The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete

C >> Constant >> The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete


The Emperor, in order to win Marie Louise's affection, did more
undignified things than he had ever done for any woman. For instance,
one day when he was alone with Queen Hortense and the Princess Stephanie,
the latter mischievously asked him if he knew how to waltz; and his
Majesty replied that he had never been able to go beyond the first
lesson, because after two or three turns he became so dizzy that he was
compelled to stop. "When I was at l'ecole militaire," added the Emperor,
"I tried again and again to overcome dizziness which waltzing produced,
but I could not succeed. Our dancing-master having advised us, in
learning to waltz, to take a chair in our arms instead of a lady, I never
failed to fall with the chair, which I pressed so lovingly that it broke;
and thus the chairs in my room, and that of two or three of my
companions, were destroyed, one after the other." This tale told in the
most animated and amusing manner by his Majesty excited bursts of
laughter from the two princesses.

When this hilarity had somewhat subsided, Princess Stephanie returned to
the charge, saying, "It really is a pity that your Majesty does not know
how to waltz, for the Germans are wild over waltzing, and the Empress
will naturally share the taste of her compatriots; she can have no
partner but the Emperor, and thus she will be deprived of a great
pleasure through your Majesty's fault."--"You are right!" replied the
Emperor; "well, give me a lesson, and you will have a specimen of my
skill." Whereupon he rose, took a few turns with Princess Stephanie,
humming the air of the Queen of Prussia; but he could not take more than
two or three turns, and even this he did so awkwardly that it increased
the amusement of these ladies. Then the Princess of Baden stopped,
saying, "Sire, that is quite enough to convince me that you will never be
anything but a poor pupil. You were made to give lessons, not to take
them."

Early in March the Prince de Neuchatel set out for Vienna commissioned to
officially request the hand of the Empress in marriage. The Archduke
Charles, as proxy of the Emperor, married the Archduchess Marie Louise,
and she set out at once for France, the little town of Brannan, on the
frontier between Austria and Bavaria, having been designated as the place
at which her Majesty was to pass into the care of a French suite. The
road from Strasburg was soon filled with carriages conveying to Brannan.
the household of the new Empress. Most of these ladies had passed from
the household of the Empress Josephine into that of Marie Louise.

The Emperor wished to see for himself if the trousseau and wedding
presents intended for his new wife were worthy of him and of her,
consequently all the clothing and linen were brought to the Tuileries,
spread out before him, and packed under his own eyes. The good taste and
elegance of each article were equaled only by the richness of the
materials. The furnishers and modistes of Paris had worked according to
models sent from Vienna; and when these models were presented to the
Emperor he took one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, and with
it gave me a blow on the cheek in the form of a caress. "See, Constant,"
said his Majesty, "that is a shoe of good augury. Have you ever seen a
foot like that? This is made to be held in the hand."

Her Majesty the Queen of Naples had been sent to Brannan, by the Emperor
to receive the Empress. Queen Caroline, of whom the Emperor once said
that she was a man among her sisters, as Prince Joseph was a woman among
his brothers, mistook, it is said, the timidity of Marie Louise for
weakness, and thought that she would only have to speak and her young
sister-in-law would hasten to obey. On her arrival at Brannan the formal
transfer was solemnly made; and the Empress bade farewell to all her
Austrian household, retaining in her service only her first lady of
honor, Madame de Lajanski, who had reared her and never been absent from
her. Etiquette required that the household of the Empress should be
entirely French, and the orders of the Emperor were very precise in this
regard; but I do not know whether it is true, as has been stated, that
the Empress had demanded and obtained from the Emperor permission to
retain for a year this lady of honor. However that may be, the Queen of
Naples thought it to her interest to remove a person whose influence over
the mind of the Empress she so much feared; and as the ladies of the
household of her Imperial Majesty were themselves eager to be rid of the
rivalry of Madame de Lajanski, and endeavored to excite still more the
jealousy of her Imperial highness, a positive order was demanded from the
Emperor, and Madame de Lajanski was sent back from Munich to Vienna.
The Empress obeyed without complaint, but knowing who had instigated the
blow, cherished a profound resentment against her Majesty the Queen of
Naples. The Empress traveled only by short stages, and was welcomed by
fetes in each town through which she passed. Each day the Emperor sent
her a letter from his own hand, and she replied regularly. The first
letters of the Empress were very short, and probably cold, for the
Emperor said nothing about them; but afterwards they grew longer and
gradually more affectionate, and the Emperor read them in transports of
delight, awaiting the arrival of these letters with the impatience of a
lover twenty years of age, and always saying the couriers traveled
slowly, although they broke down their horses.

