Napoleon, lover and husband

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Youth 5

II. Thoughts of Marriage 19

Chapter I. Youth

" Paeis, Thursday, 22d, 1787,

" Hotel de Cherbourg,

" After Ir^aving the Opera I wandered about in the garden of the Palais-Royal. Strongly impressed by the scenes which I had just witnessed, my mind in ebullition, exhilarated by the music, I was at first insensible of the cold ; but, as the scenes which I had beheld faded, I became conscious of the wintry air and turned to seek shelter under the colonnade. I was upon the threshold of the iron gates when my glance fell upon a woman, and I stopped to look at her. The hour, her extreme youth, and general appearance left no doubt as to her social status, yet she looked modest, and when she stopped and confronted me it was not boldly but in a manner perf ectly in accord with her appearance. Her diffidence encouraged me and I spoke to her ; I, who have always been so impressed with the odiousness of such a calling as hers, have always shunned such women and considered myself contaminated by so much as a look from one of her class, now voluntarily addressed one ; but this girl's pale face, delicate appearance, and sweet voice effaced all my old prejudices, and I said to myself : ^ Here is a person whom it would be wise to study, as I desire to know something of this class of women.'

" 'You look cold,' I said to her. 'How can you wander about on such a chilly night ? '

"'The cold exhilarates me, and then — it is my life ; I must seek acquaintances.'

" The indifferent and business-like tone of her answer pleased me, and I walked on beside her. ' You look delicate,' I said. 'I don't understand how you can endure such a life as yours must be.'

' ' ' Dame ! I must do something. I know no other way of earning a livelihood and I don't wish to starve ! '

" ' But could you not find some other occupation — something less wearing physically ? ' I asked.

" ' Not now, it is too late.'

"I was delighted with her frankness, never having elicited such replies in my previous experiences.

* You must come from the North,' I said, * since you do not mind the cold.'

" 'Yes, I come from Nantes, in Brittany.'

" ' I know that part of the country well. Mademoiselle, I wish you would tell me the story of your downfall.'

" ' It was an officer, like yourself, who caused it.'

" ' Do you regret it ? '

*"I do indeed ! ' she answered, in a voice whose depth of feeling surprised me. ' I assure you I do ; my sister is happily settled, and you cannot imagine how I -v^ish that I too had a home.'

" ' How did you happen to come to Paris ? '

" 'I was abandoned by the officer who seduced me and obliged to flee from my mother's anger ; having made the acquaintance of another officer I accompanied him to Paris ; then, he too left me, and a third, with whom I have lived for three years, succeeded him ; although a Frenchman he was called by business to London and is still there, so I am obliged to shift for myself. Let us go to your rooms.'

'"Why should we go there?"

" ' Don't be a silly ! We will warm ourselves and then — perhaps you will be glad to have me there.'

"I was far from scrupulous and had piqued her only that she should not run away from the sermon I was mentally preparing, and the modesty I intended to parade — before proving to her that it was a virtue I did not possess."

At the time when this was written Bonaparte was aged eighteen years and three months, having been born on the 15th of August, 1T69. We have the right to suppose that this was the first woman with whom he had any connection, and reviewing rapidly the history of his youth we shall find sufficient reasons to confirm this opinion. Napoleon himself made a note, with dates, of such love-affairs as left an impression upon his memory ; those which I have been able to investigate I have found to be absolutely correct.

He left Ajaccio for France on the 15th of December, 1778, when he was but nine and a half years of age. The feminine memories which he carried with him from his island were those of his nurse, Camilla Carbone, who was the widow Ilari, and of a little schoolmate, "La Giacominetta," of whom he often spoke in the sad days at Saint Helena. Later in life he showered benefits upon his nurse, her daughter, Mme. Tavera, and her granddaughter, Mme. Poli, whom he had himself christened Faustina ; he was unable to do anything for his foster-brother,

Ignatio Ilari, because when very young Ilari had espoused the cause of the Enghsh party and enlisted in the Enghsh navy.

