By J. B. Isabey. (Collection of M. Edmond Taigny.) This portrait in crayon, lightly touched with color, was executed at Malmaison, probably in the course of the year 1798. It is very little known. Isabey, whose pencil was quick and sure, must have requested Josephine to pose for a few minutes after a walk in the park. This sketch was given to M. Taigny by Isabey himself.—A. D.
Not only did Josephine neglect to write to this “best husband in the world”, as she herself called Bonaparte, but she spent many hours at Milan in conspicuous flirtations with young officers who were glad enough to pay her court. Vague rumors of these flirtations came to Napoleon’s ears, no doubt, though it is certain he thought little of them. There are references in his letters which might be attributed to jealousy, but it is clear that his confidence in Josephine at this time was such that a denial from her, an aggrieved look, a tear of reproach, made him sue for pardon and forget his fears.
Aside from her carelessness about writing to him, the gravest complaint that he had against her was her willingness to receive valuable gifts. The treasures of Italy were open to the French, and Bonaparte was sending quantities of rare art objects to Paris; but he declared it highly improper that any of these things or any private gifts should go to him or his suite. Josephine, however, had no scruples about gifts, and accepted gladly the jewels, pictures, and bibelots which were sent her. More than one scene resulted from this indiscretion, but it always ended in her keeping the treasure. She learned before she had been long in Italy not to tell the General what had been given her, or if he accused her of receiving gifts, to deny it.
But unhappy as Josephine made Bonaparte in his absence by her neglect and her flirtations, she more than compensated for it by her amiability when he returned. He had reason soon, too, to see that by her tact she did much to help his cause in Italy. She was the embodiment of grace and cheerfulness, she was familiar with the ways of good society, she had tact with the republican element of the country, which prided itself on its ideals and patriotism, and she appeased the nobles, who felt that she was one of them. Napoleon had reason to say of Josephine’s influence in Italy what he said later of her influence in Paris—that without it, he could never have accomplished what he did. Her value in his plans was particularly evident in the spring and summer of 1797, which they passed together, partly at the palace of Serbelloni and partly at the chateau of Montebello. Their life at this time was rather that of two crowned heads than that of a general of an army and his wife. They lived in the greatest state, protected by strict etiquette and surrounded by the officers of the army of Italy and representatives from Austria and the Italian states. Audiences with the General were daily sought by the greatest men of Italy. In all this pageant of power Josephine moved as naturally and easily as if she had been born to it. On every side she won friends; no one came to the chateau who did not go away to praise her good taste, her simplicity, her anxiety to please. She never interfered in politics either, they said, though she was ever willing to help a friend in securing the General’s favor; and all this praise was deserved. Josephine’s good will was born of a kind heart. It was not merely the complacency of indolence; she had no malice, she felt kindly toward the whole world, she had all her life been willing to exhaust every resource in her power for her friends. She was willing to do so now, and she remained of this disposition to the end of her life. Such a character makes a man or woman loved in any age, in any society, whatever his faults. It made Josephine loved particularly in her age and her society, where genuine kindness was rare and where her peculiar faults—vices, perhaps one should say—were readily overlooked, particularly if they were handled discreetly.
The fall of 1797, Napoleon passed in negotiations with Austria. For a time Josephine was with him. Then restless and eager to see Italy, she left him in October and went to Venice, where a splendid reception was given her. From there she travelled as her fancy dictated in Northern Italy. Everywhere she went she was received royally, and loaded with gifts. She did not reach Paris until the first of January, 1798, nearly a month after Napoleon.
She came back to find her husband the most talked of man in Europe. She found, too, that her return was eagerly looked for because the General absolutely refused to be lionized—even to appear at public functions, without her. Her coming was thus the signal for a round of gaieties, where, it must be confessed, Bonaparte played rather the part of a bear. He would not leave Josephine’s side; he wanted to talk with her alone, and he openly declared that he would rather stay at home with her than go to the most brilliant reception Paris could offer. “I love my wife,” he said seriously to those who chaffed him or remonstrated. With all his dreams of ambition, it is certain that she filled his life as completely now as she had nearly two years before, when he married her. As for Josephine herself, she seems to have been completely satisfied now that she was in Paris. She was the centre of an admiring circle; she was loaded daily with presents, not only from cities and statesmen, but from shop-keepers and manufacturers, eager to have her approval, to use her name. Not since her marriage had she been so contented.
This satisfactory state of affairs was interrupted in May, when Bonaparte sailed for Egypt. Josephine went to Toulon to see him off, promising that she would soon follow him, and then retired to the springs at Plombières for a season. It was fall before she returned to Paris. When she did return, it was to plunge into a round of frivolity and extravagance. The most conspicuous of her indiscretions was the attentions she accepted from a young man—Hippolyte Charles—a former adjutant to one of Napoleon’s generals. She had known him before she went to Italy; indeed he had been in her party when she left for Milan in 1796. At Milan he had paid her so assiduous court and had been so encouraged that the news came to Napoleon’s ears, and Charles was suddenly dismissed from the service. He had found a place in Paris—through Josephine’s influence, the gossips said. At all events, this young man reappeared now that Bonaparte was in Egypt, and became a constant visitor at her house; and when, the summer following, she bought Malmaison and took possession, Charles was her first guest. “You had better get a divorce from Bonaparte and marry Charles,” some of her plain-speaking friends told her.