The Emperor returned from the chase one day holding in his hands two
pheasants which he had himself killed, and followed by footmen bearing in
their hands the rarest flowers from the conservatory of Saint-Cloud. He
wrote a note, and immediately said to his first page, "In ten minutes be
ready to enter your carriage. You will find there this package which you
will give with your own hand to her Majesty the Empress, with the
accompanying letter. Above all do not spare the horses; go as fast as
possible, and fear nothing. The Duke of Vicenza shall say nothing to
you." The young man asked nothing better than to obey his Majesty; and
strong in this authority, which gave him perfect liberty, he did not
grudge drink money to the postilions, and in twenty-four hours had
reached Strasburg and delivered his message.

I do not know whether he received a reprimand from the grand equerry on
his return; but if there was any cause for this, the latter would not
have failed to bestow it, in spite of the Emperor's assurance to the
first page. The Duke of Vicenza had organized and kept in admirable
order the service of the stables, where nothing was done except by his
will, which was most absolute; and it was only with the greatest
difficulty that the Emperor himself could change an order which the grand
equerry had given. For instance, his Majesty was one day en route to
Fontainebleau, and being very anxious to arrive quickly, gave orders to
the outrider who regulated the gait of the horses, to go faster. This
order he transmitted to the Duke of Vicenza whose carriage preceded that
of the Emperor; and finding that the grand equerry paid no attention to
this order, the Emperor began to swear, and cried to the outrider through
the door, "Let my carriage pass in front, since those in front will not
go on." The outriders and postilions were about to execute this maneuver
when the grand equerry also put his head out of the door and exclaimed,
"Keep to a trot, the first man who gallops I will dismiss on arriving."
It was well known that he would keep his word, so no one dared to pass,
and his carriage continued to regulate the pace of the others. On
reaching Fontainebleau the Emperor demanded of the Duke of Vicenza an
explanation of his conduct. "Sire," replied the duke to his Majesty,
"when you allow me a larger sum for the expenses of the stables, you can
kill your horses at your pleasure."

The Emperor cursed every moment the ceremonials and fetes which delayed
the arrival of his young wife. A camp had been formed near Soissons for
the reception of the Empress. The Emperor was now at Compiegne, where he
made a decree containing several clauses of benefits and indulgences on
the occasion of his marriage, setting at liberty many condemned, giving
Imperial marriage dowries to six thousand soldiers, amnesties,
promotions, etc. At length his Majesty learned that the Empress was not
more than ten leagues from Soissons, and no longer able to restrain his
impatience, called me with all his might, "Ohe ho, Constant! order a
carriage without livery, and come and dress me." The Emperor wished to
surprise the Empress, and present himself to her without being announced;
and laughed immoderately at the effect this would produce. He attended
to his toilet with even more exquisite care than usual, if that were
possible, and with the coquetry of glory dressed himself in the gray
redingote he had worn at Wagram; and thus arrayed, the Emperor entered a
carriage with the King of Naples. The circumstances of this first
meeting of their Imperial Majesties are well known.

In the little village of Courcelles, the Emperor met the last courier,
who preceded by only a few moments the carriages of the Empress; and as
it was raining in torrents, his Majesty took shelter on the porch of the
village church. As the carriage of the Empress was passing, the Emperor
made signs to the postilions to stop; and the equerry, who was at the
Empress's door, perceiving the Emperor, hastily lowered the step, and
announced his Majesty, who, somewhat vexed by this, exclaimed, "Could you
not see that I made signs to you to be silent?" This slight ill-humor,
however, passed away in an instant; and the Emperor threw himself on the
neck of Marie Louise, who, holding in her hand the picture of her
husband, and looking attentively first at it, then at him, remarked with
a charming smile, "It is not flattered." A magnificent supper had been
prepared at Soissons for the Empress and her cortege; but the Emperor
gave orders to pass on, and drove as far as Compiegne, without regard to
the appetites of the officers and ladies in the suite of the Empress.




