Napoleon (O'Connor 1896)/Chapter 8

by T. P. O'Connor

CHAPTER VIII.

MARIE LOUISE.^[1]

It is time to tell something of the other woman who played a great part in Napoleon's career: Marie Louise, his second wife.

I.

THE CORSICAN OGRE.

I find a very good picture of her in an interesting little book called "The Three Empresses." The three Empresses are Josephine, Marie Louise, and Eugénie. The volume is simple, unpretentious, rather uncritical; but the writer is pleasant, sympathetic, and womanly; and one can spend several pleasant hours in her society and that of the three rather hapless women who are her heroines.

Nothing could have seemed more unlikely in human affairs than that Marie Louise should become the wife of Napoleon. Here is one of the first incidents in her life:

"Some time during the early spring of the year 1797, a party of Royal fugitives might have been seen leaving the Austrian capital and hurriedly making their way along the road to Hungary; the progress of their attendants being somewhat impeded by the many packages of valuable property which they were endeavouring to save from the enemy. Making one of this party of refugees of the Imperial House of Hapsburg was the little Archduchess, Marie Louise, then a child between five and six years old, 'whom our imagination,' writes Sir Walter Scott in his 'Life of Napoleon,' 'may conceive agitated by every species of childish terror derived from the approach of the victorious general, on whom she was at a future and similar crisis destined to bestow her hand."

And her education, besides, had been carefully devoted towards increasing the hatred of the man who had inflicted this humiliation on her family. For she was brought up "with the truest respect for religion, while she learned to eschew revolutionary ideas, more especially as exemplified in the conduct of Napoleon Bonaparte."

To such an extent was the latter feeling carried, that when Marie Louise used to play as a child with her little brothers and sisters, they were accustomed to select the blackest and ugliest of their dolls, which they dressed in uniform and stuck full of pins, in denunciation of the ogre who was an incarnation of terror to their childish minds. The young Archduchess had, too, a lively remembrance of the war in the year 1805, which also brought Austria to the very verge of ruin. The Imperial family had on that occasion been again compelled to flee from their capital, and writing from Hungary, where they had taken refuge, to her father, Marie Louise had endeavoured to console him by the assurance that she prayed daily and hourly that the power of the usurper might be humbled in the dust, cheerfully suggesting that perhaps the Almighty had let him get so far that his ruin might be more complete when it came.

Later on, when Marie Louise heard that Napoleon had lost the battle of Eckmuhl, she wrote to her father.

"We have heard with joy," she writes, "that Napoleon was present at the great battle which he lost. May he lose his head as well!" She then goes on to refer to a prophecy which was current that he would die that year at Cologne, adding: "I do not attach much importance to these prophecies, but how happy I should be to seem them fulfilled."

"Napoleon appeared to her on a background of blood, a kind of fatal being, a wicked genius, a satanic Corsican, a sort of Antichrist," thus a clever French writer sums up the girl's early impressions of her future husband.

To her he was the murderer of the Duke d'Enghien, the enemy of every crowned head in Europe, the author of the treachery at Bayonne, the persecutor of the Pope, the excommunicated sovereign.

Finally there was the great, and, as we would have thought, the insuperable obstacle that Napoleon was the child and embodiment of the French Revolution, and the French Revolution had guillotined Marie Antoinette, the aunt of Marie Louise, but fifteen or sixteen years before.

II.

THE REARING OF MARIE LOUISE.

But the rearing of Marie Louise had been of a kind that made her accept pliantly whatever her father thought it her duty to do. I don't know a picture much more repulsive than that of the girlhood of this woman. The French author tells it with the plainness of speech characteristic of his race, and though the passage leaves much to be desired in point of delicacy, it is so true, so life-like, and so instructive a picture, that I cannot refrain from giving it:

"She was taught a number of languages, German, English, Turkish, Bohemian, Spanish, Italian, French, even Latin, for she is ignorant of where destiny will take her. The more her vocabulary is extended, the more words she has to express the same idea. That is all she wants. She has many accomplishments, music and drawing, which make a decent and high occupation for idle Princesses. She has just the semblance of religion, restraining her to its minutest practices, but she has been taught how to dispute on the dogmas, for her future husband may be schismatic. As for morals, by a carefully arranged mystery, the Archduchess is allowed to ignore the fact that in nature there exist beings of different sexes. With precautions which only the casuists of the great Spanish schools could conceive of, they strove in every way to safeguard her innocence, going to refinements of modesty that became pruriency. In the yards there were only hens, not a single male bird amongst them; there were only hen, canaries in the cages, no songsters; there were no male dogs in the rooms, nothing but females. And the books—such contemptible books—are expurgated, scissors in hand, pages, lines, even words, cut out, without it ever occurring to the cutters that, in the face of these gaps, even Archduchesses would think. It is true that a governess, an ayah, who afterwards became a great lady, kept a tight rein on even dreams. It was she who held complete sway indoors, assisted at the lessons, directed and controlled the games, kept watch over the domestics and the junior school mistresses. She did not quit the pupil either day or night. As the care of the Princess was an important matter, and belonged to the domain of politics, the holder of this office changed if the ministers went out of office; Marie Louise had five governesses in eighteen years, but her education was controlled by laws so severe and so strict that, beyond the mutations in the personnel of the establishment, there was no variety for her.