When people as little scrupulous as Josephine herself reproved her, it can be imagined what the effect would be on the Bonaparte family, most of whom were now established in or near Paris. They had never cared for Josephine, and never had had much to do with her. Lucien and Joseph were the only members of the family who had seen her before her marriage to Napoleon, and to all of them the marriage came as a shock, Bonaparte not having announced it even to his mother. They looked upon her as an interloper—one who might deprive them of some of the rewards of Bonaparte’s genius: these rewards the entire family seem to have felt from the first belonged to them and to them alone. No one of them had had, until this winter, much opportunity to study Josephine. They were irritated to find her so evidently a woman of higher rank than themselves; they were disgusted at her extravagance and indiscretion. Josephine, on her side, took little trouble to win them. After all, they were only Corsicans, and not amusing like Napoleon. No doubt, she felt a little towards them as Alexander de Beauharnais had felt towards her when she first arrived in Paris—an untrained little islander, the province speaking in every gesture. To Josephine’s credit, let it be said, she never was guilty of trying to undermine the place of his family in her husband’s affections; she never opposed their advancement; she always, to the best of her ability, aided Napoleon in any plans he had for them. It is much more than can be said of the Bonapartes’ attitude towards the Beauharnais.
Shocking to the Bonapartes as were Josephine’s flirtations, they looked on her extravagance with even more horror. To Madame Bonaparte, especially, it was an unforgivable sin; and, in fact, extravagance could scarcely have gone farther. Bonaparte was not rich. Indeed he prided himself on having returned from Italy poor. But he had left a fair income in his brother Joseph’s hands—a part of which was to go to Josephine. She, in utter disregard of the amount of this income, lived in luxury, entertaining royally, and buying prodigally everything that pleased her fancy. To meet her pressing demands, she borrowed right and left. Finally, in the summer of 1799, she purchased Malmaison, a country seat at which she and Napoleon had looked before he left for Egypt. The purchasing price was about $50,000, and she had to borrow $3,000 for the advance payment. She went immediately to the place, running in debt for repairs and furnishings.
Joseph Bonaparte was deeply disgusted by Josephine’s reckless expenditures, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that she was able to get any money from him. He was the more disobliging because he and other members of the family believed that they now had proofs which surely would convince Napoleon that Josephine was faithless and would cause him to secure a divorce as soon as he returned from Italy. And, indeed their cause had already advanced in Egypt far beyond their knowledge. Joseph had, before Napoleon’s sailing, put such suspicions of Josephine’s infidelity into his mind and referred him to such members of his own staff for proof, that the General once at sea had investigated the matter and become convinced of the truth of the charges. The revelation caused him weeks of gloom. There was nothing left to live for, he wrote Joseph. At twenty-nine he was disillusioned. Honors wearied him, glory was colorless, sentiment dead, men without interest. He should return to France and retire to the country. But he could not abandon his post at once, and as the weeks went on recklessness succeeded to gloom. If his wife was faithless, why should he be faithful? From that time Josephine’s exclusive sway was broken. The man who had for her sake spurned all women rode openly through the streets of Cairo with a pretty little madame whose husband had been sent suddenly to France. The glory of love was gone forever for Bonaparte, and poor Josephine had lost the rarest jewel of her life. Perhaps the saddest of it all was that she had never realized what she possessed, never knew her loss.
How much Josephine knew of her husband’s change of feeling towards her is uncertain. There is a letter in existence purporting to be hers, written at this time in answer to accusations which Napoleon had made from Egypt, in which she repels the charges with virtuous indignation and attributes them to her enemies, presumably the Bonapartes:—
It is impossible, General (she writes), that the letter I have just received comes from you? I can scarcely credit it when I compare that letter with others now before me, to which your love imparts so many charms! My eyes, indeed, would persuade me that your hand traced these lines; but my heart refuses to believe that a letter from you could ever have caused the mortal anguish I experience on perusing these expressions of your displeasure, which afflict me the more when I consider how much pain they must have cost you.
I know not what I have done to provoke some malignant enemy to destroy my peace by disturbing yours; but certainly a powerful motive must influence some one in continually renewing calumnies against me, and giving them a sufficient appearance of probability to impose on the man who has hitherto judged me worthy of his affection and confidence. These two sentiments are necessary to my happiness, and if they are to be so soon withdrawn from me, I can only regret that I was ever blest in possessing them or knowing you....
Instead of listening to traducers, who, for reasons which I cannot explain, seek to disturb our happiness, why do you not silence them by enumerating the benefits you have bestowed on a woman whose heart could never be reproached with ingratitude? The knowledge of what you have done for my children would check the malignity of these calumniators, for they would then see that the strongest link of my attachment for you depends on my character as a mother. Your subsequent conduct, which has claimed the admiration of all Europe, could have no other effect than to make me adore the husband who gave me his hand when I was poor and unfortunate. Every step you take adds to the glory of the name I bear; yet this is the moment that has been selected for persuading you that I no longer love you! Surely nothing can be more wicked and absurd than the conduct of those who are about you, and are jealous of your marked superiority!
