Napoleon and Josephine

No words can depict the conditions in Paris during the “Great Terror,” which began in March 1794, and ended with the fall of Robespierre on the 27 July. The Law of the Suspects kept the prisons packed; the guillotine was constantly employed: the whole nation appeared doomed to the scaffold. The final seven weeks between the 23 Prairial (11 June) and the 9 Thermidor were horrible. It was nothing more nor less than a massacre: in the course of these forty-five days 1376 heads fell in Paris. “Fear was on every side; drawing-rooms were empty; wine shops were deserted; the very courtesans ceased to go to the Palais-Royal, where virtue now reigned supreme. The Convention was well-nigh deserted; the deputies had given up sleeping at home.”

When the head of Robespierre fell under the guillotine, a mighty shout of joy went up from the one hundred thousand beings massed in the Place de la Révolution. In the popular estimation, Robespierre had been the incarnation of the Terror, therefore his downfall meant the end of the Terror. No such thought had been in the minds of Barras and Tallien when they struck down the dictator, but they were not slow to take advantage of this reaction in public opinion.

The joy of the populace, however, was nothing in comparison with the delight of the reprieved prisoners who had been hopelessly awaiting death. The daily roll-call had ceased: it was never to be heard again. While the tumbrils conveyed to the scaffold the dreaded instruments of the Terror—Fouquier and the judges and jurymen, the former captives were daily set free. At the same time a hundred thousand “suspects” issued from their hiding places. Their joy was beyond words: “It was as if they had risen from the tomb, or been born into life again.”

Joséphine was one of the first of the prisoners to gain her liberty: ten days after the fall of Robespierre, on the 19 Thermidor (6 August), she left the Carmes. One of her companions in misfortune has drawn a sketch of her behavior in prison which is not wholly flattering: “She was pusillanimous in the highest degree.... She passed her time in telling her fortune with cards, and in weeping in public, to the great scandal of her companions. But she was naturally affable, and does not this trait make us oblivious to many qualities which are lacking? Her tournure, her manners, her voice above all, had a particular charm; but it must be admitted that she was neither magnanimous nor frank; the other prisoners pitied her for her lack of courage.”

Nevertheless, Joséphine was very popular: “When the prisoners heard her name pronounced, they applauded furiously.” With that grace which never left her, “she made her adieux to each one, and left amidst the good wishes and blessings of all.” It has been stated that she owed her prompt liberation to Madame de Fontenoy, the future Madame Tallien, “her companion in prison,” but Thérésia was confined in La Force and not at the Carmes. Joséphine had other friends, however, who were not less powerful: Hoche, who left his prison on the 4 August, Réal, Barrère, Tallien—to mention only a few of the names. Tallien himself always claimed the honor, and to him Eugène gave the credit at a later date.

But very little is known of the life of Joséphine during the twelve months following her release from prison. As the seals were still attached to her apartment in the Rue Saint-Dominique, she probably passed the autumn of 1794 in her house at Croissy. Barras states in his Mémoires that on leaving the Carmes she became the mistress of Hoche. If so, the liaison must have been very brief. Hoche was transferred to the Conciergerie the middle of May, and was set free only two days before Joséphine. Twelve days later he was appointed, general-in-chief of the Army of the Côtes de Cherbourg, and left Paris to take up his new command not later than the first of September. At this time he seems to have been very much in love with his young wife, from whom he had been separated almost immediately after their marriage in February, by being ordered to the Army of Italy, and later by his imprisonment. Admitting that he carried on a lively flirtation with Joséphine during the few weeks that they were thrown together in the Carmes, it seems much more probable that Hoche passed with his bride the short period that he was in Paris at this time.

Futhermore, it is absurd to attempt to draw any conclusions as to this liaison from the fact that Hoche gave Eugène a position on his staff. The general had been in close relations with Alexandre in the army, and these ties had been drawn closer by their confinement in the same prison. What then could be more natural, than the wish of Hoche to relieve the burden of his friend’s widow by assuming the responsibility of her son? This also is his own explanation of the matter in a letter written to the marquis two years later, after the second marriage of Joséphine.

There is no doubt, however, that during these twelve months Joséphine was in great financial difficulties. She had on her hands the lease both of her Paris apartment and the house at Croissy. Her father had left his affairs in great confusion, and the difficulty of getting money from Martinique was further increased by the war with England. In February 1794 the English had taken possession of the island, and the Tascher estate was in the hands of the enemy. In France the property of her husband had been confiscated by the Government.

The expenses of Joséphine’s household at this time were quite heavy. She had three domestics: the nurse, Marie Lanoy; the maid, Agathe Rible; and the valet (officieux), Gontier. She not only paid them no wages, however, but even borrowed their little savings. Her principal resource was a M. Emmery, a banker at Dunkerque, who for many years had had business relations with the Taschers.

