THE SISTER OF AN EMPEROR
When Napoleon Bonaparte, the shabby, sallow-faced, out-of-work captain
of artillery, was kicking his heels in morose idleness at Marseilles,
and whiling away the dull hours in making love to Desirée Clary, the
pretty daughter of the silk-merchant in the Rue des Phocéens, his
sisters were living with their mother, the Signora Letizia, in a sordid
fourth-floor apartment in a slum near the Cannebiere, and running wild
in the Marseilles streets.
Strange tales are told of those early years of the sisters of an
Emperor-to-be--Elisa Bonaparte, future Grand Duchess of Tuscany;
Pauline, embryo Princess Borghese; and Caroline, who was to wear a crown
as Queen of Naples--high-spirited, beautiful girls, brimful of frolic
and fun, laughing at their poverty, decking themselves out in cheap,
home-made finery, and flirting outrageously with every good-looking
young man who was willing to pay homage to their _beaux yeux_. If
Marseilles deigned to notice these pretty young madcaps, it was only
with the cold eyes of disapproval; for such "shameless goings-on" were
little less than a scandal.
The pity of it was that there was no one to check their escapades.
Their mother, the imposing Madame Mère of later years, seemed
indifferent what her daughters did, so long as they left her in peace;
their brothers, Kings-to-be, were too much occupied with their own
love-making or their pranks to spare them a thought. And thus the trio
of tomboys were left, with a loose rein, to indulge every impulse that
entered their foolish heads. And a right merry time they had, with their
dancing, their private theatricals, the fun behind the scenes, and their
promiscuous love affairs, each serious and thrilling until it gave place
to a successor.
Of the three Bonaparte "graces" the most lovely by far (though each was
passing fair) was Pauline, who, though still little more than a child,
gave promise of that rare perfection of face and figure which was to
make her the most beautiful woman in all France. "It is impossible, with
either pen or brush," wrote one who knew her, "to do any justice to her
charms--the brilliance of her eyes, which dazzled and thrilled all on
whom they fell; the glory of her black hair, rippling in a cascade to
her knees; the classic purity of her Grecian profile, the wild-rose
delicacy of her complexion, the proud, dainty poise of her head, and the
exquisite modelling of the figure which inspired Canova's 'Venus
Victrix.'"
Such was Pauline Bonaparte, whose charms, although then immature, played
such havoc with the young men of Marseilles, and who thus early began
that career of conquest which was to afford so much gossip for the
tongue of scandal. That the winsome little minx had her legion of
lovers from the day she set foot in Marseilles, at the age of thirteen,
we know; but it was not until Frèron came on the scene that her volatile
little heart was touched--Frèron, the handsome coxcomb and
arch-revolutionary, who was sent to Marseilles as a Commissioner of the
Convention.
To Pauline, the gay, gallant Parisian, penniless adventurer though he
was, was a veritable hero of romance; and at sight of him she completely
lost her heart. It was a _grande passion_, which he was by no means slow
to return. Those were delicious hours which Pauline spent in the company
of her beloved "Stanislas," hours of ecstasy; and when he left
Marseilles she pursued him with the most passionate protestations.
"Yes," she wrote, "I swear, dear Stanislas, never to love any other than
thee; my heart knows no divided allegiance. It is thine alone. Who could
oppose the union of two souls who seek to find no other happiness than
in a mutual love?" And again, "Thou knowest how I worship thee. It is
not possible for Paulette to live apart from her adored Stanislas. I
love thee for ever, most passionately, my beautiful god, my adorable
one--I love thee, love thee, love thee!"
In such hot words this child of fifteen poured out her soul to the Paris
dandy. "Neither mamma," she vowed, "nor anyone in the world shall come
between us." But Pauline had not counted on her brother Napoleon, whose
foot was now placed on the ladder of ambition, at the top of which was
an Imperial crown, and who had other designs for his sister than to
marry her to a penniless nobody. In vain did Pauline rage and weep, and
declare that "she would die--_voilà tout!_" Napoleon was inexorable; and
the flower of her first romance was trodden ruthlessly under his feet.
When Junot, his own aide-de-camp, next came awooing Pauline, he was
equally obdurate. "No," he said to the young soldier; "you have nothing,
she has nothing. And what is twice nothing?" And thus lover number two
was sent away disconsolate.