Yes, I still love you, and no less tenderly than ever. Those who allege the contrary know that they speak falsely. To those very persons I have frequently written to enquire about you and to recommend them to console you by their friendship for the absence of her who is your best and truest friend.
Yet what has been the conduct of the men in whom you repose confidence, and on whose testimony you form so unjust an opinion of me? They conceal from you every circumstance calculated to alleviate the anguish of our separation, and they seek to fill your mind with suspicion in order to drive you from a country with which they are dissatisfied. Their object is to make you unhappy. I see this plainly, though you are blind to their perfidious intentions. Being no longer their equal, you have become their enemy, and every one of your victories is a fresh ground of envy and hatred.
I know their intrigues, and I disdain to avenge myself by naming the men whom I despise, but whose valor and talents may be useful to you in the great enterprise which you have so propitiously commenced. When you return, I will unmask these enemies of your glory—but no; the happiness of seeing you again will banish from my recollection the misery they are endeavoring to inflict upon me, and I shall think only of what they have done to promote the success of your projects.
I acknowledge that I see a great deal of company; for every one is eager to compliment me on your success, and I confess I have not resolution to close my door against those who speak of you. I also confess that a great portion of my visitors are gentlemen. Men understand your bold projects better than women, and they speak with enthusiasm of your glorious achievements, while my female friends only complain of you for having carried away their husbands, brothers or fathers. I take no pleasure in their society if they do not praise you; yet there are some among them whose hearts and understandings claim my highest regard because they entertain sincere friendship for you. In this number I may distinguish Mesdames d’Aiguillon, Tallien, and my aunt. They are almost constantly with me, and they can tell you, ungrateful as you are, whether I have been coquetting with everybody. These are your words, and they would be hateful to me were I not certain that you have disavowed them and are sorry for having written them....
I sometimes receive honors here which cause me no small degree of embarrassment. I am not accustomed to this sort of homage, and I see it is displeasing to our authorities, who are always suspicious and fearful of losing their newly-gotten power. Never mind them, you will say; and I should not, but that I know they will try to injure you, and I cannot endure the thought of contributing in any way to those feelings of enmity which your triumphs sufficiently account for. If they are envious now, what will they be when you return crowned with fresh laurels? Heavens knows to what lengths their malignity will then carry them! But you will be here, and then nothing can vex me....
For my part, my time is occupied in writing to you, hearing your praises, reading the journals, in which your name appears in every page, thinking of you, looking forward to the time when I may see you hourly, complaining of your absence, and longing for your return; and when my task is ended, I begin it over again. Are all these proofs of indifference? You will never have any others from me, and if I receive no worse from you, I shall have no great reason to complain, in spite of the ill-natured stories I hear about a certain lady in whom you are said to take a lively interest. But why should I doubt you? You assure me that you love me, and, judging of your heart by my own, I believe you.
Josephine seems not to have doubted her power to propitiate Napoleon on his return. She did not count, however, on his brothers seeing him before she did; but so it turned out. Bonaparte, with an eye to effect, landed unexpectedly in France on October 6, 1799. The Bonaparte brothers, as soon as they heard of his arrival, hurried southward without notifying Josephine, whose first knowledge of his coming was while she was dining out on October 10. She immediately started to meet him, but took the wrong route. Returning to Paris alone, she found that her husband had reached home twelve hours ahead of her.
Hastening to the little house in the rue de la Victoire,—a street that had latterly changed its name in honor of him; and the house in which she had first received him, which he had bought subsequently because of its associations, and which he had declared, after his disillusion in Egypt, that he should always keep,—Josephine found Napoleon locked in his room. Joseph and Lucien had improved their opportunity, and wrung from him a promise to see his wife no more—to secure a divorce. Throwing herself on her knees before the door, Josephine wept and begged for hours, until the door opened; and then, aided by Hortense and Eugène, she sued for pardon. The power she still had over the man was too great for him to resist long. The next morning, when the Bonaparte brothers called, they found a reconciled household.
How complete the reconciliation was they realized when they saw Napoleon paying the $200,000 and more due at Malmaison and settling the debts to servants, merchants, jewelers, caterers, florists, liverymen, everybody, in fact, which Josephine had contracted right and left in his absence. Not only did he pay her obligations with little more than a grimace, but he entered heartily into her plans for repairing and beautifying their new home. The two appeared constantly together in public, where their evident happiness coming so close upon the rumors of a divorce, caused endless gossip.
CHAPTER IV
BONAPARTE IS MADE FIRST CONSUL—JOSEPHINE’S TACT IN PUBLIC LIFE—HER PERSONAL CHARM—MALMAISON
Josephine realized fully that if her victory over her brothers-in-law was complete, it could endure only during her own good behavior—that, if she ever again gave them reason for complaining of her conduct, she probably would have to suffer the full penalty of her wrongdoing. She must have realized, too, that the supreme power she had once exercised over Napoleon was at an end, that he could get along very well without her. The absorbing passion of the Italian campaign had become the comfortable, unexacting affection which would have been so welcome to her in 1796. The change, if more peaceable, brought its dangers, she well knew. It meant that if she kept him now, she not only must be irreproachable in her life, but she must foster his affection by her devotion, amuse him, stand by him in his ambition; she must be the suitor now. There was no question in her mind that he was worth it. If there ever had been, the wonderful enthusiasm of the people on his return from Egypt would have dissipated the doubt. Her course was evident, and she adopted it immediately, and applied herself to it with more seriousness than she ever had given to anything before in her life. Indeed, the only serious purpose consistently followed which is to be found in Josephine’s life is the resolve taken after the Egyptian campaign, unconsciously, no doubt, to keep what remained to her of Napoleon’s affection, to make herself necessary to him.