This Emmery had been colonel of the National Guard, deputy to the Legislative Assembly, and mayor of Dunkerque. During the Terror he was imprisoned, and only a serious illness saved him from the guillotine. In the Year Three (1794–5) he was again elected mayor, and resumed his commerce with the Antilles. For a period of three years he had advanced to Joséphine the funds of which she had need.

On the first day of January 1795, Joséphine writes her mother that without the aid of her friend Emmery she does not know what would have become of her. She urges Madame Tascher to remit to her, either through London or Hambourg, all the funds at her disposal, not merely the income, but also the capital sum. Her mother seems to have done her best, but the remittance was only moderate in amount. Joséphine then drew on her mother a sight draft for one thousand pounds sterling, writing her at the same time, how important it was for her to meet the draft, as the money was due to friends who had already advanced it to her. In the meantime she succeeded in having the seals removed from her apartment, and recovered possession of her effects. She also managed to have turned over to her the silver and books left by Alexandre in his country house, and was paid by the Government the sum of ten thousand livres on account of the furniture which had been sold.

From these few details it is possible to judge how precarious was the life of Joséphine during the greater part of this year. But with the small remittances she received from Martinique, with money which she borrowed on every side, with bills which she contracted everywhere, she somehow managed to exist; and her life was far from being devoid of luxury. She was not a woman to walk, and must have a carriage, which she hired by the month. She had not yet worked out the combination by which she obtained, in June 1795, from the Committee of Public Safety, a carriage and two horses in exchange for the horses and equipages which Alexandre had left with the Army of the Rhine. She was fond of flowers, and could not live without them. Her toilettes, which were quite modest, included such items as a piece of muslin at 500 livres, two pairs of silk stockings at 700 livres, and a shawl at 1200 livres. But let not the reader be amazed at these figures: a thousand livres assignats then represented only about fifty-three livres in gold.

At this time Joséphine was on very intimate terms with Madame Tallien, the most beautiful woman of her day. Thérésia was the daughter of Francis Cabarrus, a famous banker and finance minister of Spain. In 1788, at the age of fourteen, she was married to the elderly Comte de Fontenoy, a councillor of the Parlement of Bordeaux. During the early days of the Revolution, her wit and beauty made her a favorite in the salons of Paris. Later she attempted with her husband to join her father in Spain, but they were arrested at Bordeaux as suspects. At that time Tallien was exercising all the rigors of the Terror in the department of the Gironde. He thus met Thérésia, fell in love with her, and released Fontenoy on condition that he should apply for a divorce. She then became at first the mistress and later the wife of the proconsul. After the Reign of Terror, and the dictatorship of Robespierre, the woman-hater, the new régime found its incarnation in this woman of easy morals! It is a curious fact that, after her divorce by Tallien in 1802, she married Prince de Chimay, and became the mother of a son who espoused Émilie, the daughter of Napoleon and the lovely Madame Pellapra. She was, so far as known, the only daughter of the Emperor.

There were many points of resemblance between Joséphine and Thérésia. Both had the same tastes, the same desires, the same love of luxury. Neither of them had any moral scruples, and they were both looking for some one rich enough to satisfy their caprices—husband or lover, it mattered little which. Thérésia, who was only twenty years of age at this time, had the advantage over Joséphine both of youth and beauty, but in grace and charm she could not be compared with the fascinating Creole.

Thérésia was not a woman to be satisfied long with a man like Tallien. She soon found their “Chaumière,” in the Allée des Veuves, too small a theatre for her talents. Nothing would satisfy her but the rarest flowers, the most exquisite wines, and toilettes which did not cost less from the fact that they were most diaphanous. From Tallien she passed to Barras, who soon turned her over to the rich banker Ouvrard, “tout en conservant les privautés qui lui conviennent.”

In August 1795, when her affairs were still in the same precarious condition, Joséphine leased from Julie Carreau, the wife of the actor Talma, from whom she was separated, a little hôtel entre cour et jardin at Number 6, Rue Chantereine. This was a short street recently laid out from the Faubourg Montmartre to the Chaussée-d’Antin. It was lined with the residences of filles entretenues. The lease was for three years, with privilege of two renewals, and the rent was 10,000 francs in assignats.

The entrance to the hôtel was by a porte-cochère through a long corridor, at the end of which was a little garden, with two small pavilions which contained the stable and carriage-house. In the middle was the house, consisting only of a rez-de-chaussée with an attic above and cellar below. There were five rooms: an antechamber, a bedroom, a salon, which also served as a dining-room, another small salon, used as a boudoir, and a wardrobe. The servants’ quarters were in the attic. Although small, the house demanded quite a staff of servants: a porter, a coachman, a chef, and a femme de chambre. Joséphine at this time set-up her carriage, with two horses: the same which she had obtained from the Government.

