PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--The Prince Borghese has lately been appointed a captain of the
Imperial Guard of his Imperial brother-in-law, Napoleon the First, and is
now in Germany, making his first campaign. A descendant of a wealthy and
ancient Roman family, but born with a weak understanding, he was easily
deluded into the ranks of the revolutionists of his own country, by a
Parisian Abbe, his instructor and governor, and gallant of the Princesse
Borghese, his mother. He was the first secretary of the first Jacobin
club established at Rome, in the spring of 1798; and in December of the
same year, when the Neapolitan troops invaded the Ecclesiastical States,
he, with his present brother-in-law, another hopeful Roman Prince, Santa
Cruce, headed the Roman sans-culottes in their retreat. To show his love
of equality, he had previously served as a common man in a company of
which the captain was a fellow that sold cats’ meat and tripe in the
streets of Rome, and the lieutenant a scullion of his mother’s kitchen.
Since Imperial aristocracy is now become the order of the day, he is as
insupportable for his pride and vanity as he, some years ago, was
contemptible for his meanness. He married, in 1803, Madame Leclerc, who,
between the death of a first and a wedding with a second husband--a space
of twelve months--had twice been in a fair way to become a mother. Her
portion was estimated at eighteen millions of livres--a sum sufficient to
palliate many ‘faux pas’ in the eyes of a husband more sensible and more
delicate than her present Serene Idiot, as she styles the Prince
Borghese.
The lady is the favourite sister of Napoleon, the ablest, but also the
most wicked of the female Bonapartes. She had, almost from her infancy,
passed through all the filth of prostitution, debauchery, and profligacy
before she attained her present elevation; rank, however, has not altered
her morals, but only procured her the means of indulging in new excesses.
Ever since the wedding night the Prince Borghese has been excluded from
her bed; for she declared frankly to him, as well as to her brother, that
she would never endure the approach of a man with a bad breath; though
many who, from the opportunities they have had of judging, certainly
ought to know, pretend that her own breath is not the sweetest in the
world. When her husband had marched towards the Rhine, she asked her
brother, as a favour, to procure the Prince Borghese, after a useless
life, a glorious death. This curious demand of a wife was, made in
Madame Bonaparte’s drawing-room, in the presence of fifty persons. “You
are always ‘etourdie’,” replied Napoleon, smiling.
If Bonaparte, however, overlooks the intrigues of his sisters, he is not
so easily pacified when any reports reach him inculpating the virtues of
his sisters-in-law. Some gallants of Madame Joseph Bonaparte have
already disappeared to return no more, or are wandering in the wilds of
Cayenne; but the Emperor is particularly attentive to everything
concerning the morality of Madame Louis, whose descendants are destined
to continue the Bonaparte dynasty. Two officers, after being cashiered,
were, with two of Madame Louis’s maids, shut up last month in the Temple,
and have not since been heard of, upon suspicion that the Princess
preferred their society to that of her husband.
Louis Bonaparte, whose constitution has been much impaired by his
debaucheries, was, last July, advised by his physicians to use the baths
at St. Amand. After his wife had accompanied him as far as Lille, she
went to visit one of her friends, Madame Ney, the wife of General Ney,
who commanded the camp near Montreuil. This lady resided in a castle
called Leek, in the vicinity, where dinners, concerts, balls, and other
festivities celebrated the arrival of the Princess; and to these the
principal officers of the camp were invited. One morning, about an hour
after the company had retired to bed, the whole castle was disturbed and
alarmed by an uproar in the anteroom of Princesse Louis’s bedchamber. On
coming to the scene of riot, two officers were found there fighting, and
the Princesse Louis, more than half undressed, came out and called the
sentries on duty to separate the combatants, who were both wounded. This
affair occasioned great scandal; and General Ney, after having put the
officers under arrest, sent a courier to Napoleon at Boulogne, relating
the particulars and demanding His Majesty’s orders. It was related and
believed as a fact that the quarrel originated about two of the maids of
the Princess (whose virtue was never suspected), with whom the officers
were intriguing. The Emperor ordered the culprits to be broken and
delivered up to his Minister of Police, who knew how to proceed. The
Princesse Louis also received an invitation to join her sister-in-law,
Madame Murat, then in the camp at Boulogne, and to remain under her care
until her husband’s return from St. Amand.
General Murat was then at Paris, and his lady was merely on a visit to
her Imperial brother, who made her responsible for Madame Louis, whom he
severely reprimanded for the misconduct of her maids. The bedrooms of
the two sisters were on the same floor. One night, Princesse Louis
thought she heard the footsteps of a person on the staircase, not like
those of a female, and afterwards the door of Madame Murat’s room opened
softly. This occurrence deprived her of all desire to sleep; and
curiosity, or perhaps revenge, excited her to remove her doubts
concerning the virtue of her guardian. In about an hour afterwards, she
stole into Madame Murat’s bedroom, by the way of their sitting-room, the
door in the passage being bolted. Passing her hand over the pillow, she
almost pricked herself with the strong beard of a man, and, screaming
out, awoke her sister, who inquired what she could want at such an
unusual hour.
“I believe,” replied the Princess, “my room is haunted. I have not shut
my eyes, and intended to ask for a place by your side, but I find it is
already engaged:
“My maid always sleeps with me when my husband is absent,” said Madame
Murat.
“It is very rude of your maid to go to bed with her mistress without
first shaving herself,” said the Princess, and left the room.
The next morning an explanation took place; the ladies understood each
other, and each, during the remaining part of her husband’s absence, had
for consolation a maid for a bedfellow. Madame Murat also convinced the
Emperor that his suspicions with regard to the Princesse Louis were
totally unfounded; and he with some precious presents, indemnified her
for his harsh treatment.
It is reported that the two maids of the Princesse Louis, when before
Fouche, first denied all acquaintance with the officers; but, being
threatened with tortures, they signed a ‘proces verbal’, acknowledging
their guilt. This valuable and authentic document the Minister sent by
an extra courier to the Emperor, who showed it to his stepdaughter. Her
generosity is proverbial here, and therefore nobody is surprised that she
has given a handsome sum of money to the parents of her maids, who had in
vain applied to see their children; Fouche having told them that affairs
of State still required their confinement. One of them, Mariothe, has
been in the service of the Princess ever since her marriage, and is known
to possess all her confidence; though during that period of four years
she has twice been in a state of pregnancy, through the condescending
attention of her princely master.