An opportunity to show him how useful she might be in his career came very soon. The coup d’état of the 18th and 19th Brumaire (9th and 10th November, 1799) resulted in Napoleon’s being made First Consul in the new government which took the place of the Directory. The Bonapartes went at once to the Luxembourg Palace to live, and remained there until February, when the Tuileries was made the Government House. As the First Lady of the Land, Josephine was in a position where she could be an infinite harm or help to her husband. Any flippancy, self-will, or malice in managing the crowds of people she saw from day to day would have been fatal both to her and to Napoleon. The tact she showed from the first in playing the hostess of France was exquisite. That a woman who for thirty-seven years had been the plaything of fate, who had shown no moral principle or high purpose in meeting the crises of her life, whose chief aim had always been pleasure, and whose only weapons had been her sweet temper and her tears, should preside over the official society of a newly-formed government and not only make no mistakes, but every day knit the discordant elements of that society more close, is one of the marvels of feminine intuition and adaptability.
No doubt but that with Josephine her perfect goodness of heart was at the bottom of her tact. She had no malice, she much preferred to see even her enemies happy rather than miserable, and though she might weep and complain of their unkindness, if she had an opportunity she would do them a favor. Her goodness impressed everybody. The most disgruntled, after passing a few moments with the wife of the First Consul, went away mollified, if not satisfied; and a second visit usually satisfied them. She flattered the rough soldiers, when Napoleon, always eager to show attention to the army, presented them to her, by her knowledge of their deeds. She softened the suspicions of the radical Republicans by her affectation of sans-culottism and her familiarity with the members of the Girondin and Terrorist governments. She aroused hope among the aristocrats that she would secure them favors from the government—was she not one of themselves? Was not her first husband a viscount and a victim of the guillotine. She really wanted everybody to be pleased, and by her mere amiability she came as near as a human being can to pleasing everybody.
She was wise, too, in her dealings with people. She never pretended to know anything about politics—that was Napoleon’s business; but if she could do them a favor, she would; and straightway she wrote a note or took her carriage to intercede, personally, for them. If she was refused, she explained with much pains just why it was; if she succeeded, she was as pleased as a child. Hundreds of her little notes soliciting favors, are to be seen in the collections in Europe. Napoleon allowed her a free hand in this matter, for he appreciated how purely it was good will, not any desire to mix in politics, which animated her. He realized, too, how valuable to the First Consul it was to have some one who always made a friend, whether she secured a favor or not.
No doubt much of Josephine’s influence was due to her personal charm. She was never strictly a beautiful woman, but her grace was so exquisite, her toilet so perfect, her expression so winning, that defects were forgotten in the delight of her personality. Madame de Remusat, in describing Josephine, says that without being beautiful, she possessed a peculiar charm. Her features were fine and harmonious; her expression was pleasant; her mouth, which was small, concealed skilfully her poor teeth; her complexion, which was rather dark, was helped out by rouge and powder; her form was perfect, her limbs being supple and delicate, and every movement of her body was easy. “I never knew anyone,” Mme. de Remusat writes, “to whom one could apply more appropriately La Fontaine’s verse, ‘Et la grâce, plus belle encore que la beauté.’”
One of Josephine’s greatest charms was her voice: it was soft, well modulated, and very musical; it always put Napoleon under a peculiar spell. She was an excellent reader, and seemed never to tire of reading aloud. In the intimacy of their apartments she spent much time reading aloud to Napoleon, and often, when he was sleepless after a hard day, she would sit by his bed with a book until he fell asleep. Many of those who heard her read have said that the charm of her voice was such that one forgot entirely what she was saying and listened simply to the music of the sound.
Constant says, in describing Josephine: “She was of medium height and of a rarely perfect form; her movements were supple and light, making her walk something fairylike, without preventing a certain majesty becoming to a sovereign; her face changed with every thought of her soul, and never lost its charming sweetness; in pleasure as in sorrow she was always beautiful to look upon. There never was a woman who demonstrated better than she that ‘the eyes are the mirror of the soul;’ hers were of a deep blue, and almost always half closed by her long lids, which were slightly arched and bordered with the most beautiful lashes in the world. Her hair was very beautiful, long and soft; she liked to dress it in the morning with a red Madras handkerchief, which gave her a Creole air, most piquant to see.”
By Prud’hon. This charming portrait, which is one of Prud’hon’s most successful works, and also one of the most graceful and faithful likenesses of Josephine, was doubtless executed at the same time as Isabey’s picture of Napoleon wandering, a solitary dreamer, in the long alleys at Malmaison (1798). (See page 88.) Prud’hon shows us Josephine in the garden of the château she loved so well, and in which she spent the happiest moments of her life, before seeking it as a final refuge in her grief and despair. The empress presents a full-length portrait, turned to the left; she is seated on a stone bench amid the groves of the park, in an attitude of reverie, and wears a white décolletté robe embroidered in gold. A crimson shawl is draped round her.—A. D.