Napoleon's sun was now in the ascendant, and his family were basking in
its rays. From the Marseilles slums they were transported first to a
sumptuous villa at Antibes; then to the Castle of Montebello, at Naples.
The days of poverty were gone like an evil dream; the sisters of the
famous General and coming Emperor were now young ladies of fashion,
courted and fawned on. Their lovers were not Marseilles tradesmen or
obscure soldiers and journalists (like Junot and Frèron), but brilliant
Generals and men of the great world; and among them Napoleon now sought
a husband for his prettiest and most irresponsible sister.
This, however, proved no easy task. When he offered her to his favourite
General, Marmont, he was met with a polite refusal. "She is indeed
charming and lovely," said Marmont; "but I fear I could not make her
happy." Then, waxing bolder, he continued: "I have dreams of domestic
happiness, of fidelity, virtue; and these dreams I can scarcely hope to
realise in your sister." Albert Permon, Napoleon's old schoolfellow,
next declined the honour of Pauline's hand, although it held the bait of
a high office and splendid fortune.
The explanation of these refusals is not far to seek if we believe
Arnault's description of Pauline--"An extraordinary combination of the
most faultless physical beauty and the oddest moral laxity. She had no
more manners than a schoolgirl--she talked incoherently, giggled at
everything and nothing, mimicked the most serious personages, put out
her tongue at her sister-in-law.... She was a good child naturally
rather than voluntarily, for she had no principles."
But Pauline was not to wait long, after all, for a husband. Among the
many men who fluttered round her, willing to woo if not to wed the
empty-headed beauty, was General Leclerc, young and rich, but weak in
body and mind, "a quiet, insignificant-looking man," who at least loved
her passionately, and would make a pliant husband to the capricious
little autocrat. And we may be sure Napoleon heaved a sigh of relief
when his madcap sister was safely tied to her weak-kneed General.
Pauline was at last free to conduct her flirtations secure from the
frowns of the brother she both feared and adored, and she seems to have
made excellent use of her opportunities; and, what was even more to her,
to encourage to the full her passion for finery. Dress and love filled
her whole life; and while her idolatrous husband lavishly supplied the
former, he turned a conveniently blind eye to the latter.
Remarkable stories are told of Pauline's extravagant and daring
costumes at this time. Thus, at a great ball in Madame Permon's Paris
mansion, she appeared in a dress of classic scantiness of Indian muslin,
ornamented with gold palm leaves. Beneath her breasts was a cincture of
gold, with a gorgeous jewelled clasp; and her head was wreathed with
bands spotted like a leopard's skin, and adorned with bunches of gold
grapes.
When this bewitching Bacchante made her appearance in the ballroom the
sensation she created was so great that the dancing stopped instantly;
women and men alike climbed on chairs to catch a glimpse of the rare and
radiant vision, and murmurs of admiration and envy ran round the
_salon_. Her triumph was complete. In the hush that followed, a voice
was heard: "_Quel dommage!_ How lovely she would be, if it weren't for
her ears. If I had such ears, I would cut them off, or hide them."
Pauline heard the cruel words. The flush of mortification and anger
flamed in her cheeks; she burst into tears and walked out of the room.
Madame de Coutades, her most jealous rival, had found a rich revenge.
General Leclerc did not live long to play the slave to his little
autocrat; and when he died at San Domingo, the beautiful widow returned
to France, accompanied by his embalmed body, with her glorious hair,
which she had cut off for the purpose, wreathing his head! She had not,
however, worn her weeds many months before she was once more surrounded
by her court of lovers--actors, soldiers, singers, on each of whom in
turn she lavished her smiles; and such time as she could spare from
their flatteries and ogling she spent at the card-table, with
fortune-tellers, or, chief joy of all, in decking her beauty with
wondrous dresses and jewels.
But the charming widow, sister of the great Napoleon, was not long to be
left unclaimed; and this time the choice fell on Prince Camillo
Borghese, a handsome, black-haired Italian, who allied to a head as vain
and empty as her own the physical graces and gifts of an Admirable
Crichton, and who, moreover, was lord of all the famed Borghese riches.
