WOMEN
IT would be as easy to omit all mention of Napoleon’s mistresses in a
serious history as it would be difficult to omit the king’s mistresses
from a history of Louis le Grand or Louis le Bien-Aimé. Napoleon was not
the man to allow his policy to be influenced by women. Not one of the
many with whom he came into contact could boast that she had deflected
him one hairbreadth from the path he had mapped for himself. Not all
Josephine’s tears could save the life of the young d’Enghien; not all
Walewska’s pleading could re-establish the kingdom of Poland.
“Adultery,” said Napoleon, “is a sofa affair,” and he was speaking for
once in all honesty. He was a man blessed with a vast personality, a
vast power and a vast income, and it is unusual for a man with these
three to go long a-suing. Moreover, if the lady who attracted his
attention proved recalcitrant, Napoleon rarely pleaded; he raised his
offer, and in the event of a further refusal he turned away without a
sigh and forgot all about her. That indicates Napoleon’s attitude
towards women.
There were, as a matter of fact, one or two whom he honoured by more
lover-like attentions. Josephine cost him many bitter hours of
self-reproach; Walewska he sought long and earnestly; he displayed every
sign of attachment towards Marie Louise. Yet not merely these three, but
every woman who granted him favours received in return immense gifts,
and, if she desired it, a husband whose path to promotion was made
specially easy. The women who flit into and then out of Napoleon’s life
seem to be without number, but the gossip of a thousand memoirs, and the
hints of a thousand letters, combined with the painstaking care of a
crowd of patient inquirers, have brought them all under notice at some
time or other. And yet the most elaborate research can only prove that
there was one woman who might perhaps have given much to Bonaparte
before his meeting with Josephine, and that was a street-walker of the
Palais Royal. This tiny incident is hinted at in a letter written by
Bonaparte at the age of eighteen.
After this, we find nothing of the same nature for another nine years.
Napoleon was too busy and too desperately poor to trouble about such
things. He flirted with Laurette Permon, who later became Madame Junot,
Duchess d’Abrantès; with his sister-in-law, Désirée Clary, afterwards
Madame Bernadotte, Princess of Ponte Corvo and Queen of Sweden and
Norway; and with a few young women of good social position whom he met
while serving as a junior officer of artillery at Valence. That is all.
He came to Josephine heartwhole and inexperienced, and he lavished upon
her during the first feverish months of his married life all the
stored-up passion of a man of twenty-six. Josephine baulked and thwarted
this passion by her delay in joining him while he was conquering Italy,
by her petty flirtations with Charles and others, and by the general
light-mindedness of her behaviour; from that time forth Napoleon became
passionless towards all women. Some he liked, and some he even admired,
as far as it was in his nature to admire anyone, but for none did he
ever exhibit the uncontrollable desire which for that brief space he had
felt for Josephine. Unfaithfulness to her, which he would once have
regarded as treason, he now thought of merely as necessary to a man of
mature age.
However, throughout the years 1796 and 1797 one cannot find any proof of
genuine inconstancy. It was only in 1798, when Napoleon found himself
the unrestrained ruler of Egypt, with the whole East apparently at his
feet, that he left the narrow path of strict physical virtue. The native
ladies did not appeal to him, and he turned with disgust from their over
opulent charms. The same cannot be said of some of his officers, a few
of whom actually married Egyptian beauties and later brought them back
to France. Menou, who succeeded to the chief command after Napoleon’s
departure and Kléber’s assassination, was one of these. Others, again,
married and settled down in Egypt after the evacuation. Their
descendants were supporters of Mehemet Ali, and even nowadays many rich
Egyptian proprietors can trace back their descent to a Frankish ancestor
who became a Mohammedan a hundred and twenty years ago.
But although, as has been said, Napoleon found no charms behind the
yashmaks, the possibilities were by no means exhausted, as his
aides-de-camp hastened to point out to him. A few Frenchwomen, by
donning male attire, had evaded the strict regulation that no women
should accompany the Army of the Orient. The most attractive of these
was Marguerite Pauline, wife of a lieutenant of Chasseurs, by name
Fourès. To a Commander-in-Chief all things are possible, and young
Fourès was packed off in one of the frigates which had escaped from the
disaster of the Nile with orders to carry despatches to the Directory.