Josephine showed her wisdom, from the beginning of the Consulate, in yielding to Napoleon’s wishes about whom she should receive. The First Consul’s notions of official society were severe and well-matured. Nobody should be admitted that did not support his government. At least, if they criticised, they must do so quietly. The army must be honored there before all. The Republicans must be made to feel, of course, that this was their society. The aristocrats must be encouraged just as far as it could be done without giving the people alarm. A fusion of all elements was really what he aimed at, but nobody dared mention that fact. Josephine’s intuition seems to have guided her almost unerringly through the difficult task of giving just the right amount of encouragement and attention to each.
Above all, in this new society there must be no irregularities, no scandals. The government must be respectable. There should be no speculators, no contractors, no fakirs, no persons of immorality of any sort; only honest people, and they must behave. Order, decency, and dignity were to prevail in the Consulate. No more impromptu suppers for Josephine, no more dinners with Barras and Mme. Tallien and their like, no more moonlight walks in the garden at Malmaison. La vie Bohème was ended, and she was wise enough to accept the situation and make the most of it.
For nearly two years the entertainments over which Josephine presided as wife of the First Consul were very simple. There were balls and parades and fêtes, but they were conducted like such functions in a great private house, where there is only the necessary etiquette to insure order and comfort. It was a republican court which was held at the Tuileries and at Malmaison—for the country home of the Bonapartes had come to be almost an official residence, so much of their time was spent there and so many were the visitors who came there. The place was a great delight to Josephine. She was having the chateau rebuilt and the gardens laid out over again, and she was indulging her caprices fully in doing it. She must have a new dining-room, large enough to seat a great diplomatic dinner party, if necessary. There must be a new billiard room, a new library, new private apartments, more room for guests and servants, more stable room. But to build over an old house in this elaborate way was no easy task, particularly when the proprietor enlarged and changed his plans each month. The architects warned Bonaparte that it would be cheaper to pull down the old chateau than to rebuild, but the work was under way, and it must go on. A year and a half after the repairs began, and before anything was completed, the bills were sent in—$120,000 had already been spent. “For what?” demanded the enraged First Consul. Protest as he would the work had to continue. For years Malmaison was a constant expense—for Josephine, never satisfied, was always enlarging and changing. In the end, the chateau was nearly double its original size, but its exterior never had any real distinction. The interior, however, was most interesting from the great number of rare and beautiful art objects which it contained and which, for the most part, Josephine had either received as gifts or had brought from Italy. There was a wonderful mantel of white marble, ornamented with mosaic, given to her by the Pope, and there were vases of Berlin from the King of Prussia. There were rare specimens of the ancient and modern works of all the Italian painters, sculptors, potters, metal workers, and there were pictures by all the great French artists of the day, among them many portraits of Napoleon—in Egypt, in Italy, crossing the Alps.
Josephine took even more interest in the park and gardens at Malmaison than in the chateau. She was passionately fond of flowers, and immediately undertook to cultivate at Malmaison a garden of rare plants, similar to that which Marie Antoinette had started at the Petit Trianon. This soon became, at the suggestion of the professional botanists she called in to assist her in collecting her plants, a veritable Botanical Garden. She gathered from the world over, and her fancy becoming known, ambassadors, merchants, and travellers, foreign and French, exerted themselves to please her. In the end, thanks to the skilful gardeners she secured, her plants became of large public value and interest. Masson says that between 1804 and 1814, 184 new species of plants found their way into the country through Josephine’s garden. The eucalyptus, hybiscus, catalpa, and camelia were first cultivated by her, not to speak of many varieties of heather, myrtle, geranium, cactus, and rhododendron.
When she first owned Malmaison, the land was in park or in vines, and there were some long avenues of fine trees. There was none of the complicated English gardening which was then in fashion. Josephine would have nothing else. So the fine allées and lawns were destroyed, and groups of shrubs, long rows of hedges, a brook, lakes, winding paths, a Swiss village, a temple of love, grottoes, a cascade, an endless variety of artificial and sentimental devices, took their place. To decorate this park of Malmaison to Josephine’s liking, the government turned over to her dozens of bronze and marble busts, vases, columns, and statues, some of them of great value.
One curious and amusing feature of the park was the animals it contained. Josephine was as fond of pets as of flowers. She always had one or more dogs from which she was never separated—not even Napoleon could make her give them up, much as he detested them. At Malmaison, she gave free rein to her liking. Birds were her chief delight, and she bought scores. In three years her bill for birds from one dealer was over $4,500. The lakes were filled with swans, black and white, and ducks from America and China; in the parks were kangaroos, deer, gazelles, a chamois; there were monkeys everywhere; and there were no end of trained pets of all kinds—usually gifts. None of these animals were of any practical use; to be sure there was a flock of valuable sheep, but these were kept merely as a decoration to a certain field, the shepherds who guarded them having been brought in their native costumes from Switzerland.
MALMAISON.
