, at least, was worthy of promotion, and Bonaparte gave it to him
lavishly. But it was Caroline, the youngest, who looked after herself
best. Most of the generals of the Consulate sought her hand, including
Lannes, but both Napoleon and Caroline desired alliance with the
greatest of them all, Moreau. However, Moreau declined the honour
(thereby directly bringing about his own exile soon after), and Caroline
chose for herself a husband of whose military talents she was
sufficiently sure to be certain that high command would be given him,
but who also was sufficiently weak-willed to be well under her thumb.
Lannes was of too lofty a type to please her in this respect, and his
personal devotion to Napoleon was undoubted; Caroline therefore selected
a young cavalry officer, Murat.
Pauline experienced an unfortunate beginning to the career she had
planned for herself and her husband. Leclerc was appointed to the
command of the expeditionary force which was sent to subdue Hayti, and
Pauline was ordered to accompany him. In vain she pleaded ill-health; in
vain she said that her complexion would be ruined by the West Indian
sun; Napoleon was adamant. Pauline kept up the plea of ill-health
sufficiently well to be carried on board ship at Brest in a litter, but
the expedition started. As was only to be expected, it ended in
disastrous failure. Toussaint l’Ouverture, the leader of the rebellion,
was indeed captured and sent to France to perish in a freezing mountain
prison, but yellow fever attacked the French troops, and they died in
thousands. Leclerc was one of those who perished.
Napoleon himself was able to gain some satisfaction even from the
failure, because the men he had sent had all been drawn from the Army of
the Rhine, and they were all guilty of the crime of believing that
Moreau was a great man, and that Hohenlinden was a greater victory than
Marengo. But, as has been said, the French died in thousands; the
negroes fought stoutly, and at last after fifteen thousand Frenchmen had
perished only a miserable fragment of the expeditionary force survived
to be withdrawn under Rochambeau. Pauline returned to France to deplore
her ruined complexion.
However, with the establishment of the Empire the sisters found plenty
to occupy their minds in acquiring as much spoil as possible. Money they
sought greedily, and Napoleon gave them millions of francs. They shed
tears of rage when they found that the Emperor expected them to remain
content with being plain Mesdames Murat, Leclerc and Baciocchi, while
the hated Josephine was Sa Majesté Impériale et Royale l’Impératrice et
Reine, and while plain Julie Clary and Hortense Beauharnais (Joseph’s
and Louis’s wives) were Imperial and Royal Highnesses. Napoleon gave way
to their bitter pleadings and at one stroke created them Princesses of
the Empire, making their husbands Princes at the same time.
These names, Elise, Pauline and Caroline, were not the baptismal names
of the ladies concerned. At baptism they had been given Italian names,
each of them attached to the ever popular name of Maria. Their mother
was Maria Letizia; while Elise was really Maria Anna, Pauline, Maria
Paoletta and Caroline, Maria Annunziata. It is by these names that they
are described on their marriage certificates, but they dropped them soon
afterwards to assume names which appealed to them more. Changing their
names did not change their natures; they intrigued and schemed and
plotted; they flirted; they sought favours; they quarrelled with their
husbands, with their sisters-in-law, and with each other; in fact they
exhibited all the fierce self-seeking which characterized the ladies of
the old monarchy. There was this difference, however. Fifty years before
the Court ladies had intrigued for places, and for thousands of francs.
Now they intrigued for kingdoms and millions.
Caroline early took first place in the race for power. Her husband,
Murat, distinguished himself in the Austerlitz campaign by capturing the
great bridge over the Danube by a trick which savoured rather of
treachery, and by bold heading of cavalry charges at Austerlitz itself.
He was already a Prince and second senior Marshal of the Empire; the
only possible promotion left for him was a sovereignty. Napoleon,
carving out his Confederation of the Rhine, found him one. A tiny area
on the Rhine was obtained by exchange from Prussia and Bavaria, and
Murat and Caroline became Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Berg and
Cleves. Caroline was in no way satisfied. She egged her husband on to
demand increases of territory, privileges of toll on the Rhine, and so
on, until the little state had set both France and Prussia in a ferment.