The night of his departure Madame Fourès (la Bellîlote, as she was
called, from her maiden name of Belleisle) was entertained by Napoleon
at a gay little dinner party; the proceedings, however, were cut short
by the General upsetting iced water over her dress and carrying her off
under the pretext of having the damage attended to.
After this la Bellîlote was established in a Cairo palace close to
General Headquarters, and the little idyll seemed to be progressing
famously when a most indignant intruder in the person of Lieutenant
Fourès appeared on the scene. He had been captured by the English on his
way to Italy, and had been returned for the express purpose of
inconveniencing the Général-en-chef. The English were, however, doomed
to disappointment, for Napoleon, exercising his dictatorial powers, had
a divorce pronounced between Fourès and his wife, and then sent the
wretched man back once more to France. From this time forth la Bellîlote
had an almost regal dominion in Cairo. The finest silks in the land were
confiscated for her adornment, and she drove about the streets amid
cries from the soldiers of “Vive la Générale!” and “Vive Clioupatre!” At
times she even appeared on horseback in a general’s uniform and cocked
hat. The whole proceeding savours of some of the doings of the early
Roman Emperors. Suetonius tells us very similar stories of Nero and
Caligula. Little adverse comment was caused among the French; it was a
very usual thing during the Revolutionary era for officers to be
accompanied by women in this fashion. Some women even served generals as
aides-de-camp and orderlies, while the Army of Portugal during 1810-11
was frequently hindered because Masséna, commanding, had his _chère
amie_ with him.
Madame Fourès’ experience of the delights of being the left-handed queen
of the uncrowned king of an unacknowledged kingdom was not destined to
endure long; Napoleon returned to France, and she, following him, by his
orders, as soon as possible, fell into the hands of the English just as
her husband had done. When at last she reached France Bonaparte refused
to see her, for he was now reconciled to Josephine, besides being First
Consul and having to be careful of his moral reputation. Napoleon did
whatever else he could for her; he gave her large sums of money, bought
her houses, and secured a new husband for her, whose agreement he
ensured by means of valuable appointments under the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
Napoleon and la Bellîlote never met again; after 1815 she eloped with
another man, built up a substantial fortune in the South American trade,
and finally died quite in the odour of sanctity at the venerable age of
ninety-one.
On Bonaparte’s return to France Josephine had contrived to win him once
more to her, despite the efforts of his family, and his own
half-determination to end the business there and then, but matters were
never the same between them. Napoleon indulged more and more frequently
in petty amours with various women, and Josephine, instead of
appreciating her helplessness, as is the more usual way with queens and
empresses, caused frequent furious scenes by spying on his actions and
upbraiding him when any rumour came to her notice. Napoleon cared no
whit; he was, moreover, able, by virtue of his supreme power, frequently
to ensure that Josephine knew nothing of his infidelity. In 1800 he was
peculiarly successful in this way. Marengo had been fought and won, and
the First Consul was enjoying, at Milan, the fruits of his dramatic
success. The most eminent contralto of the time, Grassini, sang at
concerts hurriedly arranged in his honour. Grassini had endeavoured to
force herself on his notice three years before, without success, for
Josephine held power over him then. The circumstances were different
now, and Napoleon, his Italian temperament inexpressibly charmed by her
magnificent voice, honoured her by a summons to his apartments. She
obeyed gladly; she came at his request to Paris; and finally Napoleon
had the effrontery to command her to sing at the thanksgiving festival
in the Invalides for the Marengo campaign, where he appeared accompanied
by his wife and by all the notabilities of the Consulate. Later she
appeared at the Théâtre de la République, and was given a large
allowance, both publicly as a singer and secretly as a friend of
Napoleon’s. The arrangement ended abruptly, for Grassini was detected in
an intrigue with an Italian musician, and left France for a Continental
tour.
It was not till 1807 that she returned, and although Napoleon never
renewed the old relationship, he gave her an official title, a large
salary and employment under his Bureau of Music.
Grassini spent the rest of her days mainly in Paris, and she enjoyed a
vast reputation all her life. Money troubles, due to her passion for
gambling, and wild adventures of the heart, engaged most of her
attention. It has even been said that after Waterloo she condescended to
grant Wellington the same favours as Napoleon had enjoyed thirteen years
before. Despite the obvious bias of many of the witnesses, the evidence
to this end seems conclusive. If it really was true, then Grassini might
claim a distinction as notable as Alava’s, who was the only man who
fought both at Trafalgar and at Waterloo.