CHAPTER XXVI.

On their Majesties' arrival at Compiegne, the Emperor presented his hand
to the Empress, and conducted her to her apartment. He wished that no
one should approach or touch his young wife before himself; and his
jealousy was so extreme on this point that he himself forbade the senator
de Beauharnais, the Empress's chevalier of honor, to present his hand to
her Imperial Majesty, although this was one of the requirements of his
position. According to the programme, the Emperor should have occupied a
different residence from the Empress, and have slept at the hotel of the
Chancellerie; but he did nothing of the sort, since after a long
conversation with the Empress, he returned to his room, undressed,
perfumed himself with cologne, and wearing only a nightdress returned
secretly to the Empress.

The next morning the Emperor asked me at his toilet if any one noticed
the change he had made in the programme; and I replied that I thought
not, though at the risk of falsehood. Just then one of his Majesty's
intimate friends entered who was unmarried, to whom his Majesty, pulling
his ears, said, "My dear fellow, marry a German. They are the best wives
in the world; gentle, good, artless, and fresh as roses." From the air
of satisfaction with which the Emperor said this, it was easy to see that
he was painting a portrait, and it was only a short while since the
painter had left the model. After making his toilet, the Emperor
returned to the Empress, and towards noon had breakfast sent up for her
and him, and served near the bed by her Majesty's women. Throughout the
day he was in a state of charming gayety, and contrary to his usual
custom, having made a second toilet for dinner, wore the coat made by the
tailor of the King of Naples; but next day he would not allow it to be
put on again, saying it was much too uncomfortable.

The Emperor, as may be seen from the preceding details, loved his new
wife most tenderly. He paid her constant attentions, and his whole
conduct was that of a lover deeply enamoured. Nevertheless, it is not
true, as some one has said, that he remained three months almost without
working, to the great astonishment of his ministers; for work was not
only a duty with the Emperor, it was both a necessity and an enjoyment,
from which no other pleasure, however great, could distract him; and on
this occasion, as on every other, he knew perfectly well how to combine
the duties he owed to his empire and his army with those due to his
charming wife.

The Empress Marie Louise was only nineteen years old at the period of her
marriage. Her hair was blond, her eyes blue and expressive, her carriage
noble, and her figure striking, while her hand and foot might have served
as models; in fact, her whole person breathed youth, health, and
freshness. She was diffident, and maintained a haughty reserve towards
the court; but she was said to be affectionate and friendly in private
life, and one fact I can assert positively is that she was very
affectionate toward the Emperor, and submissive to his will. In their
first interview the Emperor asked her what recommendations were made to
her on her departure from Vienna. "To be entirely devoted to you, and to
obey you in all things," which instructions she seemed to find no
difficulty in obeying.

No one could resemble the first Empress less than the second, and except
in the two points of similarity of temperament, and an extreme regard for
the Emperor, the one was exactly the opposite of the other; and it must
be confessed the Emperor congratulated himself on this difference, in
which he found both novelty and charm. He himself drew a parallel
between his two wives in these terms: "The one [Josephine] was all art
and grace; the other [Marie Louise] innocence and natural simplicity. At
no moment of her life were the manners or habits of the former other than
agreeable and attractive, and it would have been impossible to take her
at a disadvantage on these points; for it was her special object in life
to produce only advantageous impressions, and she gained her end without
allowing this effort to be seen. All that art can furnish to supplement
attractions was practiced by her, but so skillfully that the existence of
this deception could only be suspected at most. On the contrary, it
never occurred to the mind of the second that she could gain anything by
innocent artifices. The one was always tempted to infringe upon the
truth, and her first emotion was a negative one. The other was ignorant
of dissimulation, and every deception was foreign to her. The first
never asked for anything, but she owed everywhere. The second did not
hesitate to ask if she needed anything, which was very rarely, and never
purchased anything without feeling herself obliged to pay for it
immediately. To sum it all up, both were good, gentle wives, and much
attached to their husband." Such, or very nearly these, were the terms
in which the Emperor spoke of his Empresses. It can be seen that he drew
the comparison in favor of the second; and with this idea he gave her
credit for qualities which she did not possess, or at least exaggerated
greatly those really belonging to her.