The tension hardly relaxed until, a month or two later, war broke out
between the two countries. Murat went away with the Grand Army to Jena,
Eylau and Friedland; Caroline stayed behind in Paris to guard their
interests. She did it well. She indulged in an outrageous flirtation
with Junot, Governor of Paris, and hints have not been wanting that her
purpose was to arrange a revolution rather on the same lines as Mallet
tried to follow in 1812. At her palace of the Elysée (now the official
residence of the President of the Third Republic) she gave the most
brilliant fêtes imaginable. She worked like a slave to gain popularity,
so that she could gain the throne in the event of her brother’s death.
Then Tilsit followed Friedland, and the Emperor returned. The campaign
had brought more glory to Murat than he had as yet gained. He had headed
the marvellous pursuit after Jena, when he had captured fortresses with
a few regiments of Hussars, and it was largely through him that
practically the whole Prussian army had fallen into the hands of the
French. At Eylau, when Augereau’s corps had come reeling back through
the blizzard, shattered and almost annihilated, when it seemed as though
the Grand Army was at last going to taste defeat, Napoleon had called on
Murat to save the day. Murat replied by charging at the head of eighteen
thousand cavalry. He broke up the first Russian line, captured thousands
of prisoners, and beat back the Russians until Davout and Ney were in
position.
Naturally, he reaped vast rewards. His Grand Duchy was doubled in size;
millions of francs were bestowed upon him and upon Caroline; but they
were hugely dissatisfied. Murat had hoped for the crown of Poland, or,
failing that, for a whole kingdom in Germany. But Poland was given to
the King of Saxony, and the creation of Jerome Bonaparte’s kingdom of
Westphalia shut out all hopes of the further expansion of Berg. Caroline
and Murat were furious. Murat showed his rage by hinting at rebellion;
Caroline used her native Corsican guile and became as friendly to
Napoleon as possible, helping him in his affairs with women, recounting
to him the tittle-tattle of the drawing-rooms of Paris, and even at
times giving him the shelter of her roof to conceal from Josephine some
of his more flagrant unfaithfulnesses.
However, Murat was soon in employment again. He was appointed to the
command in Spain, where Napoleon’s tortuous intrigues to dispossess the
unspeakable Bourbons were beginning to take effect. Murat certainly
achieved fair success. He gained possession of the Spanish fortresses,
stamped out the little spurts of rebellion which occasionally flamed
out, and by the time the outrageous treaty of Bayonne had been signed he
was in a position to hand over to Napoleon the greater part of the
country. Another disappointment awaited him. He had hoped that all this
mysterious business would result in his being given the crown of
Spain—but Joseph Bonaparte received it instead, and Murat and Caroline
were forced to be content with Joseph’s former kingdom of Naples.
Caroline was at last a Queen.
The royal pair began at once to treat their new kingdom much as Sancho
Panza had determined to treat his island. Taxes were increased, the army
was reorganized, and preparations were set on foot for the conquest of
Sicily. To gain popularity with the Neapolitans they abrogated some of
the more obnoxious decrees of Murat’s predecessor, and they further
employed all their arts to blacken his memory, so that they would by
contrast appear the better rulers.
But Napoleon nipped this scheme in the bud at once. Every day brought
fresh thunders from Paris. The Emperor sent furious orders forbidding
certain measures, enjoining others, until it became very evident that he
was determined to rule Naples himself, although he was content to allow
Murat to bear the title and honours of King. Poor Murat could do nothing
right. Any well-advised action on his part was looked upon as potential
treason, while any failure called forth tornadoes of wrath from Paris.
When, by a well-planned raid, he captured Capri from Sir Hudson Lowe, he
was actually censured for informing the Emperor through the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs instead of through the Ministry for War! Murat and
Caroline chafed against their bonds, but while the Empire stood firm
they were powerless.