After Grassini passed out of Napoleon’s life, a long period ensued
during which no woman received the Emperor’s favour for any continuous
length of time. At intervals various hooded figures slipped through the
postern door of the Tuileries, past Roustam the Mameluke, and through a
secret passage to the Imperial apartments, but the visits were irregular
and were merely the results of passing whims on the part of the Emperor.
Not one of the women concerned had need of much pressure to become
agreeable to the invitations brought them by Duroc, the faithful Grand
Marshal of the Palace. They were actresses mainly, and since most of
them appeared at theatres managed or subsidized by the Government,
Napoleon, if not their direct employer, had in his gift important acting
parts and desirable salaries. Many of them were already the mistresses
of dandies of the town, and some of them passed on to act in the same
capacity for various crowned heads of Europe, while one was actually
requested by a powerful party in Russia to win Alexander the Czar from
an objectionable _chère amie_ so that he might return to the Czarina!
Napoleon did all he could to keep these liaisons secret, but he was
rarely successful. The women boasted far and wide of their success, and
it is likely that many of those who boasted had nothing to boast about.
Some even went so far as to publish their memoirs after the Restoration,
and to make capital of their own dishonour. Another factor which
militated against secrecy was Josephine’s jealousy. Josephine, with the
spectre of divorce always before her eyes, was in continual terror lest
Napoleon should experience a lasting attachment for one of his stray
lights o’ love. Consequently she spied upon him incessantly, battered on
his locked doors, wrote frantic appeals to her friends for help and
information, and generally acted with less than her usual dignity.
Napoleon disregarded her appeals, and stormed back at her whenever she
ventured to remonstrate. He was above all law, he declared, and he would
allow no human being to judge his actions. Nevertheless, he took care to
interfere with the most intimate affairs of all his friends. He tried to
bully Berthier, his trusted Chief of Staff, into separating from the
lady with whom he had lived for years. At first it seemed as if he was
successful, and he consoled his friend by giving him as wife a Princess
of the royal House of Bavaria. However, Berthier contrived to obtain his
young bride’s agreement to the presence of the other lady, and the three
of them ran a perfectly happy _ménage à trois_ for the rest of his life.
Napoleon meddled with many other people’s domestic affairs, and it is
darkly hinted that Talleyrand’s enmity for the Emperor began when
Napoleon first disturbed the tranquillity which existed between the
great diplomat and Madame Grand.
The Emperor continued serenely on his way, acting up to his dictum that
women were merely incidents in a man’s life. His Court was thronged with
greedily ambitious women who threw themselves in his path at every
opportunity. At the least hint of a preference on his part, officious
courtiers hurried to assist in the negotiations in the hope either of
favour or perquisites. The astonishing thing is that the list of the
chosen is not many times longer. These intrigues all ran much the same
course—a brief partnership, generally without a hint of affection on
either side; a minor place in Court for the lady; then a marriage was
arranged, an ample dowry provided by the Emperor, and the incident was
closed. Not merely did people endeavour to gain their private ends in
this manner, but even political parties made use of similar tools.
During the Consulate the Bourbons despatched a lady to Paris for the
sole purpose of ensnaring Bonaparte, and it is hinted that Metternich
endeavoured to place a friend at Court in the same fashion. The great
example of this political manœuvre, however, occurs later.
But before Madame Walewska’s name, even, was known to Napoleon, he
formed an attachment of some slight historical importance. Eléonore
Denuelle was an exceedingly beautiful girl, daughter of parents of a
doubtful mode of life, who had been educated at Madame Campan’s famous
school along with Caroline Bonaparte and various other great ladies of
the Court. Her parents designed a great marriage for her, but they met
with poor success, for a certain graceless ex-officer, by name Revel,
succeeded in making her believe that he was a good match, and the couple
were married early in 1805. Revel believed that Eléonore was an heiress;
Eléonore believed that Revel was a rich man; they were both of them
woefully disappointed, and separated after two months of married life.
Eléonore in despair applied for help to Caroline Murat, and received a
minor post in that princess’s household. Napoleon noticed her in
January, 1806, and from that time the affair moved rapidly, for in
February Eléonore applied for a divorce from Revel (who was now in
gaol), and in December a son was born to her whose father, almost
without a doubt, was Napoleon.
