The Court of the Empress Josephine

Part 1

THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE

IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND

TRANSLATED BY THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY

ILLUSTRATED

1900

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE

II. THE JOURNEY TO THE BANKS OF THE RHINE

III. THE POPE'S ARRIVAL AT FONTAINEBLEAU

IV. THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE CORONATION

V. THE CORONATION

VI. THE DISTRIBUTION OF FLAGS

VII. THE FESTIVITIES

VIII. THE ETIQUETTE OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE

IX. THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE EMPRESS

X. NAPOLEON'S GALLANTRIES

XI. THE POPE AT THE TUILERIES

XII. THE JOURNEY IN ITALY

XIII. THE CORONATION AT MILAN

XIV. THE FESTIVITIES AT GENOA

XV. DURING THE CAMPAIGN OF AUSTERLITZ

XVI. THE MARRIAGE OF PRINCE EUGENE

XVII. PARIS IN THE BEGINNING OF 1806

XVIII. THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF BADEN

XIX. THE NEW QUEEN OF HOLLAND

XX. THE EMPRESS AT MAYENCE

XXI. THE RETURN OF THE EMPRESS TO PARIS

Part 2

XXII. THE DEATH OF THE YOUNG NAPOLEON

XXIII. THE END OF THE WAR

XXIV. THE EMPEROR'S RETURN

XXV. THE COURT AT FONTAINEBLEAU

XXVI. THE END OF THE YEAR 1807

THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE.

"Two-thirds of my life is passed, why should I so distress myself about what remains? The most brilliant fortune does not deserve all the trouble I take, the pettiness I detect in myself, or the humiliations and shame I endure; thirty years will destroy those giants of power which can be seen only by raising the head; we shall disappear, I who am so petty, and those whom I regard so eagerly, from whom I expected all my greatness. The most desirable of all blessings is repose, seclusion, a little spot we can call our own." When La Bruyère expressed himself so bitterly, when he spoke of the court "which satisfies no one," but "prevents one from being satisfied anywhere else," of the court, "that country where the joys are visible but false, and the sorrows hidden, but real," he had before him the brilliant Palace of Versailles, the unrivalled glory of the Sun King, a monarchy which thought itself immovable and eternal. What would he say in this century when dynasties fail like autumn leaves, and it takes much less than thirty years to destroy the giants of power; when the exile of to-day repeats to the exile of the morrow the motto of the churchyard: Hodie mihi, eras tibi? What would this Christian philosopher say at a time when royal and imperial palaces have been like caravansaries through which sovereigns have passed like travellers, when their brief resting-places have been consumed by the blaze of petroleum and are now but a heap of ashes?

The study of any court is sure to teach wisdom and indifference to human glories. In our France of the nineteenth century, fickle as it has been, inconstant, fertile in revolutions, recantations, and changes of every sort, this lesson is more impressive than it has been at any period of our history. Never has Providence shown more clearly the nothingness of this world's grandeur and magnificence. Never has the saying of Ecclesiastes been more exactly verified: "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" We have before us the task of describing one of the most sumptuous courts that has ever existed, and of reviewing splendors all the more brilliant for their brevity. To this court of Napoleon and Josephine, to this majestic court, resplendent with glory, wealth, and fame, may well be applied Corneille's lines:--

"All your happiness Subject to instability In a moment falls to the ground, And as it has the brilliancy of glass It also has its fragility."

We shall evoke the memory of the dead to revive this vanished court, and we shall consult, one after another, the persons who were eye-witnesses of these short-lived wonders. A prefect of the palace, M. de Bausset, wrote: "When I recall the memorable times of which I have just given a faint idea, I feel, after so many years, as if I had been taking part in the gorgeous scenes of the Arabian Tales or of the Thousand and One Nights. The magic picture of all those splendors and glories has disappeared, and with it all the prestige of ambition and power." One of the ladies of the palace of the Empress Josephine, Madame de Rémusat, has expressed the same thought: "I seem to be recalling a dream, but a dream resembling an Oriental tale, when I describe the lavish luxury of that period, the disputes for precedence, the claims of rank, the demands of every one." Yes, in all that there was something dreamlike, and the actors in that fairy spectacle which is called the Empire, that great show piece, with its scenery, now brilliant, now terrible, but ever changing, must have been even more astonished than the spectators. Aix-la-Chapelle and the court of Charlemagne, the castle of Fontainebleau and the Pope, Notre Dame and the coronation, the Champ de Mars and the distribution of eagles, the Cathedral of Milan and the Iron Crown, Genoa the superb and its naval festival, Austerlitz and the three emperors,--what a setting! what accessories! what personages! The peal of organs, the intoning of priests, the applause of the multitude and of the soldiers, the groans of the dying, the trumpet call, the roll of the drum, ball music, military bands, the cannon's roar, were the joyful and mournful harmonies heard while the play went on. What we shall study amid this tumult and agitation is one woman. We have already studied her as the Viscountess of Beauharnais, as Citizeness Bonaparte, and as the wife of the First Consul. We shall now study her in her new part, that of Empress.