Meanwhile, Pauline and Elise, although not as successful as Caroline,
had nevertheless attained to some measure of sovereignty. Elise
contrived for the greater part of the time to have her dullard husband
sent away on various duties, while she herself flirted gaily with every
man she could. As a matter of fact, her flirting was never so serious as
was her sisters’; she had another outlet for her ingenuity in that she
was passionately devoted to the stage and to all connected with it. She
visited the theatre as often as she could; she read plays in hundreds,
and she indulged in amateur theatricals whenever possible. When Italy
was being parcelled out into fiefs by Napoleon, she prevailed on her
brother to allot to her the principality of Piombino in full
sovereignty, and later she contrived to have Lucca added to her little
state. Here she settled down for a time, with all the paraphernalia of
sovereignty, equerries, chamberlains, ladies-in-waiting, and especially
a Court troupe of actors. Baciocchi, her husband, had indeed been given
the title of Prince of Piombino, but Elise alone had been given the
principality. Baciocchi was merely his wife’s subject, and Elise made
the most of it. He could never worry her again, for Elise allotted him
apartments far distant from her own, and never saw him without a third
person being present. Scandal said that other men were allowed greater
privileges, but there is nothing very definite from which one may draw
reliable conclusions.
Soon Elise received further promotion. Napoleon cast a covetous eye upon
the kingdom of Etruria which had set up in 1802, and by treaty with
Spain he arranged to give the widowed Queen of Etruria (a Spanish
princess) a new kingdom of Northern Lusitania in exchange. That this new
kingdom was to be carved out of Portugal troubled him not at all; he
even promised to make Godoy (First Minister of Spain) Prince of the
Algarve, another Portuguese district. He had very little intention of
fulfilling either promise, but they enabled him to send Junot marching
hotfoot on Lisbon, and to annex Tuscany to the Empire. Elise seized her
opportunity. By cajolery and blandishment she persuaded Napoleon to
erect Tuscany into a government-general, and to confer upon her the
ruling power with the title of Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Poor Baciocchi
was appointed general of division in command of the French garrison.
Elise settled down in the Pitti palace at Florence, and proceeded to
rule the cradle of the Renaissance, the erstwhile domain of the Medicis,
as thoroughly as her brother would allow her.
Pauline’s widowhood ended in a much more splendid match than was made by
any of the other Bonapartes. She took as her second husband Prince
Camillo Borghese, the head of one of the most renowned houses of Italy.
The marriage was not a success (no Bonaparte marriage was, at that
time), but Borghese’s wealth and the presents Napoleon heaped upon her
enabled Pauline to indulge every whim of which she was capable. Proud of
her reputation as the most beautiful woman of the time, she did all she
could to enhance and set off her beauty. Like Poppæa, she bathed every
day in milk—a hot milk bath followed by a cold milk shower. She
surrounded herself with negro servants and dwarfs, by way of contrast,
and her extravagances and wanton waste of money were the talk of the
whole Empire. Canova carved her statue, and despite his cold classicism
we can still perceive in that recumbent, self-satisfied figure the
fiery, tempestuous woman who was once Pauline. Her posing semi-nude,
even to such a sculptor as Canova, called forth a storm of comment from
a gossip-loving Empire. The tale was told that when Pauline was asked if
she did not feel uncomfortable, posing half-dressed, she replied, “Oh
no, there was a fire in the room.”
When Elise received Piombino, Pauline begged Guastalla from Napoleon,
and as Duchess she, too, held sovereignty. Borghese was made
Governor-General of the Piedmontese departments, and was sent to Turin
with an enormous Civil List to play the part of a semi-royalty, and to
reconcile the Piedmontese to the loss of their Sardinian king. Such a
task was naturally agreeable to Pauline, and in Turin she and Borghese
did their best to astonish the provincials with a series of fêtes of
unheard-of opulence. Pauline was the most talked about of all
Bonaparte’s sisters; the voice of adulation praised her beauty; the
voice of vituperation hinted frightful things about her morals. She was
accused of hideous vices, of too great an affection for her brothers, of
a lunatic passion for various men. Pauline apparently did not mind. She
went gaily on through life, quarrelling with Borghese, spending money
like water, indulging in hectic episodes with artists and soldiers, and
generally recalling to mind the old days of the Borgias and the
Viscontis.
With the publication of the fate of Napoleon’s Russian expedition a
shudder ran through the Empire. Murat, whom Napoleon had left in command
of the wreck of the Grand Army, deserted his charge and rushed home so
as to be at hand to preserve his own kingdom should the Empire fall.
Prussia became Russia’s ally. Sweden, under Bernadotte, had already done
the same. Napoleon made a gigantic effort; in three months he raised and
equipped an army of three hundred thousand men; he beat back the Allies,
winning victories at Lützen and Bautzen; for a space it seemed as if he
would regain his old European domination. Consequently the pendulum of
his allies’ attitude swung back once more towards faithfulness, and
Murat left Naples once more to command the cavalry of the Grand Army.