Of the nurses who had charge of Napoleon's infancy and childhood one, Minana Saveria, remained until her death with Mme. Bonaparte ; the other, Mammuccia Caterina, died before the Empire was established, as did also little Giacominetta, for whose sake, when a lad, Bonaparte had borne much teasing.

At the college of Autun, where he was a pupil from the 1st of January to the 12th of May, 1779 ; at the college of Brienne, where he was from May, 1779, to October 14:th, 1784, at the military school in Paris where he spent the year from October 22d,

1784, to October 30th, 1785, no woman entered his life. Even admitting the statement advanced by Mme. D'Abrantes that, contrary to the strict rules of the Ecole Militaire, Bonaparte, under the pretext of a sprain, spent eight days in the apartment of M. Permon, No. 5 Place Conti, I see no reason to change my belief, for at that time he was but a stripling of sixteen.

Napoleon went to Valence on the 30th of October,

1785, and left that place to pass his vacation in Corsica on the 16th of September, 1786, after a sojourn of less than a year ; he did not return from the island until the 12th of September, 1787, and it was then that he made his journey to the capital; therefore an adventure, prior to that of the 22d of November, 1787, could hardly have taken place between his leaving the Ecole Militaire and his return to Paris.

He did not engage in any gallantries while in Corsica, nor yet in Valence ; indeed, during his sojourn in the latter place he appeared to be timid, rather melancholy, absorbed in his studies and desirous only of standing well in his classes and being well received socially. He had carried to Valence a letter of introduction to Mgr. de Tardivon, Abbe de Saint- Euff, from the Marbeufs, and to this ecclesiastical dignitary, who, crossed and mitred, gave tone to the town, he owed his entree into the best houses of the city, to Mme, Gregoire du Colombier's, Mme. Lauberie de Saint Germain's and Mme. de Laurencin's.

These ladies, particularly the latter two, held the best positions in the province, belonged to the lesser nobility and lived handsomely. They were prejudiced against the lives of the officers whom they admitted to their houses, and never permitted any intimacy between their daughters and young men whose conduct they did not consider irreproachable.

Bonaparte may have entertained some vague

NAPOLEON, LOVER AND HUSBANR 11

ideas of marriage with Caroline du Colombier, who was permitted by her mother rather more hberty than other girls enjoyed. He was barely seventeen at that time, and she was considerably his senior ; if he admired her, the attentions which he paid her were chaste, deferential and boyish : a la Eousseau. It was not long, however, before Mile, du Colombier married an officer, M. Garempel de Bressieux, and left Valence and went to live in an old chateau in the country.

Nearly twenty years later, when Napoleon was in camp at Boulogne, he received a letter from her recommending her brother to his notice, and although he had not seen the object of his boyish admiration since her marriage, he answered by return of post, assuring her that he would seize the first occasion to be useful to M. du Colombier and saying:

'' The memory of your mother and yourself has always been dear to me. I see by your letter that you live near Lyons, and I must reproach you for not calling while I was there, as it would have given me great pleasure to have seen you."

This advice was not lost, and when, on April 12th, 1806, Napoleon passed through Lyons on his way to the coronation at Milan, Mme. de Bressieux was among the first to request an interview. She was terribly changed, aged, and no longer the pretty Caroline of bygone days, nevertheless she obtained all she asked for : the erasure of certain names on the list of emigres, a position for her husband, and a lieutenancy for her brother. On New Year's day of 1807 Mme, de Bressieux recalled herself to the Emperor's memory by a letter asking for news of his health. Napoleon responded promptly, and in 1808 he made her lady-in-waiting upon Madame Mere, called her husband to preside over the electoral college of Isiere, and in 1810 created him a baron of the Empire.