"For amusement she had those forms which belong to convent life: flowers to cultivate, birds to take care of, sometimes a little frolic on the lawn with the governess's daughter; on days when she went out she had a familiar intimacy, very sweet, but very plebeian, with the old uncles who dabbled in painting and music. There was no toilet, no jewellery, no dancing, nor any participation in the gaieties of the Court—only some journeys to and from the Diet. The thing which was the most memorable to Marie Louise—that which afforded her the greatest break in the routine of life—was an occasional flight before a French invasion; discipline then lost something of its regularity, and her tasks were somewhat slackened. Therefore it is not a woman whom they deliver to Napoleon, it is a child bent to a control so severe, so uniform, and so narrow, that any discipline will be sweet in comparison, and even the least pleasure will be new.

"But if education has in her case so compressed nature, it need not be feared that nature will not in due course take its revenge. This is the education that the daughters of Marie Thérèse have received, and we have seen Marie Antoinette at work at Versailles, Marie Caroline at Naples, and Marie Amélie at Palma. Doubtless! But Napoleon imagined that the husbands had not set 'the right way to work, and he has his plans. The schoolgirl whom he has received will simply pass out of the convent at Schönbrunn into the convent of the Tuileries or Saint-Cloud. There will only be added the husband. There will be the same inflexible regulations, the same rigorous surveillance; no liberty of action, no literature which has not been chosen; no visits will be allowed to male friends, the ayah will be replaced by a duenna, and four feminine guards will be perpetually on the watch, two at the door, two in the apartment, night and day, like sentinels before the enemy."

III.

IPHIGENIA.

Under such circumstances, and with such a training, how could poor Marie Louise regard the marriage to Napoleon as anything but an act of self-sacrifice? And her own people so fully shared this view that they rather shrank from mentioning the subject to her. Her father excused himself from even hinting at it on the ground of not desiring to even seem to influence her decision; her young stepmother "utterly declined to have anything to do with it,' and when Metternich "first put the proposal before the young Archduchess, she is said to have listened with much distaste and dismay;" but she presently asked him: "What does my father wish?'? And that, after all, was the one decisive question for her.

At first Marie Louise, who was much attached to her home and family, could look only on the gloomiest side of the picture, the having to part from them to journey to a country that was strange to her, as the affianced bride of a man whom she had never seen, and whose very name had been a terror to her. But Metternich did his very utmost to reassure her by turning her thoughts to the gaiety and grandeur which awaited her at the French Court, where she would occupy a position in which she would have the whole world at her feet; while shortly afterwards Napoleon despatched Count Montesquieu to Vienna with his portrait—one of Isabey's exquisite miniatures set in diamonds—when gazing at it long and attentively, she observed with an air of relief: "After all, he is not ill-looking."

IV.

EVERLASTING PEACE.

Meantime, every good Austrian thought that the marriage would ensure permanent alliance between France and Austria, and there was a tremendous reaction in Napoleon's favour. Metternich, as the chief manager of the marriage, was especially popular. To his wife, who had remained in Paris, the diplomatist wrote:

"All Vienna is interested in nothing but this marriage. It would be difficult to form an idea of the public feeling about it and its extreme popularity. If I had saved the world I could not receive more homage for the part which I am supposed to have played in the matter. In the promotions that are sure to follow I shall have the Golden Fleece."

The Archduchess herself, too, soon became an object of intense popular interest. Count Otto de Mesloy, the French representative at Vienna, was especially rapturous over the marriage; for to his eyes it meant that the alliance would "ensure lasting tranquillity to Europe, compel England to make peace, and give the Emperor the necessary leisure for organising the vast empire he has created in accordance with his lofty conceptions. . . . All humanity will repose beneath the shadow of the laurels of our august Emperor; and after having conquered half Europe he will add to his numerous victories the most difficult and most consolatory of all—the conquest of a general peace."

It is from his dithyrambic pages that we get the most glowing descriptions of the effect of the prospect on the Viennese.

"Every morning," writes this enthusiastic courtier, "one may see thousands of curious people station themselves before the Palace, to watch the Archduchess pass on her way to mass. The people are delighted to see her radiant with health and happiness."

There are several pathetic little circumstances in the period that elapsed between the acceptance of the marriage and the arrival of Marie Louise in France. Thus, what could give a better picture of her girlishness than the following account of an interview she had with Marshal Berthier, who had come to Vienna as Napoleon's representative?

"The Archduchess conversed in the most spontaneous and unaffected manner with Marshal Berthier, telling him that she liked playing the harp, and asking if she would be allowed to take lessons, saying that she was fond of flowers, and so hoped that the Emperor would permit her to have a botanical garden. She also spoke of Fontainebleau, and the wild and picturesque scenery of the forest, adding: 'I like nothing better than beautiful scenery.' She went on to say that she trusted that the Emperor would be indulgent to her, as she did not know how to dance quadrilles, but added that she would be quite willing to take dancing lessons if he wished it."

V.

THE BRIDEGROOM.