Pauline had now reached dizzy heights, undreamed of in the days, only
ten short years earlier, when she was coquetting in home-made finery
with the young tradesmen of Marseilles. She was a Princess, bearing the
greatest name in all Italy; and to this dignity her gratified brother
added that of Princess of Gustalla. All the world-famous Borghese jewels
were hers to deck her beauty with--a small Golconda of priceless gems;
there was gold galore to satisfy her most extravagant whims; and she was
still young--only twenty-five--and in the very zenith of her loveliness.
Picture, then, the pride with which, one early day of her new bridehood,
she drove to the Palace of St Cloud in the gorgeous Borghese State
carriage, behind six horses, and with an escort of torch-bearers, to pay
a formal call on her sister-in-law, Josephine, Empress-to-be. She had
decked herself in a wonderful creation of green velvet; she was ablaze
from head to foot with the Borghese diamonds. Such a dazzling vision
could not fail to fill Josephine with envy--Josephine, who had hitherto
treated her with such haughty patronage.
As she sailed into the _salon_ in all her Queen of Sheba splendour, it
was to be greeted by her sister-in-law in a modest dress of muslin,
without a solitary gem to relieve its simplicity; and--horror!--to find
that the room had been re-decorated in blue by the artful Josephine--a
colour absolutely fatal to her green magnificence! It was thus a very
disgusted Princess who made her early exit from the palace between a
double line of bowing flunkeys, masking her anger behind an affectation
of ultra-Royal dignity.
Still, Pauline was now a _grande dame_ indeed, who could really afford
to patronise even Napoleon's wife. Her Court was more splendid than that
of Josephine. She had lovers by the score--from Blanguini, who composed
his most exquisite songs to sing for her ears alone, to Forbin, her
artist Chamberlain, whose brushes she inspired in a hundred paintings of
her lovely self in as many unconventional guises. Her caskets of jewels
were matched by the most wonderful collection of dresses in France, the
richest and daintiest confections, from pearl embroidered ball-gowns
which cost twenty thousand francs to the mauve and silver in which she
went a-hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau. At Petit Trianon and in
the Faubourg St Honoré, she had palaces that were dreams of beauty and
luxury. The only thorn in her bed of roses was, in fact, her husband,
the Prince, the very sight of whom was sufficient to spoil a day for
her.
When, at Napoleon's bidding, she accompanied Borghese to his
Governorship beyond the Alps, she took in her train seven wagon-loads of
finery. At Turin she held the Court of a Queen, to which the Prince was
only admitted on sufferance. Royal visits, dinners, dances, receptions
followed one another in dazzling succession; behind her chair, at dinner
or reception, always stood two gigantic negroes, crowned with ostrich
plumes. She was now "sister of the Emperor," and all the world should
know it!
If only she could escape from her detested husband she would be the
happiest woman on earth. But Napoleon on this point was adamant. In her
rage and rebellion she tore her hair, rolled on the floor, took drugs to
make her ill; and at last so succeeded in alarming her Imperial brother
that he summoned her back to France, where her army of lovers gave her a
warm welcome, and where she could indulge in any vanity and folly
unchecked.
Matters were now hastening to a tragic climax for Napoleon and the
family he had raised from slumdom in Marseilles to crowns and coronets.
Josephine had been divorced, to Pauline's undisguised joy; and her place
had been taken by Marie Louise, the proud Austrian, whom she liked at
least as little. When Napoleon fell from his throne, she alone of all
his sisters helped to cheer his exile in Elba; for the brother she loved
and feared was the only man to whom Pauline's fickle heart was ever
true. She even stripped herself of all her jewels to make the way smooth
back to his crown. And when at last news came to her at Rome of his
death at St Helena it was she who shed the bitterest tears and refused
to be comforted. That an empire was lost, was nothing compared with the
loss of the brother who had always been so lenient to her failings, so
responsive to her love.
Two years later her own end came at Florence. When she felt the cold
hand of death on her, she called feebly for a mirror, that she might
look for the last time on her beauty. "Thank God," she whispered, as she
gazed, "I am still lovely! I am ready to die." A few moments later, with
the mirror still clutched in her hand, and her eyes still feasting on
the charms which time and death itself were powerless to dim, died
Pauline Bonaparte, sister of an Emperor and herself an Empress by the
right of her incomparable beauty.