Before taking possession of her new home Joséphine had spent a very considerable amount in repairing and adding to the furniture of her apartment in Rue Saint-Dominique. Nothing, however, was very luxurious. The salon was furnished only with a round mahogany table, and four chairs covered with black horse-hair. On the walls were hung a few prints framed in dark wood.

It is interesting to note in passing that this short street, or rather the locality where it was afterwards laid out, was originally known under the name of la Victoire. Later the place was called Chantereine on account of the frogs which chanted there. After the Campaign of Italy it was again called Rue de la Victoire in honor of Napoleon, and is still known by that name to-day.

At this time, the nurse Marie Lanoy was no longer with Joséphine, as she had placed Hortense in the new school which Madame Campan had just founded at Saint-Germain. She also sent for Eugène, whom Hoche would have been only too glad to keep on his staff, and placed him in quite an expensive institution which had just been opened at Saint-Germain under the name of the Collège Irlandais.

The overthrow of Robespierre on the 9 Thermidor was due largely to Barras, and for the next two years he was perhaps the most prominent man in France. For power in itself he cared but little, but he greatly enjoyed the advantages derived from it: the money, the luxury, and above all the women.

Paul Barras was born in Provence in 1755 of a good family. In his youth he served as a lieutenant against the British in India. In 1789 he was chosen a member of the States-General, and took an active part in the storming of the Bastille and the Tuileries. The siege of Toulon owed its success largely to his activity and energy. After the 9 Thermidor, as president of the Convention he acted with decision both against the intrigues of the Royalists and the excesses of the Jacobins. He was brave, he was a gentleman, and with much reason he despised the rabble by whom he was surrounded. As Lefebvre said of Talleyrand: “He was a mess of filth in a silk stocking.” But unlike Talleyrand he had courage, and, when occasion demanded, did not hesitate to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.

It was a curious side of the nature of Barras that while he associated with the commonest of men, he wished to have around him only women of the Ancien Régime. He must have, in his intimate relations, grace, elegance and distinction. He could not expect to find ladies of the highest rank: they had all emigrated or died on the scaffold; but he sought those who, to save their heads or their fortunes, had compromised themselves with the leaders of the popular party, and who with the return of luxury were ready to do anything to satisfy their caprices. He had not money enough to meet their demands from his own resources, but he put them in contact with bankers and contractors whom he exploited himself, and whom he permitted them to exploit in turn.

Among this galaxy of pretty women of loose morals the bright particular stars were Thérésia and Joséphine. Some one must have paid for the new luxury of Joséphine, and there is little doubt that Barras was at this time her lover. He is ungallant enough to say so in his Mémoires, and for once he seems to have told the truth.

As president of the Convention, member of the Committee of General Security, general-in-chief of the Army of the Interior, Barras was really more powerful then than later as a member of the Directory. In July 1795 he returned from a mission to the North; on the 13 Vendémiaire (5 October) he commanded the troops of the Convention; on the first of November he became a Director; and on the fourth he installed himself at the Luxembourg.

There is a remarkable coincidence between these dates and the events in the life of Joséphine. On the 17 August she signed her lease for the Hôtel Chantereine; the following month she sent her children to school; the second of October she moved into her new home; and the sixth she gave the orders to furnish luxuriously her chambre à coucher.

By midsummer the liaison was already well established, and during the autumn they met frequently at Croissy. “We had Madame de Beauharnais for a neighbor,” writes Pasquier. “Her house adjoined our own. She only came there occasionally, once a week, to meet Barras with the many persons who followed in his suite.... As is not rare with Creoles, the house of Madame de Beauharnais had an air of luxury while the most essential things were lacking. Chicken, game, rare fruits, filled the kitchen, while they came to our humble abode to borrow the kitchen utensils, plates and glasses which they lacked.”

On the 4 November 1795 the newly elected Directors took possession of the Luxembourg, which had been assigned them as an official residence. The palace had been used as a prison during the Revolution, and all of the furniture had mysteriously disappeared. There was no one to receive them except the concierge, who loaned them for their first meeting a dilapidated table and some cane-bottomed chairs. As soon as the salons were refurnished and Barras began to hold his “Court,” Joséphine and Thérésia were among the first to appear. This Court was made up of women of the old noblesse, and there reigned, in spite of assertions to the contrary, a very good tone: a certain cold reserve, rather than the abandon of bad taste. The ladies were nearly all widows, and very few husbands were to be seen.

Besides the Luxembourg, and her house at Croissy, Joséphine also met Barras at a house which he owned or leased at Chaillot, as is shown by a letter still in existence:

“The Citoyenne Beauharnais invites the Citoyen Réal to give her the pleasure of his company for dinner chez elle (at her home) to-morrow the twenty-fifth: the Citoyens Barras and Tallien are to be present.”

This letter is dated the 24 Pluviôse An IV (13 February 1796) and is written from the residence of Barras at Chaillot!