But already Caroline and he had negotiated a secret convention with
Austria by which he would declare war on France if called upon to do so.
Elise in Tuscany had decided to join him, although, unfortunately for
her, she extracted no definite promise from Austria that she would
retain her throne.
Thus, while Murat was fighting for the Grand Army, leading charges made
by fifty and seventy squadrons at a time, and capturing twelve thousand
Austrian prisoners in a single battle, his wife in Naples was assuring
Austria of his devotion to Austria; she was recruiting the Neapolitan
army to the utmost, and, while not actually moving against France, she
was refusing to allow a single Neapolitan battalion to go to Napoleon’s
help. Then came the French defeats of 1813, culminating in the disaster
of Leipzig. It was obvious that the Empire could not endure much longer.
Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, all turned against Napoleon, and Murat
realized that if he delayed further the Allies would not have so
pressing a need for his aid, and he would be unable to secure his throne
by his treachery. Without further hesitation he left the beaten Emperor,
hurried across Europe through the first snows of autumn, and reached
Naples early in November. The Neapolitan army was at last going to
advance.
The advance was a very slow and cautious one. Eugène de Beauharnais,
Viceroy of Italy, was fighting fiercely in Venetia against the
Austrians. Tempting offers were made to him by the Allies, but he
refused them; his dignified replies are worthy of Bayard or Francis I.
But Murat and his Neapolitans were moving steadily northward; even now
he had made no public declaration as to which side he was on, and in
private he and Caroline were assuring Eugène, Napoleon and the Austrians
at one and the same time of their unfailing support. Nor was this all.
They were further intriguing with the infant United Italy party in an
endeavour to increase their dominion in that way; while in addition they
had made some sort of agreement with Elise Bonaparte in Tuscany. It
would be hard to discover anywhere in history an equally loathsome
example of double-dealing.
Murat occupied the Papal States, Tuscany, and portions of the Kingdom of
Italy, but he still refrained from making any open attack on either
French or Austrians. Not until March 6th, 1814, when he received from
Caroline definite news of the certainty of the fall of the Empire, did
he attack Eugène’s forces. He achieved little, and after two fierce
little skirmishes he subsided once more into inaction. At last official
intimation of Napoleon’s fall came to hand, and, abandoning Elise to her
fate, Murat returned to Naples. Further diplomacy confirmed him in his
possession of Naples; the only person concerned who kept to his pledged
word in all the intricacies of the negotiations was Francis of Austria.
Thus 1815 found Napoleon’s three sisters in very different situations.
Caroline was still a Queen; Elise, turned out of Tuscany by the
Austrians, was a pensioner on her bounty; while Pauline, who alone had
remained faithful to her brother, was living with Napoleon at Elba.
Suddenly there came another dramatic change, for Napoleon escaped from
Elba, and within a few days was once more Emperor of the French. Italy
was again plunged into a ferment. Murat and Caroline were naturally
anxious, for they could not expect that Napoleon would forgive their
black treachery of the year before, while it was only too obvious that
not a single country in Europe retained any interest in their possession
of the throne of Naples. In these circumstances Murat took the first
heroic decision of his life, and decided to cut the Gordian knot by
force of arms. He declared war against Austria, proclaimed a United
Italy, and with fifty thousand men he marched northward to establish
himself as King of Italy. It was a vain effort. The Neapolitan army was
a wretched force, and Murat himself was worse than useless in
independent command. The Austrian army hurriedly concentrated, defeated
Murat in one or two minor actions, and finally utterly routed him at
Tolentino. The Neapolitans deserted in thousands, and Murat re-entered
his dominions with only five thousand men left. The Austrians followed
him up remorselessly; the Sicilians were preparing an expedition against
him; and all that was left for Murat to do was to abdicate and fly for
his life.
Caroline was successful in obtaining the protection of Francis of
Austria, and she soon went off to settle down in Austria with a pension
and a residence. Murat had reached France, and for some weeks he was in
hiding in Marseilles. After Waterloo he left by sea to join his wife,
but on his way he changed his mind and took his second heroic decision.