Such was the grateful memory Napoleon cherished for all who had been kind to him in his youth ; there were none whose fortunes he did not assure, as there were none whom he forgot to mention during his captivity ; women, if possible, received the greater share of his gratitude, and even when he had reason to feel some bitterness towards them it was enough that they should once have shown him kindness. Thus Mile, de Lauberie de Saint- Germain, like Mile, du Colombier, had preferred another to him and married her cousin, M. Bachasson de Montalivet ; but Napoleon harbored no resentment, and it is well known that he made M. de Montalivet's fortune, creating him successively prefet de la Manche and of Seine-et-Oise, director general for bridges and public roads, minister of the Interior and count of the Empire with an endowment of eighty thousand francs. Mme. de Montalivet, of whom he once said, "Of old I loved both her virtues and her beauty," he named a lady of the Empress's household in 1806.

Mme. de Montalivet, however, did not accept this honor unconditionally, saying to the Emperor : "Your Majesty knows my belief regarding a woman's duty in this world ; the favor which you have had the goodness to accord me, and which many will envy, would seem to me a misfortune if it prevented me from attending my husband when he has the gout, or nursing my children when Providence gives me any."

The Emperor at first frowned at Mme. de Montalivet's frankness, but after a moment said graciously : " Ah, madame, you wish to dictate terms ; I am nnaccustomed to that, but on this occasion I submit. Accept the position, and all shall be so arranged that your duties as wife and mother shall not be interfered with."

Mme. de Montalivet's position remained a nominal one, but that did not prevent Napoleon from showing her particular attention ; he was fond of the whole family and said of them : *'The family integrity is indubitable; it is composed of lovable people and

I believe firmly in the disinterestedness of their affection. "

Such were the recollections which Napoleon had of Valence. They were dear to his heart, and of a kind which those young girls might well be proud of inspiring. He had no other intimacies that we know of, and in his private journal no others are mentioned ; like Hippolite, he appears to have been more in love with glory in those days, than with women ; in confirmation of this witness this extract from a letter written at that time :

"If I had to compare the days of Sparta and Rome with our modern times I would say here reigns love, there reigned love of country. Judging by the opposite effects which these passions produce one seems authorized in believing them incomparable. One thing is certain: people who abandon themselves to gallantry lose the ability to even conceive of the existence of a patriot, and we have reached that point to-day."

It is almost with a sense of certitude that we conelude that the girl he met in the Palais-Royal was his first mistress. The adventure, vulgar though it was, does not the less reveal his character ; there is his misogyny, his critical spirit, brusque speech, and the habit of interrogation which he never renounced ; his good memory, also, is noticeable in his account of it, for he reproduced in striking fashion the girl's manner of speech, even to the exclamation, -Z>awe / which proved her Breton origin.

It is doubtful if Napoleon ever saw this girl again, for although among his papers, dated during that sojourn in Paris, there is a dissertation on patriotism which is addressed to a young lady, it is hardly a topic upon which one would write to a woman of her class.

After this sojourn in Paris, which lasted from October to December of 178Y, Bonaparte again returned to Corsica, where he arrived on the 1st of January, 1Y88. He spent six months on the island, rejoining his regiment at Auxonne on the 1st of June ; no trace of any love-affair at that place remains to us.

In the early part of 1Y89 he was sent to Seurre with a detachment, and is accredited with holding

relations there, first with a Mme. L z, nie

N s, the wife of the collector at the salt depot,

later with a farmer's wife, Mme. G 1, to whose

house he went to drink milk, and, lastly, with the daughter of the house wherein he lodged. This seems crowding a good deal into twenty-five days, during which time his books are silent witnesses to his assiduous study ; nevertheless, when, fourteen years later, on the 6th of April, 1805, Napoleon

16 NAPOLEON, LOVER AOT) HUSBAND.

passed through Seurre on his way to Milan, it is claimed that M. de Thiard, who was at that time his chamberlain, introduced into his presence the boarding-house young woman, and that he presented her with a scholarship in a government school for her son, a lad of twelve. The stated age of this child precludes the idea that Napoleon believed him to be his son ; moreover, had the Emperor entertained the least doubt upon the subject he would have done far more for the boy, and that without its being asked of him.

In Corsica, where he spent the entire year of 1790, at Auxonne, at Valence, again in Corsica, then, in the middle of 1792, at Paris, there were no love-affairs ; we hear of none during the first campaign in the South against the Federalists, of none at Toulon.