By the time of his birth, however, Napoleon had formed a new attachment,
and Eléonore was never again admitted to his rooms. Napoleon saw that
both his son and his ex-mistress were suitably provided for; he settled
a thousand pounds a year on Eléonore and married her to a prominent
politician (a Monsieur Augier), while he invested large sums of money in
trust for her son, Léon. He further mentioned him in his will.
Eléonore’s later career was unlucky; her second husband died, a prisoner
in Russian hands, and when she married for a third time she was
blackmailed for the rest of her life by her first husband and by her
scapegrace illegitimate son. Léon ruined all his chances of success in
life by his reckless way of living. He gambled away all he possessed,
and then lived on what small sums he could beg from his mother and from
his Bonaparte relations. He plunged into politics, and even considered
for a while standing as a candidate for the position of President of the
Second Republic in opposition to Louis Napoleon. He induced the latter
to give him a small pension; he made all manner of claims upon the
Government, and squandered whatever he obtained in a wild fashion. He
issued all sorts of remarkable suggestions, not one of them of the
slightest value, on every conceivable subject, and he raised the most
frightful clamour when they were disregarded. There is no doubt that he
was mentally deranged. He died in 1881 without having accomplished a
single noteworthy action.
There is a faint doubt as to Léon’s paternity, due to his mother’s way
of living, but the doubts are countered by his striking physical
resemblance to the Emperor. Napoleon himself certainly believed him to
be his own child; perhaps if he could have foreseen the later career of
the child in question he would have been more chary of his
acknowledgment. The whole affair seems to be very much wrapped in doubt;
Napoleon evinced for young Léon not half the care which he displayed for
his other sons, while Léon’s birth (perhaps because it took place while
Napoleon was away in Poland) did not rouse nearly as much interest as
Walewski’s three years later.
It has already been said that at the time of Léon’s birth Napoleon’s
attention was occupied by a new mistress; it was this particular
mistress who has been elevated by some writers to the proud position of
being “the only woman Napoleon ever loved,” and who certainly held
whatever affection the Emperor was able to display for a longer period
than any other woman. To begin with, she was of a rank and class far
different from any of her predecessors, Josephine not excepted, while
secondly she was far fonder of him than was any other woman. The
circumstances in which the two met were romantic. Napoleon had just
overturned the Prussian monarchy; he had advanced like lightning from
the Rhine to the Niemen, and he burst at the head of the Grand Army into
Poland, where never before had a French army appeared. The Poles were in
ecstasy. They had not the least doubt that their period of slavery was
ended, and that the young conqueror would once more unchain the White
Eagle. Deputations thronged to meet him, and mobs gave him homage in the
villages. At the little town of Bronia, not far from Warsaw, a lady was
presented to him at her earnest request, for she had braved all the
terrors of the hysterical mob in order to meet him. She proved to be
hardly more than a child, and dazzlingly beautiful. Napoleon thanked her
for her kindness, and said that he was anxious to see her again. The
whole interview barely lasted a minute, for it was imperative that
Napoleon should press on to Warsaw, but it made a deep impression on
both of them.
Marie Laczinska was the daughter of one of the old noble families of
Poland, and she had recently married Anastase Colonna de
Walewice-Walewska. Although Marie’s family was noble, it was hardly to
be compared with that of her husband, for Anastase was not only the head
of a house in whose veins ran the bluest blood of Poland, but he also
traced his descent to the Roman family of Colonna, and through them his
line ran back into the mists of history beyond the Carolings and the
Merovings until one could trace its source among the patrician families
of republican Rome. He was rich, he was famous, he held vast power. The
only objections to him as a husband were that he was seventy years old
and already had grandchildren who were older than Marie. In the minds of
Marie’s guardians such objections were trivial, and the young girl was
forced into marriage with the old noble, to play the part of Abishag to
Walewska’s David. She was not fated to endure this for long, because
Napoleon had not forgotten the meeting at Bronia, and sought her at all
the fêtes at which he appeared in Warsaw. The secret could not be kept,
and soon all Poland was aware that the great Emperor was in love with
the Polish lady. The nationalist party heard the news with wild
exultation, and Poniatowski, the hope of Poland, called upon her to
sacrifice herself for her country. The other great nobles pressed her
feverishly, and they contrived to persuade Walewska (who, naturally, was
the only man who was ignorant of what was going on) to bring his wife to
a ball which Poniatowski was giving in the Emperor’s honour.
