Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte (49 page)

After all, it was a long time—if ever—since Napoleon had been with a virgin. And yet he did not let her share his bed, as Josephine had. His excuse was that he could not bear her Germanic habit of sleeping with the windows open. In truth, he was afraid of ceding control. As he later said on St. Helena, he had been afraid she would demand to sleep with him in his bedroom, for it was the way for a woman to have power over a man. Moreover, her allowance was exactly half that of Josephine’s—300,000 francs to live on and 60,000 francs for charity. She was given some of Josephine’s jewels, but Napoleon kept many of them. She did receive Josephine’s incredible Maison Jacob jewel cabinet, after workmen had changed the locks.

Marie Louise, a pampered daughter of royalty, expected more protection from the emperor than he was willing to give. She was hauled out for propaganda reasons on her first imperial tour, forced to tour lands that once were the possession of Austria. They visited Belgium, Holland, and the Rhine, followed by dozens of coaches carrying kings, queens, viceroys, attendants, and courtiers, along with ladies-in-waiting, trunks of dresses, and boxes of gifts to be distributed. Austrian imperial
progresses had never involved such pomp, and Marie Louise was miserable at the interminable audiences, cross about the weather, and suffering from headaches. Napoleon was impatient with her and fumed when she failed to please local dignitaries at receptions. Poor Marie Louise was shy and often glacial, unable to make small talk and unable to hide her boredom. On one occasion, when she went to launch a ship at Cherbourg, the minister of police wrote to the chief of her Imperial Guard escort, begging him to ensure that she would be punctual and would smile and be gentle with those who approached her. “For God’s sake, my friend, no ice,” he implored.
²²

Unlike Josephine, Marie Louise did not obey Napoleon when he railed. “Nearly two o’clock and the Emperor would not allow me to eat in the carriage! He said a woman should never have to eat. I was so angry and hungry that it gave me a fearful headache and so much bad humor that the Emperor was furious. I didn’t care. If I return in another world, I would certainly not remarry.”
²³
The empress had reason to be hungry, tired, and suffering from headaches. By July, she was pregnant with Napoleon’s child.

Napoleon was thrilled by the pregnancy. Convinced he would have a son, he planned extensive celebrations and wrote down directives for the birth and christening, following exactly what had been done for the dauphin years ago. The news put the seal on Josephine’s downfall—despite all her hopes, there was no going back or living under the same roof. Marie Louise had succeeded in her duty. As Napoleon put it, “I have married a womb.” At last the decision that had caused him so much torment had proved itself the right one: He had been correct to divorce.

By this point Josephine had returned to Malmaison, after much pleading. She had written on April 19, thanking Napoleon for the permission to leave the cookpot castle after only three weeks there. “I feared I had been entirely banished from Your Majesty’s memory,” she said. “I see that I am not. I am therefore less wretched today and even as happy as it is possible henceforth for me to be.” She was all humility. “While I am at Malmaison, Your Majesty may be sure I will live as though I were a thousand leagues from Paris and Your Majesty will not be troubled in his great happiness by any expression of my own regrets.”
²⁴

She also promised not to remain long at Malmaison but to travel speedily to a spa. Though Napoleon encouraged her to remember that he was still her friend, his response was cool: “I have received your letter of 19 April; it is written in a bad style.” Now that Marie-Louise was pregnant, he was resistant to emotional blackmail. He encouraged her to remember that he was still her friend.
²⁵
She wrote back humbly begging his pardon:

There was not a word which did not make me weep; but these tears were very pleasant ones. I have found my whole heart again—such as it will always be; there are affections which are life itself and which can only end with it. I was in despair that my letter of the 19th had displeased you; I do not remember the exact expressions but I know what torture I felt in writing it—grief at having no news of you.
²⁶

Josephine’s promise to live at Malmaison as if she were “a thousand leagues from Paris” was not truthful. She hankered after her old Paris life. She wished for invitations and balls and, most of all, Napoleon’s idea of him seated at court between both empresses. She asked to meet the new empress. Napoleon replied via Hortense that it would be impossible, telling her that “the Empress Marie Louise is alarmed by what she has heard of your mother’s attractions and the hold she is known to have over me.”
²⁷
The new empress had wept when her husband drove her past Malmaison and proposed a visit.