Let us go back to May 18, 1804, to the Palace of Saint Cloud. The Emperor had just been proclaimed by the Senate before the plébiscite which was to ratify the new state of things. The curtain has risen, the play begins, and no drama is fuller of contrasts, of incidents, of movement. The leading actor, Napoleon, was already as familiar with his part as if he had played it since his childhood. Josephine is also at home in hers. As a woman of the world, she had learned, by practice in the drawing-room, to win even greater victories. For a fashionable beauty there is no great difference between an armchair and a throne. The minor actors are not so accustomed to their new position. Nothing is more amusing than the embarrassment of the courtiers when they have to answer the Emperor's questions. They begin with a blunder; then, in correcting themselves, they fall into still worse confusion; ten times a minute was repeated, Sire, General, Your Majesty, Citizen, First Consul. Constant, the Emperor's valet de chambre, has given us a description of this 18th of May, 1804, a day devoted to receptions, presentations, interviews, and congratulations: "Every one," he says, "was filled with joy in the Palace of Saint Cloud; every one imagined that he had risen a step, like General Bonaparte, who, from First Consul, had become a monarch. Men were embracing and complimenting one another; confiding their share of hopes and plans for the future; there was no official so humble that he was not fired with ambition." In a word, the ante-chamber, barring the difference of persons, presented an exact imitation of what was going on in the drawing-room. It seemed like a first performance which had long been eagerly expected, arousing the same eager excitement among the players and the public. The day which had started bright grew dark; for a long time there were threatenings of a thunder-storm; but none looked on this as an evil omen. All were inclined to cheery views. The courtiers displayed their zeal with all the ardor, the passion, the furia francese, which is a national characteristic, and appears on the battle-field as well as in the ante- chamber. The French fight and flatter with equal enthusiasm.

Amid all these manifestations of devotion and delight, the members of the Imperial family alone, who should have been the most satisfied, and certainly the most astonished by their greatness, wore an anxious, almost a grieved look. They alone appeared discontented with their master. Their pride knew no bounds; their irritability was extreme. Nothing seemed good enough, for them. In the way of honors privileges, and when we recall their father's modest at Ajaccio, it is hard to keep from smiling at the vanity of these new Princes of the blood. Of Napoleon's four brothers, two were absent and on bad terms with him: Lucien, on account of his marriage with Madame Jouberton; Jerome, on account of his marriage with Miss Paterson. His mother, Madame Letitia Bonaparte, an able woman, who combined great courage with uncommon good sense, had not lost her head over the wonderful good fortune of the modern Caesar. Having a presentiment that all this could not last, she economized from motives of prudence, not of avarice. While the courtiers were celebrating the Emperor's new triumphs, she lingered in Rome with her son Lucien, whom she had followed in his voluntary exile, having pronounced in his favor in his quarrel with Napoleon. As for Joseph and Louis, who, with their wives, had been raised to the dignity of Grand Elector and Constable, respectively, one might think that they were overburdened with wealth and honors, and would be perfectly satisfied. But not at all! They were indignant that they were not personally mentioned, in the plébiscite, by which their posterity was appointed to succeed to the French crown. This plébiscite ran thus: "The French people desire the Inheritance of the Imperial dignity in the direct, natural, or adoptive line of descent from Napoleon Bonaparte, and in the direct, natural, legitimate line of descent from Joseph Bonaparte and from Louis Bonaparte, as is determined by the organic senatus-consultum of the twenty-eighth Floréal, year XII." For the Emperor's family, these stipulations were the cause of incessant squabbles and recriminations. Lucien and Jerome regarded their exclusion as an act of injustice. Joseph and Louis asked indignantly why their descendants were mentioned when they themselves were excluded. They were very jealous of Josephine, and of her son, Eugene de Beauharnais, and much annoyed by the Emperor's reservation of the right of adoption, which threatened them and held out hopes for Eugene. Louis Bonaparte, indignant with the slanderous story, according to which his wife, Hortense, had been Napoleon's mistress, treated her ill, and conceived a dislike for his own son, who was reported to be that of the Emperor. As for Elisa Bacciochi, Caroline Murat, and Pauline Borghese, they could not endure the mortification of being placed below the Empress, their sister-in-law, and the thought that they had not yet been given the title of Princesses of the blood, which had been granted to the wife of Joseph and the wife of Louis, filled them with actual despair.

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