Marie came reluctantly. She was dressed as plainly as possible, in white
satin without jewels, and, once in the ballroom, she kept herself as far
in the background as she could. To no purpose, however. Napoleon,
overjoyed, observed her as soon as she appeared, and immediately sent to
her and requested her to dance with him. She refused. Duroc and
Poniatowski remonstrated with her, but she remained adamant. Many other
French officers had already noticed her dazzling beauty, her rich fair
hair and the blueness of her eyes, and they swarmed round her. Napoleon
watched the proceedings jealously from the other end of the room. As
soon as any one of his officers appeared to have made any progress, he
called to his Chief of Staff, and that particular officer was sent off
post haste to carry a message somewhere out in the bleak countryside a
hundred miles away. The situation verged on the impossible. Napoleon in
desperation made a tour of the room, speaking to all the hundreds of
women present merely in order to exchange half a dozen words with the
one who was the cause of all this trouble. When at last he reached
Madame Walewska the interview was unsatisfactory. She was as pale as
death, and said nothing. He was vastly and unusually embarrassed. “White
upon white is a mistake, Madame,” he said, looking at her pale cheeks.
Then—“This is not the sort of reception I expected after——” Then he
passed on, and left the ballroom soon after.
That same evening she received a wild, urgent note from Napoleon. Others
followed in rapid succession. Poniatowski and all the fiery patriots of
Poland implored her to yield. Her blind husband, infatuated by this
remarkable new popularity, bore her to reception after reception. A
mercenary old aunt of hers, tampered with by Poniatowski, flung herself
into the business as well, and offered herself as go-between. At last
she received a letter from Napoleon hinting that he would restore Poland
if she would yield. She yielded. Napoleon did not restore Poland.
For Poland’s sake she had broken her marriage vows and violated all the
dictates of her conscience. Napoleon, in return, temporized and
compromised. He erected the Grand Duchy of Warsaw out of territory torn
from Prussia, but the Grand Duchy was not autonomous, it was not called
Poland, it was only one-third the size of the old land of the White
Eagle. Poor Marie protested to the best of her ability, to be soothed by
fair words from the Emperor. At Napoleon’s request she left Poland after
Tilsit, and came to Paris, where she lived in extreme retirement,
visited by Napoleon as often as he could manage. Her gentleness and
dislike of display must have been grateful to Napoleon after his other
experiences, and he passed many happy hours with her. She was by his
side during the maelstrom of the Essling campaign, and at Schönbrunn,
the Palace of the Cæsars, she told him she was about to bear him a
child. She did not realize then that from that selfsame palace Napoleon
would summon, in a few months’ time, a young girl who would supplant her
in his affections, and who would also bear him a son, who, in place of
being a nameless bastard, would bear the title of King of Rome. She went
back to her dear Poland for the event, and at Walewice, in May, 1810,
Alexander-Florian-Joseph-Colonna-Walewski was born. On her return to
Paris Napoleon had married Marie Louise.
Napoleon softened the blow for her as well as he could. He heaped wealth
upon her; he gave her town houses and country houses; the Imperial
officials were always at her orders, and the Imperial theatres were
always open to her. Her son, young Walewski, was made a Count of the
Empire. Perhaps this was some consolation to her. Perhaps—seeing that
it was her son’s birth which had determined Napoleon to make a new
marriage—not. Napoleon even found time during the turmoil of the
Campaign of France to make additional arrangements in their favour, but
by this time whatever remained of the affair had long since burnt itself
out.
After the fall of the Empire, Marie Walewska seems to have considered
herself free. She paid a mysterious visit to Napoleon at Elba in 1814,
accompanied by her little son, and she was present at the Tuileries on
Napoleon’s arrival there during the Hundred Days, but apparently on
neither occasion was the old relationship renewed. In 1816 she married a
distant cousin of the Bonapartes, a certain d’Ornano, a Colonel of the
Guard, but she was not destined long to enjoy her new happiness. Marie
de Walewska died in December, 1817.