Napoleon had regained France simply by appearing in person before his
army; why should not Murat regain Naples in the same way? Murat landed
with a score of companions at Pizzo in Calabria, and marched into the
market place with his escort shouting “Long live King Joachim!” For a
moment there was an astonished silence, and then the townspeople fell on
the little party. Not for nothing had Murat decorated every mile of
every road in Calabria with a gallows from which hung captured bandits;
every soul in Pizzo must have had a blood feud with their late King.
Battered with sticks and stones, Murat was seized and flung into prison,
and five days later he was tried and shot.
Murat’s attempt was the last spurt of the Napoleonic feeling for a long
period. Not until, with the passage of years, the Legend had been built
up, do we hear of any surprising action or heroic deed. Europe sank into
a slough of inaction, crushed down by the weight of the Holy Alliance
and the burden of accumulated debts. The most typical action of a dull
generation was the establishment on the throne of France of fat,
pathetic, bourgeois Louis Philippe as King of the French. It was a safe
thing to do, and Louis Philippe and his Amelia did their best to make it
remain safe. No risks were taken until the movement of 1848. Happiness
has no history, and there is precious little history about the period
1815-48. Had the Holy Alliance had its way, there would be even less.
Somehow one cannot help feeling that the dullness of the period is the
dullness of unhappiness. It was the time when “order reigned in Warsaw,”
when little children died in droves in English factories, when in Naples
the negation of God was erected into a system of government. Historians
may sneer at the ineffectiveness of the Napoleonides; they may point to
a pillaged, blood-drenched Europe writhing under the heel of a Corsican
Emperor; they can draw horrible pictures of the sacks of Lübeck or
Badajoz, but they are unconvincing when they attempt to prove that there
was more unhappiness under the Empire than under the Holy Alliance.
Peace has its defeats as well as war.
This digression may be unpardonable, but it was nevertheless inevitable.
Let us minimize our error, even if we cannot repair it, by turning back
to the consideration of three fair and frail women whom we left thrust
back unwillingly into a private station of life. One of them did not
long survive the calamities of 1814. This was Elise. The Allies refused
her request to join Napoleon at St. Helena, and she lived quietly in
Italy until her death in 1820. She was only forty-two when she died.
Pauline had the advantage over her sisters of having a husband whose
position was independent of the Empire. Prince Borghese was a very
considerable person in Rome, and Pauline for some time was a leading
figure in Italian society. It did not last long, however. She quarrelled
with her husband; her beauty left her; Austrian, French and Papal
surveillance worried her, and she died in 1825.
Caroline, the most capable and cold-hearted of all the Bonapartes, after
Napoleon, bore her troubles with more dignity and for a much longer
time. As the Countess of Lipona (an anagram of Napoli) she lived for
some time in Austria; she travelled restlessly about; she seemed in fact
to have completely recovered from the shock of the loss of her husband
and her throne, when at last a whole series of deaths broke down her
reserve and shortened her life. Pauline and Elise, as has been said,
were already dead; in 1832 the Prince Imperial (Napoleon II.) died at
Vienna; Prince Borghese died in the same year. Another brother-in-law,
Baciocchi, died in 1834; Catherine of Westphalia, her best beloved
sister-in-law, died in 1835, and then in 1836 Madame Mère, her stern but
adored mother, also died. Caroline endured her loneliness for a little
while longer, but she died in 1839. Even she, almost the last of her
generation, was only fifty-six at her death.
None of the Bonaparte family was as long-lived as Napoleon’s mother.
Maria Letizia Ramolino was certainly one of the greatest women of the
period. Elise Bonaparte might be called the Semiramis of Italy; Caroline
might intrigue for Empires; Pauline might be the most beautiful woman of
France; but their mother combined all their good qualities with very few
of their bad ones. To bring up a family of eight children thoroughly
well on an income of less than one hundred pounds a year in a
revolution-torn country like Corsica is in itself a remarkable feat,
though hardly likely in unfavourable circumstances to gain mention in
history, but to do it when handicapped by a husband like Carlo Bonaparte
is more remarkable still. The strain of those dreadful years in Ajaccio
would have broken down anyone of stuff less stern than Maria Letizia’s;
pitched battles were fought in the streets outside the Bonapartes’
house; three-quarters of Corsica were at feud with the Bonapartes and
the party they represented; death threatened them all at different
times, while all the time a most bitter, grinding poverty harried them
unmercifully.