We must deliberately skip over a period of four years, during which the young lieutenant became a general of brigade and was placed in command of the artillery in Italy, where, in 1Y94, the Convention sent one of its influential members, the Citizen Louis Turreau, on a mission to the army.

Representative Turreau was accompanied on his journey by his bride, who was the daughter of a surgeon at Versailles and a remarkably pretty woman ; he arrived at Cairo, in Piedmont, where

Bonaparte was stationed, on the 21st of September, and, finding the young officer congenial, cultivated his acquaintance ; while Mme. Turreau and the artillery -man soon arrived at an understanding, Bonaparte's intimacy with Mme. Turreau never assumed the proportions of a liaison, for she was too fickle to remain long constant, and, evidently, it never aroused the husband's jealousy, for he retained a high opinion of the young officer's ability, and when the Convention was in danger it was he, as well as Barras, who urged confiding the command of the troops to Bonaparte and, with the Corsican deputies, became his surety.

Bonaparte did not forget this service, and when placed in command of the army in Italy he took Turreau, who had not been re-elected, with him as commissary-general. Mme. Turreau again accompanied her husband, and, in default of the general-in-chief , made the best of such lovers as courted her ; her conduct gave rise to continual scenes of jealousy, and Turreau, so it is said, died of a broken heart. The widow returned to Versailles, and in the early days of the Empire was dragging out a dreary existence there, when, one day, the Emperor chanced to mention her before Berthier, who was also a native of the town. The general had known Mme.

Turreau from childhood, but for years had carefully 2t shunned her ; however, when he saw that the Emperor took an interest in his old schoolfellow, he renewed the acquaintanceship and espoused her cause, while Napoleon, never forgetful of a kindness, made haste to extricate madame from her financial emharrassment, granted all her requests and assured for her the realization of her rosiest dreams.

With the exception of Mme. Turreau, who threw herself at his head, women paid but scant attention to the little, pale, thin officer who was always badlydressed and regardless of his appearance, and Napoleon's early loves resolved themselves into trivial flirtations or vulgar adventures. He himself thought but little about women, being absorbed by his ambitious projects, and there was another, and valid reason for his chastity, he was poor. Poverty, however, did for him what it has done for many another man — forced him to consider matrimony that he might be the sole recipient of a woman's caresses.

KAPOLEOJSr, LOVER AND HUSBAKD. 19

CHAPTER n.

THOUGHTS OF MARRIAGE.

WhHiE at Marseilles Napoleon played at love with Mme. Joseph Bonaparte's sister, Desiree-Eugenie Clary, then a pretty girl of sixteen ; she believed his attentions to be serious. Her girlishness vanished and she developed a woman's affection for him. Sixty -five years later the rough drafts of her letters to Napoleon were found among her effects ; they were all signed "Eugenie," for after the fashion of the time the young girl, whom her family called Desiree, had wished to be called by her lover by a name not used by others ; these letters, which are the spontaneous outpouring of a pure affection, breathe the spirit of the period following upon the Reign of Terror, when women made love a religion ; indeed, it was the only religion which existed on the ruins of society.

"Oh, my friend," Mile. Clary wrote in one of her letters, "take care of yourself for my sake, fori could not live without you j guard as sacredly as I shall the promise which binds us, for were it broken I should die."

Napoleon's acquaintance with Mile. Clary dated from January or February, 1795, and the engagement, if there was a formal one, must have taken place on the 21st of April, when Bonaparte passed through Marseilles on his way to Paris. There was no opposition to the marriage from the Clary family, for Joseph and his wife had long desired it, and Desiree's father, who is reported to have said "that one Bonaparte in the family was quite enough for him," had died on the 20th of January, 1794, and the remaining members of the family, Mme. Clary and her son, readily yielded to the young girl's wishes ; her youth was no obstacle to the marriage, for at that time girls were usually wed in their eighteenth year, and the First Civil Code had just fixed the thirteenth year as the legal age for a female to marry. Desiree Clary afterwards claimed, and officially stated, that at this time she was between thirteen and fourteen years of age, but she must have been nearer seventeen, as she was born on the 9th of November, 1777.

