Louis Bonaparte, who was born on the 2 September 1778, was nine years younger than Napoleon, who regarded him very much in the light of an adopted son. In February 1791, when Napoleon returned from his home in Corsica to his regiment at Auxonne, after an absence of nearly seventeen months, he brought with him his favorite younger brother. On his meagre pay of one hundred francs a month he had undertaken this care in order to relieve to some extent the financial difficulties of his widowed mother. In his shabby little room, with its sparse furniture, there was no place for Louis, and he slept on a mattress in an adjoining cabinet. Napoleon himself prepared their frugal meals. He gave his brother lessons in mathematics and generally supervised his education. At a later date he complained of his brother’s ingratitude, and reminded him that for his sake he had deprived himself even of the necessaries of life. The blindness of Napoleon to the faults of his brothers and sisters is almost the only weak point in his character, as it also reveals one of the most attractive sides of his heart. He never could do too much for his family, who, almost without exception, repaid him with the basest ingratitude. They all seemed to think that their good fortune was due entirely to their own merits, and not at all to the senseless partiality of their great brother.

In 1795, Napoleon procured for Louis admission to the military school at Châlons. At this time he wrote in the warmest terms of his brother’s fine qualities of heart and mind. The following year Louis, who was then only eighteen years of age, was one of Napoleon’s aides de camp in Italy. He was his messmate, his private secretary, his man of confidence. At this time Louis was splendid company—always full of life and spirits. At Milan, he contracted a disease which in a short time not only affected his health, but seemed to change his moral character. For the rest of his life he was a regular hypochondriac—constantly worrying about his health and persuaded that he was doomed to an early death.

During the Egyptian expedition, Louis again acted as aide de camp to his brother, but was sent back to France with despatches some time before the return of Napoleon. In January 1800, when only twenty-two years of age, he was appointed chief of brigade. He then took up his residence in Paris, where he associated with men of letters and occupied himself with everything except his military career. He took no part in the Marengo campaign, during which he remained at Paris, occupied with his literary pursuits. None of his friends seemed to understand the radical change in his character. Napoleon thought that a journey might rouse him from his melancholy, and proposed a trip to Germany, which Louis eagerly accepted, “to escape,” he said later, “the solicitations for his marriage with Hortense.”

It is impossible, however, for us to believe that Hortense was so disagreeable, or the plans of Joséphine so objectionable to him at this time as he tries to make out in his Reflections upon the government of Holland, drawn up twenty years later. Even if Joséphine, as early as August 1800, had formed in her secret heart the project which she carried out a year later, she certainly had not made any moves which could arouse in Louis the apprehension that she had designs upon his independence.

At that time Hortense was only seventeen years of age. She was not very pretty, but was singularly attractive from the beauty of her form and the grace of her movements. Her nose was large and her mouth ugly, with her mother’s poor teeth, but her blond hair and soft violet eyes gave to her face an expression of exquisite tenderness: the tout ensemble was one which attracted and fascinated everybody. She had been educated at the fashionable school of Madame Campan and possessed all the accomplishments of a young lady of good family. She sang and danced well, she played the harp and the piano, she embroidered, she excelled in all the little tasks of the salon, she was quite literary in her tastes. She was a fine equestrian, and took a leading part in the sports and pastimes of the château life. In character, she was very sweet and amiable, but became very obstinate when she was crossed. Her finest trait was her life-long adoration of her mother, which, it must be confessed, Joséphine had done little to deserve.

After their return from Martinique, her mother had placed her at the age of seven in a convent; when that was closed during the Revolution, she was apprenticed to a sempstress. Later she was practically abandoned for four years by her mother in the school at Saint-Germain. On the few rare occasions that Joséphine visited the school she was prodigal in her demonstrations of affection, with her kisses which cost her so little, for this mother was “coquette even with her children.” Hortense regarded her mother as a wonderful being, and returned her affection a hundred fold. In her innocence she knew nothing of her mother’s worldly life, of her struggle for existence, of the connections she formed, either from taste or necessity.

She knew that her father was the Vicomte de Beauharnais, a handsome cavalier, who attended the Queen’s balls, was president of the Constituent Assembly, general-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine, and guillotined under the Terror. Her conception of her father’s career was similar to that which we find in many of the histories, and equally far from the truth. She was proud of her name, one of the finest in France, and also of her mother, whom she considered worthy of her father.

Hortense had therefore been much chagrined when her mother married an obscure Republican general, of doubtful nobility, who had been absolutely unknown before the Revolution. She had only seen him once before the marriage, at a dinner given by Barras at the Luxembourg in January 1796. Hortense, who was then not quite thirteen, had been taken from school for the occasion. She was jealous of the attentions to her mother of the little general, whose name she did not even know. She said: “He talked with great vivacity, and seemed only interested in my mother.”

She next saw Bonaparte, for a few days only, on his return from Italy, and then again at the painful scene in the Rue de la Victoire, when she implored him to pardon her mother, without very clearly understanding what her mother had done. Under all the circumstances, would it not be strange if she had any love for her step-father?

Like most young girls, Hortense had a very sentimental side to her nature. She wished to marry for love, and to find love in her marriage. It has often been said that Duroc, the favorite aide de camp of Napoleon, loved her, and that she reciprocated his affection. The First Consul had thought of him for one of his sisters: he certainly would have accepted him for his step-daughter. Duroc was a gentleman—perhaps not of an illustrious family, but of better birth certainly than Bacciochi, Leclerc, or Murat. But Duroc was sent on a diplomatic mission to Berlin, and nothing came of this incipient love affair.