Josephine was undeterred. She wished to befriend Marie Louise in an attempt to return to court. When Josephine sent a second request, Napoleon refused directly. “No, she thinks you are very old. If she sees you and your charms she would be worried, she would ask me to send you away and I would have to do it.” Marie Louise was predictably rude: “How can he want to see that old lady? And a woman of low birth!”
²⁸

Josephine left Malmaison and took the waters with Hortense at Aix. Hortense was newly free—her husband had abdicated his throne on July 1, largely because he no longer felt able to pursue the oppressive regime Napoleon expected, notably the ban on trade with Britain. He
had left Hortense in power as regent for their eldest son, but after eight days, Napoleon declared Holland part of the French empire and removed his stepdaughter from the throne. She did not miss it. Separated from her husband, she traveled with her mother and spent time with her admirer, the Comte de Flahaut, a handsome soldier who may have been Talleyrand’s illegitimate child. In 1811 Hortense gave birth to his child in secret in Switzerland. Flahaut made her happy, flattering her and treating her like his personal goddess. It was a brief return to the days when she had just graduated from Madame Campan’s and was the jewel of Malmaison and the object of a thousand admiring glances.

Josephine left Aix to travel to Switzerland, where she was generously cheered and offered presents and tributes. Madame Ducrest went to visit her in Geneva, at l’Hôtel d’Angleterre, and saw her feted at the Festival of the Lake, where she was transported in a boat drawn by two swans to the sound of fireworks and cries of “
Vive l’imperatrice!
” Unfortunately, such a reception had to be rewarded with largesse: Josephine went next to the local factories, where, as Ducrest remarked, she spent hundreds of francs on souvenirs.
²⁹

“There is not the slightest doubt that the Empress has entered into the fourth month of her pregnancy, she is well and is very much attached to me,” Napoleon wrote to his former wife in September.
³⁰
When Josephine was in Italy, Claire de Rémusat wrote that she should stay traveling around Europe, away from France. “You will not without grief listen to the sound of so much rejoicing, relegated as you may be to oblivion by the whole nation.” Claire mentioned “Marie Louise’s jealous disposition” and evoked a tableau of family life at the Tuileries from which Josephine would be excluded. “The Emperor will be caring for his young wife although still moved by his sentiments towards you …[He] asks of you one more sacrifice … Will you write the Emperor that the winter will be spent in Italy?”
³¹

N
APOLEON, GLEEFUL AND
addicted to grandeur as ever, announced that a son would be the king of Rome, a daughter the princess of Venice. He asked the indefatigable Fontaine to draw up plans for a huge palace for his son, as “the Palace of the King of Rome.” A suite of apartments
in the Tuileries was lavishly decorated for the baby, furnished with silver and heavy furniture, as well as an extensive library.

Josephine had no desire to stay in Italy. Napoleon permitted her to return to France (although not Paris), and she arrived at Navarre on November 22. She was pleased to see how the gardens had been completely renovated and drained according to her plans, with new flowers brought over from Malmaison. She enjoyed having a second garden to cultivate, and grew plants almost as rare as those at Malmaison—as revealed in the
Description des plantes rares cultivées à Malmaison et à Navarre
(1812–17), illustrated by Redouté.

At Navarre, life was rather stiff and formal. Josephine had her lady of honor, Madame d’Arberg; various ladies-in-waiting, including Madame de Rémusat; an almoner, equerries, chamberlains, a reader, ushers, a doctor, and a secretary. She met merchants and representatives of charities in the morning and took a walk or an accompanied drive around the grounds after lunch. At dinner, people sat where they chose, and there was rarely an order of precedence in the carriages. But she was exasperated by the hierarchy of her servants—at meals the staff members were served on twenty-two different tables, since the cooks would not eat with the kitchen maids, nor would the servants who scrubbed the floors sit with those who lit the fires. Madame d’Arberg only managed to reduce the tables to sixteen.