Josephine’s interest in her garden and flowers and animals was beyond that of the mere prodigal who buys for the sake of buying and loses his interest in possessing. One of the delights of her life at Malmaison was visiting daily her animals, in each of which she took the liveliest interest. Her flowers she watched carefully, and she took great delight in distributing them. Many gardens in France to-day contain plants and trees which are said to be grown from cuttings sent to some dead-and-gone ancestor by Josephine.
During the first two years of the Consulate, in spite of all the changes going on, Malmaison was the source of much brilliant life. Here when the news of Marengo reached Paris, Josephine had tents spread, and gave a great fête in honor of the victory; here gathered all the artists and writers and musicians of the day; here eminent travellers came. There was great simplicity in all entertaining, and when only the private circle of the Consul was present, there was much went on which looked like romping, Bonaparte and Josephine leading in the games.
The favorite amusement was private theatricals. Bonaparte was very fond of the drama, had studied it carefully for many years, and he gave much attention to the performances at Malmaison. The little company there was very good, Hortense de Beauharnais and Bourrienne, Bonaparte’s secretary, being actors of more than ordinary ability. Something of the care that was given to the preparation of an entertainment is indicated by the fact that Talma himself used to come to the rehearsals to criticise. Theatricals took such a place in the life at Malmaison that finally a little theatre was built. It would seat perhaps 200 persons, and was connected with the salons of the chateau by a long gallery.
At the Tuileries, the Bonapartes were in a Government House; at Malmaison they were at home, and they never anywhere were so gay, so busy, and so happy together. Certainly in these two years Josephine succeeded admirably in her purpose of repairing the mischief she had done by her past indiscretions. It was not alone her tact in society and its value to him which had won Napoleon. It was that she had been to him an incessant delight and comfort. She yielded to his will unquestioningly and willingly, and this pliability was the more welcome because his own family were in incessant opposition to his wishes. She was always on hand, ready to walk, to drive, to go with him where he would. She was tireless in her efforts to please the people he wanted pleased, to carry off successfully the burdensome functions of official life, to provide the entertainment he liked. She studied his tastes and foresaw his wants. She tried to please him in the least detail. Napoleon loved to see her in white, hence she wore no other kind of gown so often. He liked to hear her read, and no matter how tired she was she would sit at his bedside by the hour, if he wished, and read uncomplainingly. Little wonder that as the weeks went Josephine grew dearer and dearer to Napoleon or that she, seeing her hold, watched carefully that nothing loosen it.
CHAPTER V
THE QUESTION OF SUCCESSION—MARRIAGE OF HORTENSE—JOSEPHINE EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE—THE CORONATION
The first real threat to Josephine’s position came in a political question. In order to give an appearance of stability to the new government, it was proposed to give the First Consul the right to appoint a successor. But if Napoleon had this right, would he not wish for a son upon whom to confer it, would he not desire to establish a hereditary office? Josephine had given him no children. He was only thirty-one; might he not, in spite of all his affection, divorce her for the sake of this succession, which, he declared, was essential to the future of the Consulate. Josephine turned all her power of cajoling upon Napoleon. “Do not make yourself king,” she begged; and when he laughed at her, and told her that securing to himself the right to appoint a successor in the Consulate was nothing of that sort—only a device to prevent the overthrow of the government in case of his absence at the head of the army, or in case of his sudden death, she was not convinced. She began, indeed, to talk of the advisability of bringing back the Bourbons, and called herself a royalist.
Napoleon’s decision was taken, however. He must appoint a successor, and it should be one of his own family. But which one? Joseph had no head for affairs. With Lucien he had quarreled. But there was Louis, who had none of his brothers’ faults and all of their good qualities. Louis it should be. The knowledge that Napoleon undoubtedly favored Louis as his successor determined Josephine to arrange a marriage between him and her daughter Hortense.
At this time, 1800, Hortense was seventeen years old, though the exceptional experiences of her childhood had given her a thoughtfulness quite superior to her years. She had been but ten when her mother, lest a suspicion of her patriotism might be roused because she brought up her children in idleness, had apprenticed her to a dressmaker. She was but eleven years old when her parents were imprisoned, and when in the costumes of laborers’ children she and Eugène had made frequent visits to les Carmes and had gone together more than once to beg of persons in authority for the lives of their father and mother. After the Revolution, Hortense had been placed in Mme. Campan’s school at St. Germain—a school established to give the young girls of the better class whose parents had been scattered or guillotined in the Revolution, an opportunity to learn the ways and the graces of that society which for so long the patriots had been trying to uproot. At Mme. Campan’s, Hortense had distinguished herself by her gentleness and her goodness, by the quickness with which she learned everything taught, and by her enthusiasm and ideals. She had left the school a thoroughly charming and accomplished girl, to join her mother, now the wife of the First Consul. She had all of Josephine’s charms of person, her grace and suppleness, her beautiful form, her interesting and mobile face; but she was more vivacious than Josephine and more intelligent. As for her accomplishments, they were many. She played the piano and the harp, and sang well. Her drawing and embroidery were not bad, as many specimens still preserved show. She danced with exquisite grace; she, even at this time, had literary aspirations, and she was the star of the company which put on so many pieces at the little theatre at Malmaison.