Meantime the expectant bridegroom presents us at this period of his life with a picture which is very unlike that which most of us had formed of him in our imaginings; a picture in which we can scarcely recognise the cruel, terrible, and fateful being who was able to retain a face impassive as marble in the midst of the carnage of battle-fields, and who sent lightly so many hundreds of thousands of human beings to slaughter. The childish excitement, the keen anxiety, the curious outbreaks, even of self-distrust, and what I may call the antics and frivolities of Napoleon at this epoch, are useful as helping to make us understand. how thoroughly human he was after all. And yet it is a picture which is, on the whole, repellent to me. One of Napoleon's critics. described him as Jupiter Scapin—half demigod, half "Merry Andrew." The grotesque puerilities. under all this iron mask and in this heart of steel, rather add to the sense of horror at all the gigantic evil he was capable of creating. A man of doom, who was at least consistently grave, self-controlled, and terrible, would be less repellent than this creature of contradictions, at once so lofty and so mean, so awful and so grotesque, so proud and so grovelling.

But let me tell the story of his acts and thoughts from contemporary records, and leave to the reader the conclusions as to his character. Catherine, daughter of the King of Wurtemberg, who was with Napoleon at the time in Paris, gives an excellent description of Napoleon in a letter to her father:

"You will never believe, my dear father, how much in love he is with his future wife. He is excited beyond anything I could have imagined, and every day he sends one of his chamberlains, charged, like Mercury, with the missives of Great Jove. He showed me five of these epistles, which certainly were not written by St. Paul, but which really might have been dictated by an ardent lover. He talks of nothing but her, and what concerns her; I will not enumerate for you all the pleasures and presents he is preparing for her, of which he has given me a detailed account. I will content myself with showing you the disposition of his mind by repeating that he told me that, once married, he would give peace to the whole world, and all the rest of his time to Zaire."

VI.

AS A WESTERN ODALISQUE.

Napoleon's other acts showed his curious self-distrust and incurable suspicion of women—a suspicion, founded not merely on his unhappy experiences with Josephine, but also on his low, brutal view of the sex. Accordingly, his plans with regard to his new wife are a singular mixture of precaution and indulgence. M. Masson declares that "no man, however high or low in the social scale, was to be allowed to remain even for a moment with the Empress." In short, his idea is that his wife should lead in the West the life of the dwellers in the harem in the East, except that the duenna took the place of the eunuch. But the other side of the system is that Napoleon offers to his young wife all material comforts, just like those that "a Sultan would bestow on his favourite Odalisque."

"At Vienna Marie Louise never knew what it was to have elegant dresses, exquisite laces, rare shawls, or luxurious underwear. She will have now—on condition, however, that no male modiste approaches her, that the selections are made by her ladies-in-waiting—everything French industry can produce, all that is novel, that is dear. He gives her a foretaste of all these by the trousseau and jewel-cases which he sends her, every article of which he has seen himself, and has had packed under his own eyes."

It will make some of the ladies who read this article almost envious when I mention even some of the presents of which Berthier was the bearer to the young bride.

Among other splendours, says Baron Peyrusse, were a necklace composed of thirty-two groups of stones, valued at 900,000 fr. (£36,000), some earrings which had cost 400,000 fr. (£16,000), and the portrait of Napoleon set in a circle of sixteen single diamonds, valued at 600,000 fr. (£24,000). Napoleon, we see, could be lavish on behalf of a betrothed whose dowry was, after all, a modest one, amounting only to 500,000 fr. (£20,000).

VII.

THE GILDED CAGE.

If I had the space I might give a good many other details from the extraordinarily minute and laborious pages of M. Masson with regard to the gilding of Marie Louise's cage. With the same deadly and appalling quantity of detail which I observed when quoting from him with regard to Josephine, M. Masson has counted up the number of Marie Louise's chemises, dressing-gowns, stockings, etc.; for her toilet alone the new Empress was to have an allowance of 30,000 fr. (£1,200) a month, or 360,000 fr. (£14,400) a year.

"In Vienna she had nothing but a few poor jewels, which the wife of a bourgeois in Paris would have despised: a few ornaments for her hair, a few small pearls, a few in paste—in short, the jewel-case of a ruined Princess. She will have in Paris diamonds such as no Princess ever had before. In Austria she had modest rooms; in France she will occupy apartments the decoration of which the Emperor has superintended himself—from which everything has been removed that might recall the former occupant—apartments which, in whatever palace she may reside, will always have the same little articles of daily use, so that she may everywhere find the same things close to her hands and follow the same habits. He himself has superintended the selection of all these things also, and their arrangement. He is so proud of his work that he invites everybody to see it. . . . Marie Louise, under the system of training to which she was subjected, was never allowed by her governesses to take sweets lest they should injure her digestion; as Napoleon knows that she is a bit of a glutton, and, like all Viennese women, would like to eat sweets and drink coffee every hour, he transforms his table, multiplies there sweets, bonbons, confectionery, and provides daily a lunch of pastry alone. . . . She cannot say whether she likes the play or not, for she has never been allowed to go to the theatre; but she would not be a true daughter either of her age or her country if she did not love it. She will now have all kinds of entertainment—drama or music as often as she likes, either going with him to the theatres or having private theatricals in her own palaces. Is there anything else she wants? She can have it—dogs, birds, masters of music, painting, or embroidery, all kinds of stamps, every sort of Dunkirk ware—everything, in short, on the one condition that she bows to the discipline of the harem, and leads a life similar to that which she has been brought up to expect. She will only go out for great ceremonies, civil and religious, to great balls and theatres, to clubs, to salons, to vacations, to State journeys. She will appear then lofty, almost like a goddess, in her great robes, heavy with diamonds, surrounded by a procession of ladies-in-waiting, officials—seen from afar off by the people like an idol. Thus does he gild the cage and adorn the prison; thus does he take precautions for keeping her still a child by amusing her with toys; thus does he regulate minutely her whole life in order that she may pass without any shock from the state of the captive Archduchess at Schonbrunn to the state of the captive Empress at Paris. Thus does he ensure her continence, and thus does he place his wife with Cæsar's, above and outside of suspicion."