Maria Letizia came through the ordeal unbroken in body or spirit. Even
Napoleon’s fierce pride humbled itself before her, and her other
children were her slaves. But she had a woman’s weaknesses as well as a
man’s strength. She was bitterly jealous of her daughter-in-law
Josephine; she was bigoted in church matters; and she fought like a
tigress in the cause of whichever of her children was experiencing
misfortune. When Lucien left France in disgrace in consequence of his
marriage to Madame Jouberthon, his mother strove desperately hard to
re-establish him. She went to Italy to be near him, and endeavoured, by
absenting herself at the time of the coronation, to force Napoleon to
recall Lucien and herself together. However, her great son outwitted her
on this occasion, for he dispensed with her presence, and yet arranged
with David the artist for her portrait to appear along with the other
French dignitaries in the celebrated picture of the coronation.
Letizia had a very good opinion of her own position. When Napoleon
became Emperor, and made his brothers and sisters Imperial Highnesses,
she demanded some greater title for herself. Napoleon was in a quandary,
for on consulting precedents he found that no French king’s mother had
ever been given any such honour if she had never been queen. Letizia
insisted, and, almost at his wits’ end, Napoleon at last gave her a
singular dignity. He awarded her the same position and precedence as
used to be given under the Bourbons to the wife of the king’s second
son. The king’s second son was Monsieur, and his wife was Madame.
Letizia was named Madame, and as a subsidiary title she was called Mère
de S.M. l’Empéreur et Roi. Almost at once the titles were merged
together in common speech, and Letizia was called Madame Mère everywhere
except at strict official gatherings.
By the time that the Empire was firmly founded, and all her children
except Lucien were seated on thrones, Letizia was able to give free rein
to the passion which came only second with her to her love for her
children. It is said that shipwrecked sailors who have been starved for
a long time cannot help, after being rescued, hoarding fragments of food
for fear of another period of famine. With Madame Mère a similar state
of affairs prevailed. She had felt the pinch of poverty for fifty years,
and in no circumstances could she endure it again. She still lived as
cheaply as she could, and she saved her money like a miser. She coaxed
Napoleon into giving her an annual income of a million francs, and she
did not spend a quarter of it. She did her best to obtain a sovereignty
for herself, not that she wanted to rule, but because she could sell the
fief back to the French and invest the proceeds. She made money by acute
speculation. She clung like grim death to every sou which came within
her reach.
Yet avarice pure and simple was not the sole motive of her actions. Just
as a prophet has no honour in his own country, so the Emperor and the
Kings and Princesses who were her children still seemed to be children
to her, and all their talk of sovereignty was little better than
childish prattling. She did not believe for one moment that the Empire
could long endure, and in this her judgment was more acute than that of
the majority of European statesmen. Wellington, as early as 1809, had
seen through the shams and pretences of the glittering Empire, but few
other men, not even Metternich, agreed with him at that time. But Madame
Mère saw the end long before it came, and it was against that time of
need that she saved so avariciously. Her judgment was proved accurate,
and her savings proved useful in 1814.
In 1802 she had befriended Lucien; in 1805, Jerome; in 1810, Louis; now
the greatest of her sons had met with adversity, and Letizia rushed to
his assistance. She shared his exile in Elba, and from her own purse she
provided the money which enabled him to maintain his Lilliputian court.
She was by his side during the Hundred Days, and after he had been sent
to St. Helena she returned to Italy and resumed the headship of the
family. Her wealth as well as her marvellous personality assured her the
respect of her sons and daughters. The death of the Prince Imperial in
1832 was a terrible shock to her; she had long been looking to him to
restore the fame of the exiled house, and she had arranged to leave him
all her money and papers. She did not long survive his death, but died
in 1836, at the age of eighty-six.
She lies buried in Ajaccio, and the inscription over her tomb can still
make the casual tourist catch his breath, and still makes the blood of
Corsican youth run a little faster—
MARIA LETIZIA RAMOLINO BONAPARTE.
MATER REGUM.
[Illustration: CAROLINE MURAT
(née BONAPARTE)]