Hortense was a favorite of Napoleon. He had loved her first because she was Josephine’s daughter. After she left school and was constantly of the household, he grew more and more attached to her, more and more anxious for her happiness. Hortense, though she never ceased to fear Napoleon, loved him with the enthusiasm of a young girl for a conquering hero. She seems never to have questioned his will—never to have doubted his affection for her.
Hortense’s marriage was, of course, an important question with the Bonapartes, and various suitors had been considered. The girl herself was not ambitious. Neither wealth nor station obscured her judgment. She wanted to marry for love, she declared. At one time she had a strong feeling for Duroc, and Napoleon favored the marriage strongly. Duroc was of good family and a brave soldier, and Hortense loved him; what better? Josephine opposed it. She had set her heart on Louis Bonaparte, in spite of the fact that Hortense felt something like an antipathy to the young man. Louis himself did not take to the marriage at first. He had imbibed from his mother and brothers the idea that the Beauharnais were the natural enemies of the Bonapartes, and a marriage with Hortense they all declared, would be disloyal. However, in September, 1801, when Louis returned to Paris after several months absence and saw Hortense at a ball, he was so impressed by her charm that he yielded at once to Josephine’s wishes, and asked for her hand. Napoleon consented with a little regret; Hortense obeyed as a matter of duty, urged to it as she was both by her mother and Mme. Campan. The marriage took place early in January, 1802. It was a victory for Josephine over the Bonapartes, so her friends said, and so the Bonapartes felt bitterly. But, alas, it was a victory for which Hortense paid the price. Before the end of the year, it was evident that Mme. Louis Bonaparte was very unhappy; her husband was jealous and exacting, and constantly tried to turn her against her mother in the family feud. Not even the birth of a son, in October, silenced his grievances for long, though to Napoleon and to Josephine the coming of the little Napoleon-Charles, as he was named, was an inexpressible joy. To Josephine the child was a new support to her position, a new reason why a succession could be established without divorcing her and re-marrying. It was a succession through her, too, since this was her daughter’s child.
Napoleon himself soon became more devoted to the child than its father ever was. In a way, his own ardent desire for fatherhood was satisfied by the presence of the baby, which he kept by him as much as he could, riding it on his back, trotting it on his foot, rolling with it on the floor, lying beside it at night until it slept—a touching proof of this extraordinary man’s passion to possess a love which was faithful and disinterested. As time went on and the question of the succession came into the senate, the struggle between the brothers as to how the heredity should be regulated reached its climax. Napoleon determined to adopt Hortense’s child and make him his heir. Joseph, Lucien, and Louis himself refused to resign what they called their rights, and each had important supporters in his position. Lucien, in the struggle, broke entirely with Napoleon.
But if the succession was to be settled to Josephine’s satisfaction, there were other matters which worried her at the beginning of the life Consulate. Chief among these was that Napoleon insisted upon leaving Malmaison for St. Cloud. Josephine’s interest in the former place was so great, her life there had been so happy, that she was violently opposed to any change. St. Cloud was too large; it smacked too much of royalty, the idea of which was awaking such vague alarms in her mind; its associations were too sad. But her opposition availed nothing whatever. Bonaparte felt that a larger residence was necessary. Malmaison was a private home, St. Cloud belonged to the State, and he, as the head of the State, wished to occupy its palaces. They had no sooner taken St. Cloud than their whole mode of life changed; the simple, informal ways of Malmaison were laid aside, and a rigid etiquette adopted. There is a governor of the palace, there are prefects of the palace, there are ladies of the palace. Josephine and Napoleon no longer receive everybody of the household at their table, but eat alone, inviting, two or three times a week, those persons whom they may care particularly to distinguish. The ladies and gentlemen belonging to the palace have tables of their own quite apart. There is a military household annexed to St. Cloud, with four generals and a large guard, an elaborate suite which accompanies the First Consul when he goes forth. Every Sunday, a great crowd of dignitaries—senators, cardinals, bishops, ambassadors, everybody of note in Paris—flock to the First Consul’s receptions. After paying their respects to him, they pass into the apartment of Madame Bonaparte. It is the former apartment of Marie Antoinette, and that Queen herself did not receive in more state than the wife of the First Consul. It is the same at the services in the chapel, which are held every Sunday, and which Bonaparte insists everybody shall attend. At the theatre of the palace, where the little plays which they so much enjoyed at Malmaison are still repeated, there is the same increase of etiquette. Josephine and Bonaparte no longer are seated with their friends, but occupy a loge apart; and when they enter, the whole assembly rises and salutes. People are there by invitation, too, and no one pretends to applaud unless the signal is given by the First Consul.
Day by day Josephine bemoaned this new departure; and as hostile criticisms and sneers reached her, she set her face against the changes. Her protests were useless: “Josephine, you are tiresome—you know nothing about these things,” Napoleon finally told her, and Fouché, her friend, finally silenced her by his cynical advice. “Be quiet, Madame; you annoy your husband uselessly. He will be Consul for life, King or Emperor, all that he can be. Your fears disturb him; your advice would wound him. Keep your proper place, and let the events which neither you nor I know how to prevent work out.”