Poor Marie! Her life was short, but it must have been full of
bitterness. Napoleon’s affairs of the heart (if they are even worthy of
that name) all seem inexpressibly harsh and matter-of-fact. He seemed to
have a kind of Midas touch in these matters, whereby everything
honourable and romantic with which he came into contact turned, not into
gold, but into lead. Various authors have tried to infuse into his
association with Marie de Walewska some gleam of romance, some essence
of the self-sacrificing spirit which is noticeable in the parallel deeds
of other monarchs, but they have failed. Marie certainly seems at first
to have believed him to be a hero, a knight without reproach as well as
without fear, but as soon as she was disillusioned she resigned herself
to an existence as drab as if she had been once more a septuagenarian’s
wife, and not the mistress of an Emperor. Contemporary Parisian society
was almost entirely ignorant of her existence. She paid no calls, and
she received none. The few appearances she made at Court were such as
were only to be expected from a Polish lady of high rank. Napoleon could
not keep her love for long, and, though she was faithful to him as long
as the Empire endured, she obviously considered herself free as soon as
Napoleon was sent to St. Helena. It was not the long-drawn, heroic
romance some writers have endeavoured to make it appear; rather was it a
brief burst of passion, and then—monotony.
The baby Count of the Empire whom she left behind enjoyed a
distinguished career. In appearance he certainly resembled his great
father, but his talents never seem to have risen above a mediocre
standard. Alexander-Florian-Joseph-Colonna-Walewski was mainly educated
in France, but he was a Pole by birth, and he fought for Poland at the
age of twenty during the rising of 1830-31. When Poland fell once more
before the might of Russia, he returned to France, became a Frenchman,
and served in the French army. The revolution of 1848 brought Napoleon
III. to the front, and the new Emperor, with his power based on the
frail fabric of a legend, saw fit to surround himself with names which
recalled to men’s minds the old splendours of the First Empire. Walewski
received honours in plenty; he was Ambassador to the most important
Courts of Europe, a Senator, and a Minister of State. He wrote learnedly
on various subjects. But all his glory was only a pale reflection of his
father’s and cousin’s; he suffered eclipse after Sedan, and when he
died, aged seventy-two, he had, after all, made very little mark in the
world. He had not played the part of a Don John of Austria, or even of a
Monmouth. De Morny quite outshone him.
With Napoleon’s marriage to Marie Louise and association with Madame
Walewska, his casual amorous adventures came to a more or less abrupt
end. It has been suggested that this was on account of increasing age,
but Napoleon was only in the early forties, and this cannot be the true
reason. However, the explanation is just as simple. Napoleon was devoted
to his new wife, and he was frightfully busy. From the summer of 1812,
two years after his second marriage, he was almost continuously in the
field. His exertions and worries thenceforward were sufficient to occupy
even him, without any other complications. One likes to think of him
turning with relief from the agonizing strain of ruling Europe to snatch
a few quiet minutes in the placid peace surrounding Marie Louise and her
child. That is all. He had no other mistress. At Elba he lived with his
sister and mother, with no woman to share his inner life. Perhaps this
was policy, for Napoleon was trying hard to induce Marie Louise to join
him, and he would naturally be chary of doing anything which might annoy
her—ignorant as he was of her unfaithfulness. This may be the
explanation of the briefness of Madame Walewska’s visit; she may have
come intending to join him, and he may have sent her away again, but the
fact that she was accompanied by her brother and other relations
militates against this theory. Moreover, Marie was already close friends
with d’Ornano. After the Hundred Days Napoleon was sent to St. Helena,
and once again no woman accompanied him. The manifold rumours about
Madame de Montholon and others at St. Helena seem to have no foundation
whatever in fact. Thus practically all Napoleon’s illicit loves are
confined to the decade 1800-10, while the last decade is entirely clear
of them.
Thus far we have only treated of women who were Napoleon’s mistresses;
but considerable interest also attaches to a large number of women who,
although members of the Imperial circle, never attained this dubious
honour. Perhaps of these the one who attained the greatest heights (and
who, incidentally, did least to deserve it) was Désirée Clary. She was
the sister of the lady whom Joseph Bonaparte made his wife, and whose
dowry of six thousand pounds was so welcome to the struggling family.
Désirée’s own dowry would have been of the same amount, and Joseph and
various other Bonapartes tried to induce Napoleon to marry her. He seems
to have dallied with the idea; indeed, it is frequently stated that a
contract of betrothal was drawn up, but, however it was, Napoleon broke
off the negotiations rather abruptly when he went to Paris in 1795.