VIII.

THE NEMESIS OF NATURE.

I cannot say whether one should laugh at or weep over all these things when one knows how it all ended; and is Napoleon to be admired or despised as he goes through all these preparations for his young bride? On the whole I cannot—though it makes him appear rather more good-natured than one had pictured him—I cannot say that the picture makes me feel a higher respect for his character. There is something essentially vulgar, and perhaps even a little brutal, in it all. Underneath it all lies the idea which pervades his whole existence—which is the basis of all his philosophy—which makes him in many respects the truest type of the Mephistopheles that real life has created—namely, the contempt and the disbelief in everything in human nature except its low baseness and its selfishness. He wants to win the heart of a young woman. "Come, jewellers, architects, dressmakers, pastry-cooks, and prepare all your wares to set before her. Her vanity, her gluttony, her love of all creature comforts—these are the only things in her which I know; and as for her passions, the only way by which I can safeguard her and myself from her longing to gratify them is by shutting her up in a French harem"—this is the language he really holds to himself about this young girl. If she has a soul, or a heart, Napoleon either does not know or care for their existence. To him at least they have no reality. Has this woman affections? She has, as a matter of fact, plenty of affection, for it is related of her that she sends to her father, her stepmother, and her brothers and sister everything she can extract out of all those brilliant presents which her husband is showering upon her—articles of toilet, furniture, books, precious bits of china—amounting in value, it is said, to two hundred thousand francs a year. But Napoleon does not care to think—perhaps is incapable of thinking of all this, and makes no attempt to appeal to this worthier, better side of the young girl's nature. It is well to remember all this at this particular moment in the lives of the two; it throws a curious light on the character of Napoleon; it is the key to their subsequent relations; above all, it represents the triumph of the simplicity and the spiritual and the humane in human nature over the cold calculations, the material and gross conceptions of its motives and factors by the cynical and the corrupt.

IX.

THE FIRST MEETING.

We can find no better revelation, both of Napoleon's essential vulgarity and of his distinctive misunderstanding of the human heart, than his conduct at his first meeting with his wife. His apologists do their best to extenuate and even to eulogise his conduct on this occasion. I shall be surprised if my readers take the same view of the transaction.

Let us listen, first, to M. Lévy, and see how he opens the story of the transaction:

"As politics had given Napoleon a new wife, he undertook to make the conquest. With this object he invented all sorts of romantic ways of pleasing Marie Louise at their first meeting. In the opinion of rigorous observers of Court etiquette, it was no light affair to regulate the first interview. All the technical works bearing on the subject were consulted, precedents were hunted up, the dusty archives sleeping peaceably in corners were routed out, and finally Prince Schwarzenberg discussed with Napoleon, line by line, all these questions of form. Eventually the following solemn dispositions were made: Tents were raised between Compitgne and Soissons, two leagues from the latter town, for the interview between their Majesties. These tents were placed beside the road, with two flights of steps to each, whether from Compiégne or from Soissons. . . . The Emperor, on receiving notice of the Empress's approach, was to leave Compiegne with five carriages, and accompanied by the Princes and Princesses of his family, and by the grand officers of state and of his staff who were to travel with him. . . . The Emperor, on reaching the place intended for the interview, was to leave his carriage, and pass through the first tent on the Compiégne side, in which all the persons of his suite were to remain. The Empress was to pass through the first tent on the Soissons side, leaving there all her suite. It was also arranged that the Emperor and Empress were to meet in the middle tent, where would be placed a cushion, before which the Empress should stop; that she should curtsey, and that the Emperor, raising her, should embrace her. That a few minutes later their Majesties should enter a carriage holding six persons, with the Princesses; that the grand officers of state and the officers of the staff should accompany the carriage on horseback. Finally, that the two processions should unite, so as to make but one with that of their Majesties at Compiègne."

Such was the programme; this is how it was carried out.

X.

AN ESCAPADE.

The scene in the three tents was entirely omitted. As soon as the Emperor heard the Empress had left Vitry for Soissons, "indifferent to his dignity and to formality, he jumped into a carriage with the King of Naples and started off incognito and without his suite." And it should be added that a heavy shower of rain was falling at the same time, and that when he reached the carriage of the Empress at Courcelles, Napoleon was soaked through. I quote the remainder of the scene from M. Lévy:

"He approached her carriage without being recognised, but the equerry, not aware of his intentions, opened the door, let down the steps, and cried 'The Emperor' Napoleon fell on Marie Louise's neck, who was quite unprepared for this somewhat rough and gallant greeting, and then immediately ordered them to drive at full speed to Compiègne, which was reached at ten o'clock at night. They passed at full gallop in front of the tents solemnly erected, and under the very eyes of the arrangers of Court etiquette, who, parchments in hand, saw with amazement these violators of Royal proprieties rush past them. It will, of course, be imagined that the delicate point of the relations between the Emperor and Empress from March 28th (date of the arrival at Compiègne) to April 1st (date of the consecration of the civil marriage), had been carefully thought out. It was expressly stipulated that the Emperor should sleep at the Hôtel de la Chancellerie, and not at the Palace, during the stay at Compiègne. On March 28th, at ten o'clock at night, the procession drove up to the Palace. Supper was prepared for their Majesties and all the Court in the Gallery of Francis I. Under the patronage of that gallant monarch, Napoleon addressed to his bride words which were emphasized by imploring looks. Marie Louise blushed, and was dumb with astonishment. To overcome the scruples of her who was only his wife by proxy, Napoleon called in the authority of Cardinal Fesch, to whom he said, in presence of the Empress: "Is it not true that we are really married?" "Yes, sire, according to the civil law," replied the Cardinal, little dreaming of the use to which his answer would be put. The breakfast which Napoleon caused to be served next morning in the room of Marie Louise by her waiting women dispenses us from explaining how the latter part of the protocol was eluded, and why the apartments in the Hôtel de la Chancellerie did not shelter their august tenant. His valet says: 'After his conversation with the Empress, Napoleon retired to his room, scented himself with eau de Cologne, and, clothed only in a dressing-gown, returned secretly to the Empress.' To complete his story, Constant adds: 'Next morning, while dressing, the Emperor asked me whether any one had noticed the way he had broken through the programme.' By his enthusiasm the most powerful monarch in Europe shows us that his temperament has not changed since 1796. The impatience of the Emperor for the arrival of Marie Louise is the same as that of General Bonaparte for Josephine."

I leave the reader to form his own opinion of the apologies for this strange scene which the eulogist of Napoleon gives. It does not alter my view of the transaction. I will not weary, and perchance disgust, the reader by adding the even more audacious and franker defences of M. Masson.

It is pleasanter to be able to record that Napoleon had the apartments at Compiègne arranged so as to give them a home-like appearance to the young bride; she found there her favourite dog, "which she had been persuaded to discard," "some pet birds, and a piece of unfinished tapestry which she had been working when she left the Hoff burg for Vienna."

XI.

A PORTRAIT.

And now for a portrait of the young bride. I quote from Miss Gearey:

"A tall, stately maiden, fresh and youthful, abounding in health and strength, with blue eyes, blonde hair, a pink-and-white complexion, and an expression of innocence and candour. Marie Louise could hardly be styled pretty, and her figure was too much inclined to embonpoint to be really graceful, but she possessed the indefinable charm of youth and the attractions which may be derived from a clear complexion, an abundance of chestnut hair, and an exquisite set of teeth. She is said to have been so indifferent to her personal appearance, and so little fond of dress, that the Emperor himself insisted on superintending the bridal toilet, and stood by while the mistress of the robes placed the crown upon the head of the Empress and arranged the Imperial mantle upon her shoulders."

There can be no doubt that Napoleon did his best to recommend himself to his young bride; his efforts were of the same mixed character as those by which he preceded their marriage. As during his courtship he sought the aid of the tailor and the dancing-master, so during the early days of his marriage he oscillated between grotesque exploits and a considerateness which in one so hard is interesting, and even a little touching.

"At Court and in society," says Fouche, "the instructions were to please the young Empress, who, without any return, had captivated Napoleon; he was quite infatuated about her. The Empress Marie Louise, his young and insignificant wife, was the object of his tenderest care. Napoleon followed her everywhere with loving looks. She saw that he was proud to show her everywhere to everybody." Madame Durand, wife of the General of that name, and principal lady-in-waiting to the Empress Marie Louise, says: "During the first three months following his marriage, the Emperor was day and night with the Empress. The most urgent business could hardly drag him away from her for a few moments." "The Emperor," says Monsieur de Champagny, "was the best husband in the world. It would be impossible for any one to display more delicate and loving attention."

XII.

SELF-DISTRUST.

Metternich tells a curious story which reveals the strange self-distrust of Napoleon before a daughter of the Hapsburgs:

"I found Napoleon with the Empress. Conversation turned upon commonplace topics, when Napoleon said to me: 'I wish the Empress to speak openly to you, and tell you candidly what she thinks of her position. You are a friend, and she ought to have no secrets from you.' As he concluded this remark Napoleon locked the door of the drawing-room, put the key in his pocket, and disappeared through another door. I asked the Empress what this scene meant; she replied by putting the same question to me. Seeing that she had not been prepared beforehand by the Emperor, I guessed that he wished to enable me to gather from the mouth of the Empress herself some ideas upon her domestic life, so that I might give a favourable report to the Emperor her father. We remained locked up together for nearly an hour, when Napoleon returned, laughing, into the room. 'Well,' said he, 'have you had a good talk? Did the Empress say good or bad things about me? Did she laugh or cry? I do not ask you for a report; these are secrets between you two, and do not concern any third person, even when that third person is the husband.' Next day Napoleon found an opportunity of speaking to me. 'What did the Empress say to you, yesterday?' he asked. 'You told me,' I answered, 'that our conversation did not concern a third person. Permit me to keep it a secret.' 'The Empress told you,' exclaimed Napoleon, 'that she was happy with me, and that she had no complaints to make. I hope that you will repeat it to your Emperor, and that he will believe you rather than other people."