Money was always a problem for Josephine. Napoleon was as impossible to please as ever, demanding that she keep up the style of an empress but not providing quite enough funds to do so. He wrote angrily that she should behave as if she were in the Tuileries. Her household gentlemen should not be allowed to wear frock coats; instead, they must display the court outfit of embroidered dress, swords, and feathers. She must always, he instructed, travel with an escort. He did allow her ladies free choice in their gowns, as long as they were green.

Josephine’s spirits had lifted a little after the first shock of Napoleon’s new marriage. The renovations to the house and gardens made life much more congenial. Madame Ducrest had put together a jovial household who stayed up late chatting and playing cards. The party ate late into the night, dining off Josephine’s Sèvres divorce present from
Napoleon and a golden plate given by the city of Paris on the day of the coronation. On one occasion, the household decided to play dress-up, and Josephine gave them her feathery headdresses, cashmere shawls, and gowns covered in gold embroidery. She had become careless of imperial trappings and wore simple crepe dresses and caps or diadems of flowers rather than the weighty headdresses of the empress. She preferred informal gatherings and begged the inhabitants of Evreux not to celebrate her birthday (they ignored her and illuminated the town all the same). When the Navarre waterways iced over, Josephine ordered sledges from Paris for her staff, while others were pushed about in armchairs newly affixed with wheels—unfortunately, a wheel dropped off Mademoiselle Avrillion’s, and the poor woman broke her leg. On New Year’s Day 1811, rather than giving presents (the custom in the early nineteenth century was to exchange gifts on New Year’s Day rather than at Christmas), Josephine declared that she would hold a lottery for her jewels, giving away crosses, rings, brooches, and pins. Despite the informality, people were formal with her. As Madame d’Arberg said, “so few persons appear in their true character that Her Majesty is very partial to those who display any candour.”
³²

Eugène, too, welcomed the opportunity to throw off ceremony at Navarre. When he arrived for a visit, he begged not to be announced so he could dash in without any of the company rising. He won over all the ladies, and Madame Ducrest claimed it was “impossible to display greater amiability, instruction or good nature.”
³³
One of their favorite occupations with him was to have a competition as to who could hook the most fish in the little rivers around the castle; they would then have the chefs fry them up for dinner. The visits of Hortense were rather sadder. Louis had begged Napoleon for a divorce, but the emperor had refused, so she was in the same position that Josephine had been in the years before the Terror—unwanted by her husband but unable to marry again.

Josephine dreaded the occasional journeys between Navarre and Paris, since Napoleon desired a true triumphal progress. She was so weary of it that on one occasion she told her ladies to dress humbly and tell everyone they encountered that the empress had passed incognito. She would then travel the next day. The ladies witnessed terrible disappointment
in every town, for the burghers had all emerged in their costumes, the troops had been polishing their silver and shining their boots, and young girls had dressed up in white, holding nosegays in their hands, only to be told that the empress had already gone past and they had missed their chance of seeing her.

Still she was seen as a benefactor. “There is no danger of annoying or importuning Josephine when we enable her to relieve the distressed,” Madame de Rémusat said. Josephine received a steady stream of the poor and suffering. On one occasion, a musician came to Navarre and was so bad in his attempt at imitating a quartetto of different instruments that the ladies-in-waiting could not restrain their laughter. Josephine gave him food and money and gently reprimanded her ladies for mocking “a poor man who tried so hard to please me when he was dying with hunger.”
³⁴

O
N
M
ARCH
20, Josephine was dining with Madame d’Arberg, having sent her household to a dinner with the mayor of Evreux. She received an official dispatch and then heard the village bells ring out. A son had been born to Napoleon and Marie Louise. Briefly, pain spread across her features, and then she resumed her gracious manner and spoke of her pleasure at an event that gave her former husband such joy. She sent a courier with a message to congratulate her beloved Napoleon. Josephine’s household hurried back from the dinner to attend her. Torn between hope for the empire and allegiance to Josephine, Madame Ducrest wrote of “a violent emotion of anger when I recollected that the woman who held her place was completely happy.” Josephine was serene with her household. “I am well pleased to find that the painful sacrifice I made to France has proved of some advantage.”
³⁵
She sent Napoleon a five-thousand-franc diamond pin and planned a great ball in celebration of the news.