There is hardly any doubt that he had flirted with Désirée rather
excessively, and that, after making a deep impression upon her, he had
wounded her deeply by his precipitate abandonment. Subsequently he tried
to make amends in much the same manner as he employed with his discarded
mistresses—he tried to find her a husband to whom he could give
substantial promotion. But Désirée was once more unlucky, for the man
Napoleon sent to her, General Duphot, was murdered almost on her
threshold while she was staying at Joseph Bonaparte’s Embassy in Rome.
Eventually she was approached by Bernadotte, during Napoleon’s absence
in Egypt, and married him. Subsequently she declared that she had done
this because Bernadotte was the only man who could injure Bonaparte, but
she must have been far-sighted indeed if she could perceive the career
which was awaiting Bernadotte. Moreau, and half a dozen other generals,
such as Augereau, were more powerful than Bernadotte at the time.
Désirée’s statement was probably made in the light of subsequent events.
It was Bernadotte who gained most by the marriage. He acquired at one
stroke a venomous, if inert, ally in his wife, an enthusiastic supporter
in Joseph, his brother-in-law, and a sure refuge in case of trouble in
Napoleon’s dislike of a scandal in his family. From this time on,
Désirée received distinction after distinction, and soon she was Son
Altesse Serène la Maréchale Princesse de Ponte Corvo, sister of the
Queen of Spain, and a leading figure in Imperial society. Then came the
greatest distinction of all, and she found herself Princess Royal of
Sweden. This last she found rather upsetting, for she discovered she was
expected to leave her beloved Paris to live in the bleakness of the
Stockholm palaces. She said, tearfully and truthfully, that she had
thought at first that her new rank was merely a titular distinction, of
the same class as her sovereignty of Ponte Corvo. She refused absolutely
to leave France, and so Bernadotte went alone to Stockholm, thence to
lead his Swedes against the Empire, while his wife stayed on in Paris.
It certainly was an anomalous position, and some authors have said that
Désirée acted as a spy on behalf of the Allies during the war of
liberation. However, we can be quite sure that Napoleon, whatever
tenderness he still felt towards her, would not have tolerated her
sending news of any value to her husband; incidentally, it is obvious
that a woman to whose mind Ponte Corvo, with its six thousand
inhabitants, was in the same class as Sweden, with its millions, could
not have been of much use as a spy.
After 1815, fate overtook her, and she was borne away to spend the rest
of her life in the spartan splendour of the palace in the Staden. From
that time forth she and her husband were a disappointed couple,
distrusted and despised by all Europe, he with his eyes turned
lingeringly towards the France whose crown he believed he had so nearly
attained, she thinking longingly of the gaiety and careless freedom of
the Paris she had left behind, which now hated her with true Parisian
virulence.
Napoleon’s sisters married before the plenitude of his power, and the
matches they made were not as splendid as they might have been later; it
was for his younger but much more distant connections that Napoleon was
able to find husbands of royal rank. It is curious to notice the
extraordinary marriages which were arranged while the Empire was at its
height. A niece of Murat’s, who had been brought up as the ragged and
bare-footed daughter of a small farmer, married Prince Charles of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and among her grandchildren and
great-grandchildren at the present day are the King of Rumania, the King
of the Belgians and the Queen of Portugal. Several of the petty
princelings of Germany, with thirty generations of royal descent behind
them, married obscure little Beauharnais and Taschers de la Pagerie.
Eugène de Beauharnais and Berthier married princesses of Bavaria, and
Jerome received as bride a daughter of the King of Würtemberg.
Eugène’s marriage had caused a difficult situation, for Augusta of
Bavaria was already affianced to the Hereditary Prince of Baden, heir
apparent to the reigning Grand Duke. Napoleon had caused the marriage
contract to be broken, but he was in no way disconcerted; he straightway
found a new bride for the Hereditary Prince. He selected Stéphanie de
Beauharnais, a “thirty-second cousin” of Josephine’s. Stéphanie was the
merest child, who had had the most extraordinary upbringing. Her parents
were of a shiftless character, like various other Beauharnais, and after
the Revolution Stéphanie had been dependent on an English peeress, Lady
de Bathe, who had arranged with two nuns from the suppressed houses to
look after her. As soon as Napoleon heard of her existence, he summoned
her to Court, and in accordance with his pronounced ideas on family
loyalty, made himself responsible for her support. Next he announced to
her that he had secured her a royal husband. Stéphanie immediately
became a person of consequence, because as yet royal marriages were by
no means common in the Bonaparte family. Their Imperial Highnesses,
Napoleon’s sisters, naturally turned like tigresses upon the interloper,
and reduced the fifteen-year-old child to tears more than once in the
presence of the Court. This was more than Napoleon could stand, and by a
single decree he gave the girl precedence over the whole Imperial family
save himself and Josephine. He wished to keep the House of Baden as
satisfied as possible. With the same idea he gave Stéphanie a marvellous
trousseau, a dowry of sixty thousand pounds, and jewels costing the same
amount. Her wretched father, who had returned from exile, received an
income of three thousand pounds a year and a lump sum of two hundred
thousand francs. He had done nothing to earn it; he was merely the
father of the girl who was marrying an ally of the Emperor’s.