Indeed, it would appear that for once Napoleon was conquered, and stood in awe of another human being. This was probably what elicited from his wife the curious, astonishing, historic phrase: "I am not afraid of Napoleon, but I begin to think he is of me."

XIII.

NAPOLEON'S FOIBLES.

And, indeed, she had abundant reason for coming to this view. He indulges her every whim—indeed, he is on the look-out to anticipate them. He learns that she wants a second set of Brazilian rubies, but finds her purse unequal to the price. The Emperor, "highly pleased with the wisdom of the Empress, and with her methodical disposition, commanded that a second set should be prepared similar to the first, but of the value of between 300,000 fr. and 400,000 fr. (£ 12,000 to £ 16,000), and desired that nothing should be said about what he had heard, or of what he intended to do."

When New Year's Day approaches, he asks her whether she is not going to send some presents to her sisters. She answers that she had already thought about it, and that she had ordered jewels to the amount of about 25,000 fr. (£ 1,000). As he thinks that rather small, she answers that her sisters were not spoiled as she was, and that they would think their presents magnificent. The Emperor then tells her that he had intended to give her 25,000 fr. for her presents, but that he had thought it over and would give her double that amount (£ 2,000). Eventually the Empress receives 100,000 fr. (£ 4,000) from him.

There is nothing which so much tests the love of married people as the small occurrences of daily domestic life. Even in these things Napoleon yielded to his wife. Child of the warm South, Napoleon was always chilly, could never endure a cold room; when he was exhausted and wanted to be refreshed, he always found refuge in a parboiling bath. Even on this point he had to give way to his wife, accustomed to the icy spaciousness of Austrian palaces.

"During the autumn following his marriage," says Madame Durand, "the Court went to spend some time at Fontainebleau. Fires were lighted everywhere, except in the Empress's room, and she, accustomed to stoves, said that the fire was disagreeable to her. One day the Emperor came to sit with her; on leaving her room he complained of the cold, and desired the lady-in-waiting to have a fire lighted. When the Emperor was gone the Empress countermanded the fire. The lady-in-waiting was Mademoiselle Rabusson, a young lady who had recently come from Ecouen, very simple and outspoken. The Emperor came back two hours later, and asked why his orders had not been executed. 'Sire,' said the lady, 'the Empress will not have a fire. She is in her own rooms here, and I must obey her.' The Emperor laughed heartily at this answer, and, on returning to his own room, said to Marshal Duroc, who happened to be there: 'Do you know what has just happened to me in the Empress's apartments? I was told that I was not at home there, and that I could not have a fire,' The answer provided the Castle with amusement for several days."

XIV.

HOUSEHOLD CHANGES.

Napoleon made even greater sacrifices to his wife; he changed his table and his method of taking his meals. The incessant love of work which was one of his peculiarities, and one of the secrets of his prosperity, never, as we know, had permitted him to spend on his meals even an approach to a proper length of time. Here is a description of him which M. Lévy has drawn up from several different sources, at the period when he was at the zenith of his glory and his power:

"The 'pleasure of the table' did not exist for the Emperor. The simplest food was what pleased him best, such as æufs au miroir (a form of poached egg); French beans in salad, no made dishes, a little Parmesan cheese, a little Chambertin mixed with water, was what he liked best. 'In a campaign or on a march,' he wrote to Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace, 'let all the tables, including mine, be served with soup, boiled beef, a roasted joint, and some vegetables; no dessert.' Twelve minutes was the time allowed at Paris for dinner, which was served at six' o'clock. Napoleon used to quit the table, leaving the Empress and the other guests to continue their repast. His breakfast, which he ate alone at half-past nine, never lasted more than eight minutes. It was served on a little round mahogany table, without a napkin."

Now let me contrast with this picture of Napoleon this other, after he had passed under subjection to Marie Louise:

"He who has hitherto regulated his existence by his business, was now compelled to conciliate, sometimes even to sacrifice his business to the tastes, to the desires, sometimes even the caprices of his wife. His habit had been to lunch alone, rapidly, at the corner of a table, when business permitted him to think of eating at all. Now, at least during the years 1810 and 1811, after which he liberated himself, there was a regular big breakfast at a fixed hour with his wife, a breakfast with one soup, then entrees, one roast, two sweets, four hors-d'œuvre, and a complete dessert, instead of the four little dishes with which, up to then, he had been content."

XV.

HORSEPLAY.

And now I complete the picture of Napoleon at this period by an extract which will show him, I will not say in a ridiculous light, but in a grotesque one. This picture reveals that curious mixture of greatness and levity which makes him one of the most astounding amalgams of qualities in human history-that amalgam which produced for him the paradoxical epithet of Jupiter Scapin, to which I have already alluded.