With her usual selfishness, Joséphine, in considering the partis who presented themselves, never thought of the happiness of her daughter, but only of her own personal interests. But this was usual in those days. Her aunt, Madame Renaudin, certainly had not thought of Joséphine’s happiness when she married her to Alexandre de Beauharnais.

Even if Joséphine had not already made up her mind to bring about the marriage of Louis and Hortense, she would have been decided by the attempt to assassinate the First Consul on Christmas eve 1800. The conspirators knew that he expected to be present at the Opéra that evening to hear the new oratorio of The Creation, by Haydn, the most popular composer of the day. They expected that his carriage would take the usual route by the Rue Saint-Nicaise, which is no longer in existence. This was a long narrow street bordering the Carrousel and running from the Seine to the Rue Saint-Honoré, where it ended near the Rue Richelieu in which the Opéra was then situated. In this street an infernal machine, installed in a one-horse cart, was placed at a point which Bonaparte’s carriage would pass, and the time that it would take him to come from the Tuileries was carefully calculated so that the machine would explode at the right moment.

After dinner, Napoleon, who was fatigued from a hard day’s work, had fallen asleep on a sofa, and was with difficulty aroused and persuaded to start by the ladies of the Tuileries, Joséphine, Caroline and Hortense, who did not wish to miss the performance. At eight o’clock he set out, accompanied by Lannes, Bessières and an aide de camp, and followed by a small escort of mounted grenadiers. The coachman, who had already begun his Christmas celebration, was half-drunk, and drove at a furious rate. This fact alone saved Bonaparte’s life. The carriage passed the infernal machine, and had just rounded the corner into the Rue Richelieu when the explosion occurred. Lannes and Bessières wished to stop, but Bonaparte ordered the coachman to proceed. A minute later he entered the loge with his usual calm face, and demanded a copy of the libretto.

The life of Joséphine was also saved by an incident equally trivial. She was wearing that evening for the first time a magnificent Oriental shawl presented to Bonaparte by the Sultan. Rapp, the aide de camp on duty, who was to escort the ladies, ventured to remark to Joséphine that she had not arranged the shawl with her usual grace. At her request he showed her how the shawl was draped by the Egyptian ladies. The party then descended the staircase of the Pavillion de Flore, and entered their carriage. They traversed the Carrousel, and had just turned into the Rue Saint-Nicaise when the machine exploded. The windows of the carriage were shattered and the arm of Hortense was slightly cut by a piece of glass. Rapp descended to see if the First Consul had been injured, and the carriage continued its way by another street. When the three ladies entered the box, Napoleon greeted them with a smile, as if nothing unusual had happened.

The news of this dastardly outrage, in which over fifteen people lost their lives, soon spread through the hall, and the oratorio was interrupted while the audience arose and frantically applauded the First Consul. A few minutes later the party left the Opéra and returned to the Tuileries, where Bonaparte received the reports of the police and the congratulations of his ministers.

This attempt on Napoleon’s life was a terrible shock to Joséphine: it gave new impetus to the public demand for an heir to the First Consul, as necessary to the security of the State; and this for Joséphine aroused again the dreaded spectre of the divorce.

This conspiracy, following so closely on that of Aréna only two months before, which the police had discovered in time, convinced everybody that it was desirable to give the First Consul the right to designate his successor, and thus assure the heredity of the Consulate, or at least the continued existence of the government as established by him. It was no longer an academic question, to be debated and postponed from time to time, but an actual, urgent public necessity, which demanded immediate action. Joséphine realized that the crisis had come, and was more determined than ever to carry out her plan for the union of Louis and Hortense. If she herself could not give Napoleon an heir, he might find one in her grandchild and his nephew, the son of his favorite brother. Although Joséphine did not live to see her dream come true, all of Napoleon’s plans came to naught, and it was the son of Louis and Hortense who occupied the Imperial throne as Napoleon the Third.

Louis was already tired of his tour of Germany, and asked permission of his brother to return to Paris. No sooner was he back than the strange idea possessed him of buying a country place, where he went to bury himself in mid-winter. The house which he purchased was a simple rural mansion, in the woods, a league from the highway, about midway between Mortefontaine and Plessis, the country estates of Joseph and Lucien.

He had hardly taken possession of his new home, and begun some alterations, when he again became uneasy, and set out for Bordeaux to rejoin his regiment, which at his request had been included in the army of observation under the command of Leclerc which was going to Portugal.

In July 1801, Joséphine, who had not yet entirely abandoned all hope, went again to Plombières to take the waters, which the year before had succeeded so well in the case of Madame Joseph that, after seven years of marriage, she was just on the point of presenting her husband with their first child. A month later Joséphine returned to Malmaison to await in vain the miraculous effects of her cure.

At the end of three months Louis was tired of his military duties, and asked for a leave of absence. After spending several weeks at the baths of Barèges, to cure his rheumatism, at the end of September he came to Malmaison for a visit. There he fell in love with Hortense, and finally decided upon the marriage which he had previously dreaded.

There is absolutely no truth in the statements so often made by Louis in after years that the marriage was forced upon him. Three months elapsed between his return and the ceremony. During this period Louis showed himself very devoted to Hortense, while she seemed resigned to her lot. On the 3 January 1802 the contract was signed at the Tuileries in the presence of the whole family, and the following day the civil marriage took place, followed the same evening by a religious ceremony at the hôtel in the Rue de la Victoire.

The nuptial benediction was pronounced by Cardinal Caprara, who was then negotiating the Concordat with the French Government. At the same time Caroline and Murat, who had only been united by a civil bond, had their marriage blessed by the Church. Joséphine ardently desired the same privilege, but Napoleon absolutely refused, either from reasons of public policy or in order to keep the way open for a divorce if in the future he desired one.