Bonaparte arrived in Paris in May ; he was out of favor, out of funds, and his only hope lay in this marriage, failing in which nothing remained for him but to take service in Turkey, or, like many others, to speculate in national securities. Even when, by degrees, his position improved, and he was employed by the Committee on Public Welfare on plans for the campaign, his position was precarious, and reaUzing its instability, believing that his sole salvation lay in this marriage, he urged Joseph to have a date fixed for the wedding, and in every letter which he wrote his brother at that time messages for Desiree appeared.

For a while Mile. Clary was a faithful correspondent, but while at Genoa with her sister and brother-in-law she neglected her lover, and in one of Napo Icon's letters he said, "The road to Genoa leads through the waters of Lethe," called her the " silent one," and constantly reproached her for not writing. Finally, becoming impatient, he determined that a definite understanding should be arrived at, and wrote to Joseph that he must interview Desiree's brother and bring the m.atter to a head, and the following day, without giving his first letter time to reach Joseph, he wrote again saying : "This affair must either be concluded or broken off. I await an answer with the greatest impatience." Then a month passed, and save for friendly messages there was no correspondence between the pair.

The truth is, that Paris, the unknown, fascinating city -which he had entered with a worn uniform, leaky boots, and a suite composed of a couple of hungry aides-de-camps had interposed itself and its captivating women between Napoleon and the little Marseillaise. What a contrast there must have been between the immature girl and the elegant and worldly women of the capital ! Desiree could hardly have been beautiful, though there must have been a certain charm about her soft eyes with their penciled brows, retrousse nose, laughing mouth and reserved yet tender manner ; but between the young provincial and the elegant, graceful, well-dressed and beautiful, if artificial, Parisian women, there was the same difference as lies between hothouse fruit and that which ripens in the open air. The Parisians, created for a life of gaiety and excitement, highly refined in manner and adepts in the art of pleasing, were like hothouse fruit, which, carefully tended, reaches the highest state of perfection, and when exhibited to the best advantage by the fruiterer appears, with its fine color and bloom, which the winds of heaven have never visited too roughly, much more appetizing than the fruit of the orchard which, kissed by the sun, whipped by the breeze, and not quite ripe, leaves in the mouth a fresh but somewhat tart taste.

"In Paris alone," wrote Napoleon, "live women capable of holding the helm, A woman should live six months in Paris to learn what is her just due, and where her rightful domain." A few days later he wrote : ' ' The women here, who are certainly the most beautiful in the world, play a great role in all the affairs in life."

The women who figured conspicuously in the society of that day certainly were beautiful and possessed of even a greater charm, a perfect knowledge of the amenities of life ; better versed in the art of inspiring affection than able to give it, they completely fascinated the young officer, and, having nothing save his hand to offer, he proffered that freely, laying his heart and hand first at the feet of Mme. de Permon, then proposing to Mme. de la Bouchardie, later to Mme. de Lesparda and finally to Mme. de Beauharnais who took him at his word.

During all this time he never wrote to Desiree, and at last she lifted her voice in complaint, but so gently, so sweetly, that it sounds in one's ears like the sad strains of an ^olian harp. ''You have broken my heart," she wrote him, " yet I am weak enough to forgive you everything. You are married and I have no longer the right to love and think of you ; the only consolation which remains for me is to be assured of your belief in my constancy, then I long for death, for life is a burden, now that

I may not consecrate it to you. I cannot accustom myself to the thought that you are married — it is too hard, too cruel ! I will prove to you that I am more faithful to my engagement than you to yours, and, though you have broken the chain which united us, I shall hold it binding ; I shall never marry. I wish you every happiness and all prosperity in your marriage, and I hope that the woman you have chosen will make you as happy as I had meant to do, and as you deserve ; but in the midst of your happiness remember poor Eugenie and pity her sad fate."