"Since his poverty-stricken youth, solitary and melancholy, there has remained with him-when chances of development arrived too late-a taste for hand games, noisy and active playfulness. This could not express itself at the right time, and the result is now seen. His forty-one years endeavour to accommodate themselves to the eighteen years of Marie Louise. He is more of a child than she is, with a species of passion for the amusements of a schoolboy. See him on horseback pursuing her in a gallop along the terraces of Saint Cloud. The horse bucks, the rider falls and gets up laughing, and crying, 'Breakneck.' See him playing a game of baseball at Malmaison, kicking a football, or amusing himself as 'catch-who-can.' To the life of the cloister prepared for her and which she had wholly accepted, she only proposes one amendment-she wishes to ride on horseback, a time-honoured custom for the Princesses of Lorraine ever since they were freed from maternal tutelage. Marie Antoinette has done the same, and one may remember the similar remonstrance of Marie Therese. Napoleon will not leave to anybody else the task of teaching her to manage a horse. It is he who places the Empress in the saddle, and holding the horse by the bridle, runs alongside. When the learner has to some extent found her seat, each morning after breakfast, he orders one of his horses to be made ready, jumps on its back without taking time to put on his boots, and in the large courtyard where, every ten paces, a stableman is stationed on orderly duty to guard against every fall, he prances near his wife in silk stockings, amusing himself during the gallop with exciting cries, urging on the horses to make them stride out, falling himself more frequently than he wishes.

". . . Marie Louise, up to that time, had only one society trick of which she was proud, that was to be able to move her ear without stirring a muscle of her face. Poor trick! At present she plays at billiards, for which she has conceived a great liking, and provokes the Emperor, who makes such bad shots that—in order to show his superiority—he seeks lessons from one of his chamberlains.

"And always, when she wishes to draw a profile of her husband, for which he poses himself to please her, as he would never do for any painter when she sits at the piano and plays for him German sonatas, which he likes a little; or when she shows him her needlework, the sash or belt which she has embroidered—as a matter of fact, her sewing mistress has done the most of it—he is there attentive, absorbed in her, trying to enlighten her, to amuse her, 'his good Louise Marie,' and by his middle-class 'theeing' and 'thouing' astonishes his stiff-necked Court, for the husbands of the Faubourg Saint-Germain take care not to use the second person singular to their wives."

XVI.

DELICACY.

Another story from Metternich reveals another example of Napoleon's curious delicacy in remonstrating with his wife, as well as that morbid suspicion by which he was constantly haunted. Napoleon had appointed the Duchess of Montebello as her duenna. One day Napoleon hears that, while walking in the park at Saint Cloud, the Duchess has presented to the Empress one of her cousins. At once Napoleon sends Metternich to remonstrate. And this is how the account of Metternich goes on. Napoleon is speaking:

"'The Empress spoke to him, and was wrong in so doing; if she allows all sorts of young men to be presented to her, she will soon fall a prey to intriguers. Every one in France has always a favour to ask. The Empress will be deceived, and, without being able to do any good, will be exposed to a great many annoyances.' I told Napoleon that I shared his views, but that I failed to understand his motives for taking me into his confidence. 'It is,' he replied, 'because I want you to speak to the Empress.' I expressed surprise that he did not speak to her himself. 'The advice is good and wise,' I added, 'and the Empress has much too much sense not to see it.' 'I prefer,' he broke in, 'that you should undertake the commission. The Empress is young; she might think me disagreeable. You are her father's minister and a friend of her childhood, and what you say to her will make more impression upon her than anything that comes from me.'"

XVII.

A SON.

And now, within three months after the marriage, Marie Louise gave signs that she was going to become a mother; and Napoleon is transported. At eight in the morning, on March 20th, 1811, after a painful time and some danger, Marie Louise gave birth to the poor child who is known to history as the Duke of Reichstadt.

The child remained seven minutes without giving a sign of life; Napoleon glanced at him, thought him dead, and occupied himself solely with the Empress. At last the child emitted a cry, and then the Emperor went and kissed his son. The crowd assembled in the Tuileries gardens awaited with anxiety the delivery of the Empress. A salute of twenty-one guns was to announce a girl, a hundred a son. At the twenty-second report, delirious joy spread among the people. Napoleon, standing behind a curtain at one of the windows of the Empress's room, enjoyed the spectacle of the general intoxication, and was profoundly moved by it. Large tears rolled down his cheeks, of which he seemed to be unconscious, and in that state he came to kiss his son a second time.

XVIII.

NAPOLEON AS A FATHER.

Napoleon was an indulgent father. Here is a picture of the terrible man whose existence was fatal to so many human beings, on which it is well for a few moments to dwell.

"Entrance to his study," says Mdneval, "was forbidden to every one. He would not allow the nurse to come in, and used to beg Marie Louise to bring in her son herself; but the Empress was so little sure of her strength when she took him from the arms of the nurse, that the Emperor, who stood waiting for her at the door, used to hasten to meet her, take the child in his arms, and carry him off, covering him with kisses. If he were at his writing-table, about to sign a despatch, of which each word had to be weighed, his son lying on his knees, or pressed against his chest, did not leave him. Sometimes he would drive away the important thoughts that occupied his mind, and, lying down on the ground, would play with this darling son like another child, careful to discover what would amuse him, and to avoid anything that teased him. His devotion to and patience with his boy were inexhaustible. The Emperor loved his son passionately; he took him in his arms every time he saw him, picked him up quickly from the ground, then put him down again, and picked him up again, laughing at the child's amusement. He teased him, carrying him in front of the looking-glass, and making grimaces at him, at which the child laughed till he cried. At luncheon-time he would take him on his knee, and dipping his finger in the sauce, smear his face with it."

XIX.

MARIE LOUISE'S TREASON.