The Emperor granted Marie Louise 500,000 francs for her toilet, but she
never spent the entire amount. She had little taste in dress, and would
have made a very inelegant appearance had she not been well advised.
The Emperor was present at her toilet those days on which he wished her
to appear especially well, and himself tried the effect of different
ornaments on the head, neck, and arms of the Empress, always selecting
something very handsome. The Emperor was an excellent husband, of which
he gave proof in the case of both his wives. He adored his son, and both
as father and husband might have served as a model for all his subjects;
yet in spite of whatever he may have said on the subject himself, I do
not think he loved Marie Louise with the same devoted affection as
Josephine. The latter had a charming grace, a kindness, an intelligence,
and a devotion to her husband which the Emperor knew and appreciated at
its full value; and though Marie Louise was younger, she was colder, and
had far less grace of manner. I think she was much attached to her
husband; but she was reserved and reticent, and by no means took the
place of Josephine with those who had enjoyed the happiness of being near
the latter.

Notwithstanding the apparent submission with which she had bidden
farewell to her Austrian household, it is certain that she had strong
prejudices, not only against her own household, but also against that of
the Emperor, and never addressed a gracious word to the persons in the
Emperor's personal service. I saw her frequently, but not a smile, a
look, a sign, on the part of the Empress showed me that I was in her eyes
anything more than a stranger. On my return from Russia, whence I did
not arrive until after the Emperor, I lost no time in entering his room,
knowing that he had already asked for me, and found there his Majesty
with the Empress and Queen Hortense. The Emperor condoled with me on the
sufferings I had recently undergone, and said many flattering things
which proved his high opinion of me; and the queen, with that charming
grace of which she is the only model since the death of her august
mother, conversed with me for some time in the kindest manner. The
Empress alone kept silence; and noticing this the Emperor said to her,
"Louise, have you nothing to say to poor Constant?"--"I had not
perceived him," said the Empress. This reply was most unkind, as it was
impossible for her Majesty not to have "perceived" me, there being at
that moment present in the room only the Emperor, Queen Hortense, and I.

The Emperor from the first took the severest precautions that no one, and
especially no man, should approach the Empress, except in the presence of
witnesses.

During the time of the Empress Josephine, there were four ladies whose
only duty was to announce the persons received by her Majesty. The
excessive indulgence of Josephine prevented her repressing the jealous
pretensions of some persons of her household, which gave rise to endless
debates and rivalries between the ladies of the palace and those of
announcement. The Emperor had been much annoyed by all these bickerings,
and, in order to avoid them in future, chose, from the ladies charged
with the education of the daughters of the Legion of Honor in the school
at Rouen, four new ladies of announcement for the Empress Marie Louise.
Preference was at first given to the daughters or widows of generals; and
the Emperor decided that the places becoming vacant belonged by right to
the best pupils of the Imperial school of Rouen, and should be given as a
reward for good conduct. A short time after, the number of these ladies
now being as many as six, two pupils of Madame de Campan were named, and
these ladies changed their titles to that of first ladies of the Empress.

This change, however, excited the displeasure of the ladies of the
palace, and again aroused their clamors around the Emperor; and he
consequently decided that the ladies of announcement should take the
title of first ladies of the chamber. Great clamor among the ladies of
announcement in their turn, who came in person to plead their cause
before the Emperor; and he at last ended the matter by giving them the
title of readers to the Empress, in order to reconcile the requirements
of the two belligerent parties.

These ladies of announcement, or first ladies of the chamber, or readers,
as the reader may please to call them, had under their orders six femmes
de chambre, who entered the Empress's rooms only when summoned there by a
bell. These latter arranged her Majesty's toilet and hair in the
morning; and the six first ladies took no part in her toilet except the
care of the diamonds, of which they had special charge. Their chief and
almost only employment was to follow the steps of the Empress, whom they
left no more than her shadow, entering her room before she arose, and
leaving her no more till she was in bed. Then all the doors opening into
her room were closed, except that leading into an adjoining room, in
which was the bed of the lady on duty, and through which, in order to
enter his wife's room, the Emperor himself must pass.

With the exception of M. de Meneval, secretary of orders of the Empress,
and M. Ballouhai, superintendent of expenses, no man was admitted into
the private apartments of the Empress without an order from the Emperor;
and the ladies even, except the lady of honor and the lady of attire,
were received only after making an appointment with the Empress. The
ladies of the private apartments were required to observe these rules,
and were responsible for their execution; and one of them was required to
be present at the music, painting, and embroidery lessons of the Empress,
and wrote letters by her dictation or under her orders.