Forgetfulness was foreign to Bonaparte's nature, and the memory of this love which he had inspired was always a tender point with him ; from a flirtation he had insensibly drifted into an entanglement which had ambition for its basis, and which had resulted in the breaking of a heart, and throughout his life he strove to undo the wrong and win forgiveness. While at Milan, in 1T9T, he planned a brilliant marriage for Desiree, who was in Eome with her sister and brother-in-law, Joseph being then ambassador at the court of Pius VI, and gave a warm letter of recommendation to General Duphot in which he spoke of him as '' a fine man and distinguished officer ; " and in a personal letter to Joseph he said, that an alliance with General

Duphot would be a desirable one. Duphot made a favorable impression upon Mile. Clary, and their marriage contract was about to be signed when the terrible scene of December 28th took place and Desiree's dress was stained with the blood of her betrothed.

After refusing several offers, Desiree finally consented, while Napoleon was in Egypt, to marry General Bernadotte. It was considered a fine match, but he was a most insupportable Jacobite, narrow-minded and opinionated ; a Bearnais by birth, he yet had none of the Gascon's sprightliness or readiness of speech, but possessed all their shrewdness and hid under apparent frankness a scheming brain. He held Mme. de Stael to be the cleverest of her sex because she was the most pedantic, and he spent the honeymoon in laying down the law to his young wife.

The news of this marriage reached Bonaparte at Cairo, and although Bernadotte was his enemy, and the union displeased him, he wrote most kindly to Desiree, wishing her all happiness.

When Napoleon returned from Egypt the first person to solicit a favor was Mme. Bernadotte, who asked him to stand godfather to her infant son. Intuitively she knew that a son was the one thing lacking to complete Napoleon's happiness, and, as if to spite Josephine, whom she hated, and whom she always spoke of as the ''old woman," Desiree boasted of her maternity. Bonaparte kindly consented to stand for the child, and with Ossian's martial ballads in mind named the baby Oscar. Years later Napoleon said : " Bernadotte's becoming a marshal of France, prince of Pontecorvo and king of Sweden was all owing to his marriage with my first sweetheart," and it was for her sake that Napoleon pardoned all Bernadotte's disloyalty during the Empire.

From the very first Bernadotte manifested his opposition to Bonaparte ; nevertheless, he was called to a seat in the Council of State, then named general-in-chief of the army in the West, where he not only opposed, but openly conspired against the First Consul, aspiring to gain command of the army. For this he received no punishment. Bonaparte simply, in order to get rid of him, appointed him minister plenipotentiary to the United States, a post which Bernadotte expressed himself as perfectly willing to accept, playing his game so well, however, that the frigate which was to bear him to his destination was never ready to sail.

The following year saw the conspiracy in which Moreau was implicated, and Bernadotte again escaped unpunished, because Napoleon so willed it, Desiree's welfare being always in his mind ; he did still raore for her, for, redeeming Moreau's estate, his property at Grosbois, and his hotel in the rue d'Anjou, for which he paid four hundred thousand francs, he presented it to Bernadotte. The Empire established, Napoleon, for Eugenie's sake, created her husband a marshal of the empire, chief of the eighth corps of the Legion of Honor, president of the electoral college of Vaucluse and Chevalier de VAigle Noir ; for Desiree's sake he gave the couple an income of three hundred thousand francs, a lump sum of two hundred thousand francs and the sovereignty of the principality of Pontecorvo. For the love of her Napoleon forgave Bernadotte after Auerstaedt,Wagram, and Walcheren, condoned two military blunders, which were probably something more serious than blunders, coming as they did on top of a flagrant conspiracy in which Bernadotte, Fouche and Talleyrand, in complicity with the royalists, brought into play the same tactics by which, in 1814, the return of Louis le Desiree was effected.

Thus, over her husband's shoulders, Napoleon's one-time sweetheart received attentions and favors which would be surprising did we not know that he was ever actuated by the desire to atone for the sorrow and mortification he had once caused her. Two days after the battle of Spandau, in which Bernadotte was wounded, Napoleon wrote to him, saying :