I must pass rapidly over the remainder of the story; it is not edifying. When Napoleon's misfortunes came, Marie Louise reverted to her old allegiance, and became the dutiful daughter of her father the loyal subject of Austria once again. When Napoleon was defeated, and had to fly to Elba, he hoped, or professed to hope, that his exile would be shared. "In the island of Elba," he said, "I may still be happy with my wife and my son." When his letters from Elba received no answer, he took alarm, and sent messengers, and wrote letter after letter to his absent wife. "I expect," he says in one, "the Empress at the end of August. I desire her to bring my son, and . . . I am surprised at not receiving any news of her." And when he left Elba to begin the gigantic but brief struggle of the Hundred Days, he appealed to the Emperor of Austria not to separate husband and wife, father and son:

"I am too well acquainted with the principles of your Majesty—I know too well what value you attach to family ties, not to feel a happy conviction that you will hasten, whatever may be the inclinations of your Cabinet and your policy, to help me in pressing forward the moment of meeting between a wife and her husband, and a child with his father."

XX.

NEIPPERG.

Marie Louise had found another man who obtained over her an ascendency which Napoleon never could attain. The intrigue which ended in making Marie Louise the mistress of Count Neipperg, is obscure; but there is a general impression that Metternich and her own father were responsible for it. Neipperg was a professional lady-killer, was brave, agreeable, a musician, and apparently an amiable man at bottom. While Napoleon was at Elba, Marie Louise was at Aixles-Bains, with Neipperg in her train. Later on they took an excursion to Switzerland together, and before Napoleon died, she had borne Neipperg at least one child.

The Powers had bestowed upon her the Duchy of Parma. Neipperg was her Prime Minister, and governed the kingdom well enough to give it prosperity, and to make himself much beloved. She did not see much of her son by Napoleon—an unhappy and interesting boy, over whose early death sinister rumours have been secretly current ever since. I have no time to tell that poor lad's pathetic story. The scanty pictures we have of him leave a pleasant impression. He was always attached to the memory of his father, showed an early love for a soldier's life, and dreamed constantly of a great future. But his tiny life was brief-he died of consumption. The best epitaph on his career was his own. A cradle had been presented to him when he was a new-born baby by the Viennese, and it was restored to the Schatzzimmer, or Treasury, at Vienna; and the Treasury was not far from the Capuchin Church in Vienna, where the bodies of the Hapsburg family lie. This will explain the saying of the young Prince.

"My cradle and my grave will be near to each other," said the Prince, when he was lying ill. "My birth, and my death, that is my whole history."

XXI.

IL SERENISSIMO.

The memory of Napoleon seems to have made little impression on Marie Louise. She declared afterwards that she had never loved him. Years after Napoleon's death, referring to her first marriage, she said, "I was sacrificed." When somebody asked her how she felt the change from the dignity of an Empress to the poor status of a Grand Duchess, she exclaimed: "Ah, my God, I am happier here; and that period of my life only lives in my memory as a miserable dream."

She herself gave the best explanation of the kind of character which the training of a Court produces in its women.

"We Princesses," she said, "are not brought up as other women, nor with the same family sentiments. We are always prepared for events which may transport us from our relatives and give us new and sometimes antagonistic interests. Look at my poor sister who went to live in Brazil, unhappy and far from all belonging to her."

It was, perhaps, this training that enabled her to so easily change her allegiance, to so calmly bear her transformations of fortune. Even the death of Napoleon seems to have made little impression on her.

"According to a letter written by Count Neipperg to Prince Metternich, and quoted by M. Saint-Amand, she puts on mourning (but not widow's weeds), while the members of her household were ordered to wear it for three months. Two funeral services were celebrated in honour of the man who had once stood in the relation of husband to the Duchess of Parma, while a notice of his death was at the same time inserted in the Gazette de Parme. The astute and diplomatic Neipperg actually wrote to inform Prince Metternich that this insertion had appeared without any reference to the title of Emperor or ex-Emperor, or the names of Napoleon or Bonaparte, which he was pleased to remark were 'inadmissible,' and could only serve to wound the heart of Her Majesty the Duchess. It had therefore been arranged that the mighty conqueror, before whose prowess all Europe had once trembled, should have a funeral service held in his honour under the style and title of Il Serenissimo! a conveniently vague term which, according to Neipperg, might be indiscriminately applied to any degree of princely gradation."

"Nothing could be more delicious than this Napoleon's name masked under the alias of Il Serenissimo! Perhaps the irony is even greater that his death gave his widow welcome relief, allowed her first to marry Neipperg, and afterwards to descend, after Neipperg's death, on Count Bombelles, a French officer in the Austrian service. To Bombelles she left the greater part of her fortune when she died in 1847, at the age of fifty-six. Meantime, 1840 had come, and the second funeral of Napoleon; the apotheosis that ended in that tomb in the Invalides, at which I stood gazing the other day. And so even Neipperg and Marie Louise and the Gazette de Parme proved of no avail. Napoleon's name is still spoken. Il Serenissimo! It was sublime!"

1. "Three Empresses," by Caroline Gearey. (London: Digby, Long, & Co.) "Napoléon et les Femmes," by Frederic Masson. (Paris: Paul Ollendorff.) "The Private Life of Napoleon," by Arthur Lévy. (London: Richard Bentley.)