The Emperor did not wish that any man in the world should boast of having
been alone with the Empress for two minutes; and he reprimanded very
severely the lady on duty because she one day remained at the end of the
saloon while M. Biennais, court watchmaker, showed her Majesty a secret
drawer in a portfolio he had made for her. Another time the Emperor was
much displeased because the lady on duty was not seated by the side of
the Empress while she took her music-lesson with M. Pier.

These facts prove conclusively the falsity of the statement that the
milliner Leroy was excluded from the palace for taking the liberty of
saying to her Majesty that she had beautiful shoulders. M. Leroy had the
dresses of the Empress made at his shop by a model which was sent him;
and they were never tried on her Majesty, either by him, or any person of
her Majesty's household, and necessary alterations were indicated by her
femmes de chambre. It was the same with the other merchants and
furnishers, makers of corsets, the shoemaker, glovemaker, etc.; not one
of whom ever saw the Empress or spoke to her in her private apartments.




CHAPTER XXVII.

Their Majesties' civil marriage was celebrated at Saint-Cloud on Sunday,
the 1st of April, at two o'clock in the afternoon. The religious
ceremony was solemnized the next day in the grand gallery of the Louvre.
A very singular circumstance in this connection was the fact that Sunday
afternoon at Saint-Cloud the weather was beautiful, while the streets of
Paris were flooded with a heavy shower lasting some time, and on Monday
there was rain at Saint-Cloud, while the weather was magnificent in
Paris, as if the fates had decreed that nothing should lessen the
splendor of the cortege, or the brilliancy of the wonderful illuminations
of that evening. "The star of the Emperor," said some one in the
language of that period, "has borne him twice over equinoctial winds."

On Monday evening the city of Paris presented a scene that might have
been taken from the realms of enchantment: the illuminations were the
most brilliant I have ever witnessed, forming a succession of magic
panorama in which houses, hotels, palaces, and churches, shone with
dazzling splendor, the glittering towers of the churches appeared like
stars and comets suspended in the air. The hotels of the grand
dignitaries of the empire, the ministers, the ambassadors of Austria and
Russia, and the Duke d'Abrantes, rivaled each other in taste and beauty.
The Place Louis XV. was like a scene from fairyland; from the midst of
this Place, surrounded with orange-trees on fire, the eye was attracted
in succession by the magnificent decorations of the Champs-Elysees, the
Garde Meuble, the Temple of Glory, the Tuileries, and the Corps
Legislatif. The palace of the latter represented the Temple of Hymen,
the transparencies on the front representing Peace uniting the august
spouses. Beside them stood two figures bearing shields, on which were
represented the arms of the two empires; and behind this group came
magistrates, warriors, and the people presenting crowns. At the two
extremities of the transparencies were represented the Seine and the
Danube, surrounded by children-image of fecundity. The twelve columns of
the peristyle and the staircase were illuminated; and the columns were
united by garlands of colored lights, the statues on the peristyle and
the steps also bearing lights. The bridge Louis XV., by which this
Temple of Hymen was reached, formed in itself an avenue, whose double
rows of lamps, and obelisks and more than a hundred columns, each
surmounted by a star and connected by spiral festoons of colored lights,
produced an effect so brilliant that it was almost unendurable to the
naked eye. The cupola of the dome of Saint Genevieve was also
magnificently lighted, and each side outlined by a double row of lamps.
At each corner were eagles, ciphers in colored glass, and garlands of
fire suspended between torches of Hymen. The peristyle of the dome was
lighted by lamps placed between each column, and as the columns were not
lighted they seemed as if suspended in the air. The lantern tower was a
blaze of light; and all this mass of brilliancy was surmounted by a
tripod representing the altar of Hymen, from which shot tongues of flame,
produced by bituminous materials. At a great elevation above the
platform of the observatory, an immense star, isolated from the platform,
and which from the variety of many-colored glasses composing it sparkled
like a vast diamond, under the dome of night. The palace of the senate
also attracted a large number of the curious; but I have already extended
too far the description of this wonderful scene which unfolded itself at
every step before us.