The period was one of general rejoicing, for Austerlitz had just been
won, and French domination over Europe seemed assured. The fêtes of the
marriage were of unexampled splendour; there were illuminations; there
were fireworks; and there were balls without number, at one of which
over two thousand persons appeared. But behind all the rejoicings there
was a curious tragi-comedy being played, for poor Stéphanie, married at
sixteen to a man she had never met, displayed a disconcerting reluctance
to complete all the accompanying formalities. Night after night she
insisted on a girl friend sharing her room with her. The Hereditary
Prince grew restive; the whole Court knew of the deadlock, and were
proportionately amused. But international politics cannot wait on a
girl’s whim; war clouds were appearing again across the Rhine; Prussia
seemed bent on war, and it was important for Napoleon to be sure of
Baden’s friendship. Napoleon admonished Stéphanie with all the severity
of which he was capable; he terrified the wretched girl into passivity,
and when at last the newly-married couple set off for Carlsruhe Baden’s
support of France was assured.
But the unhappiness which awaited all Napoleon’s favourites dogged poor
Stéphanie to her grave. The House of Zaehringen hated her as an
intruder; her male children all died in infancy, and when in 1818 her
husband died she found herself without any established position in a
hostile land. Hints have not been lacking that Charles of Baden died
through poison administered by the Hochberg family (of morganatic
descent from an earlier Elector), which ultimately obtained the throne.
But the strangest story is that concerning Kaspar Hauser. In 1828 a
young man was found wandering in the streets of Nuremberg, who had never
seen the sunlight, and whose whole appearance seemed to indicate that he
had been shut up in a cellar all his life. He did not long survive his
freedom. Stéphanie jumped to the conclusion that he was her second son,
born in 1811, who was supposed to have died as an infant while she was
seriously ill. Many people have agreed with her, and have supposed that
he had been kidnapped by the Hochbergs to prevent his inheritance of the
throne. Some people go further, and boldly declare that after his escape
he was poisoned. The whole matter has an aura of peculiarity, and it has
attracted the attention of many writers of authority, among them Mr.
Baring Gould. The most obvious counter to the theory that Kaspar Hauser
was a son of Stéphanie is that the people who would be bold enough to
kidnap him would have had the sense to kill him outright, and not to
keep him as living evidence of their guilt. If they murdered him in
1828, they would certainly not have flinched from murdering him in 1811.
But Stéphanie always believed that Kaspar was her son, and she passed
the last thirty years of her life in mourning a murdered husband, a
murdered son, a lost throne, and the utter ruin of her whole life.
This is only one more example of the blight which Napoleon left upon the
lives of nearly everyone with whom he came into close contact. All the
people who were indebted to him for their entire personal advancement
lived to see the day when they paid for a few golden hours with the most
utter regret and bitterness. The only ones who “lived happily ever
after” were those who had always regarded him with suspicion, like
Macdonald, or those of inferior mental calibre, like Marie Louise, whom
a strange Providence seemed to take under its own special care.
So much for Napoleon’s relations with women. Nowhere can one find the
least trace of romance or self-sacrifice on his part, and it can safely
be said that no woman ever loved him devotedly. Never could Napoleon
have said of any woman’s beauty, as Richard III. said,
“Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep
To undertake the death of all the world
So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.”
In men he could inspire the utmost self-devotion; it seems hateful to
think first of the Cuirassiers, a living torrent of steel, pouring
cheering to their deaths at Wagram at his command, and then of his
vulgar deceit of Walewska and his petty, mercenary intrigues with other
women. It leaves a foul blot on the splendour which surrounds him.
“Methought I saw a slug crawl slavering
Over the delicate petals of a flower.”
[Illustration: THE KING OF ROME]