She did accept, and took her part. If it was true that Napoleon was going to make himself Emperor, she must, before all, so conduct herself that he would prefer her on the throne at his side to all the world. As the weeks went on and it became evident that an Empire would soon be proclaimed, Josephine had increasing need of discretion. The Bonaparte family had set themselves again to prevent the succession going to a Beauharnais. Josephine should be divorced, they said; Eugène, to whom Napoleon was greatly attached, should be sent off with his mother. As for his adopting little Napoleon-Charles, the child of Hortense, neither Joseph nor Louis, the father, would hear to it. “Why should I give up to my son a part of your succession?” said Louis to his brother. “What have I done that I should be disinherited? What will be my place when this child has become yours and finds himself in a position far superior to mine, independent of me, outranking me, looking upon me with suspicion and perhaps with contempt? No, I will never consent to it, and rather than consent to bow my head before my son I will leave France; I will take Napoleon away with me, and we will see if you will dare to steal a child from his father.”
Napoleon’s sisters, particularly Caroline, Mme. Murat, were no less determined than the brothers to secure all the advantages possible from his glory. In their eagerness, they showed such envy and bitterness that Napoleon was deeply disgusted, and gave them no satisfaction as to his intentions. He even took some pains to tease them. One day when the family were together and he was playing with little Napoleon, he said, “Do you know, little one, that you are in danger of being King one of these days?”
“And Achille?” Murat exclaimed, referring to his own son.
“Oh, Achille will make a good soldier,” answered Napoleon laughing, and when he saw the black looks of both Caroline and Murat, he added: “At all events, my poor little one, I advise you, if you want to live, to accept no meals that your cousins offer you.”
In spite of all the plotting and protesting of the Bonapartes, Josephine was proclaimed Empress, and the law of succession was passed as it pleased Napoleon:—“The French people desire the inheritance of the Imperial dignity in the direct natural or adoptive line of descent from Napoleon Bonaparte and in the direct natural, legitimate line of descent from Joseph Bonaparte and from Louis Bonaparte.” Napoleon was free to adopt either Eugène or Napoleon-Charles and make him his heir. The law mentioned neither Joseph nor Louis as heir. Josephine’s victory in this instance was as much due to the fact that she had made no protests about the succession and had asked nothing, as to anything else. Her seeming confidence (as a matter of fact, she feared the worst for herself) and her generous pleasure in the satisfaction those about took in their new honors offered such a contrast to the jealousy and faultfinding of the Bonapartes that Napoleon felt more and more, as he had often said to her in family quarrels: “You are my only comfort, Josephine.” Not only Josephine, but Hortense and Eugène showed themselves in all this period wise and generous. The two latter apparently felt sincerely that Napoleon did more for them than they had a right to expect. The gratitude and disinterestedness they showed was indeed one of the few real satisfactions of Napoleon’s life, for he seems to have believed always that they were genuine, something he never felt about the expressions of his own family.
Not only was the law of succession fixed to Josephine’s satisfaction; but to her unspeakable joy, Napoleon finally told her that she was to be crowned at the same time as he. In the new government she had no political rights, but in this supreme ceremony she should share. Here again it may have been as much family opposition as love for Josephine and desire to associate her with himself in this greatest of royal spectacles that finally led Napoleon to this decision. Just as before the proclamation of the Empire the Bonapartes quarreled about the succession, now they tormented the Emperor about their positions and their privileges. “One would think,” he said testily one day to Caroline, when she was upbraiding him for not according to his sisters the honors due them, “that I had robbed you of the inheritance of the late King, our father.” Joseph did not hesitate to say sarcastic things, even in official gatherings, about the impropriety of crowning a woman who had given her husband no successor. Napoleon stood it for some time, and finally in a violent outburst of passion silenced him at least for the time. The announcement that Josephine was to be crowned, and that her sisters-in-law were to carry the train of her robe, caused still further heart-burnings, but the fiat had gone forth and everybody finally submitted.
However, the new court was too busy in the summer and fall of 1804 to give overmuch time to quarreling. The mere matter of familiarizing themselves with the new code of etiquette sufficiently well not to incur the ridicule of those who had been brought up to court usages, was serious enough to absorb most of their time and energies. They succeeded fairly well, though the aristocrats of the Faubourg St. Germain told endless tales of the blunders they made, stories which were circulated industriously in the courts of Europe. Their failure was not for lack of effort, however. Josephine and her ladies took up the code with energy—it was a new amusement, and for weeks they studied their parts and went through their rehearsals as if they were preparing a play for the stage. Before the time of the coronation they had become fairly at home with court usages and were ready to take up the rehearsals for that ceremony with fresh energy.
Indeed, for a month at least, all Paris was absorbed in preparations for the coronation. Fontainebleau was to be put in order to receive the Pope. Notre Dame, where the ceremony was to take place, was to be superbly decorated. Magnificent carriages and trappings for horses and livery were to be provided. Robes and uniforms were to be made ready for the actors. All of the decorators, jewelers, costume-makers, merchants of all sorts in the city were busy night and day. As for the court itself, there one heard nothing talked but the coming spectacle. Under the direction of the Grand Master, the ceremonies had been planned down to the most trivial detail, and everybody was busy learning and practicing his part.