THE GOVERNOR OF JAVA.—DOCTOR WARDEN.—FAMILIAR CONVERSATION OF THE EMPEROR RELATIVE TO HIS FAMILY.
19th.—Doctor Warden breakfasted with me to-day. The Governor of Java (Sir Stamford Raffles) and his staff, who had touched at St. Helena on their way to Europe, arrived at Longwood while we were at breakfast. Governor Raffles was well acquainted with all the Dutch gentlemen, whom I had seen in 1810, during my mission to Amsterdam. The Emperor told me that he would probably receive his visitors about three or four o’clock. In the mean time, I conversed for several hours with Doctor Warden, whom I furnished with some explanations on historical facts relating to the Emperor, about which I supposed he intended to write.[[12]]
About three o’clock the Emperor received in the garden the English gentlemen who had come from Java. He afterwards took a drive in the calash.
On his return, about six o’clock, he desired me to follow him to his study. He sent for the Grand Marshal and his Lady, and conversed familiarly, until dinner time, on various subjects relating to his family and his minutest domestic affairs during the period of his power. He dwelt particularly on the Empress Josephine. “They lived together,” he said, “like a private citizen and his wife. They were most affectionate and united, having for a long period occupied but one chamber and one bed. These are circumstances,” said the Emperor, “which exercise great influence over the happiness of a family, securing the reputation of the wife and the confidence of the husband, and preserving union and good conduct on both sides. A married couple,” continued he, “may be said never to lose sight of one another, when they pass the night together; otherwise they soon become estranged. Thus, as long as this practice was continued, none of my thoughts or actions escaped the notice of Josephine. She observed, seized, and comprehended every thing. This circumstance was sometimes not altogether without its inconvenience to myself and to public affairs: but, while we were at the camp of Boulogne, a moment of ill-humour put an end to this state of things.” Certain political events which had occurred at Vienna, together with the report of the coalition which took place in 1805, had occupied the attention of the First Consul throughout the whole of the day, and a great part of the night. He retired to bed not in very good spirits, and he found Josephine in a violent rage at his long absence. Jealousy was the real or pretended cause of this ill-humour. Napoleon grew angry in his turn, threw off the yoke of subjection, and could never be brought to submit to it again. At the time of his second marriage, the Emperor was fearful, he said, “lest Maria Louisa might exact similar obedience, for in that case he must have yielded. It is the true right and privilege of a wife,” he observed.
“A son by Josephine,” continued the Emperor, "would have completed my happiness, not only in a political point of view, but as a source of domestic felicity.
"As a political result, it would have secured to me the possession of the throne; the French people would have been as much attached to the son of Josephine as they were to the King of Rome; and I should not have set my foot on an abyss covered with flowers. But how vain are all human calculations! Who can pretend to decide what may lead to happiness or unhappiness in this life!
"Still I cannot help believing that such a pledge of our union would have proved a source of domestic felicity; it would have put an end to the jealousy of Josephine, by which I was continually harassed, and which after all was the offspring of policy rather than of sentiment. Josephine despaired of having a child, and she in consequence looked forward with dread to the future. She was well aware that no marriage is perfect without children; and at the period of her second nuptials there was no longer any probability of her becoming a mother. In proportion as her fortunes advanced, her alarm increased. She availed herself of every resource of medicine; and sometimes almost persuaded herself that her remedies had proved successful. When, at length, she was compelled to renounce all hope, she suggested to her husband the expediency of resorting to a great political deception; and she even went so far as directly to propose the adoption of such a measure.
"Josephine possessed in an eminent degree the taste for luxury, gaiety, and extravagance, natural to Creoles. It was impossible to regulate her expenditure; she was constantly in debt; and thus there was always a grand dispute when the day of payment arrived. She was frequently known to direct her tradesmen to send in only half their accounts. Even at the Island of Elba, Josephine’s bills came pouring in upon me from all parts of Italy."
Some one who knew the Empress Josephine at Martinique communicated to the Emperor many particulars relative to her family and her youthful days. During her childhood, it was several times predicted that she would wear a crown. Another circumstance not less curious and remarkable is that the phial, containing the holy oil used at the coronation of the Kings of France, is said to have been broken by Josephine’s first husband, General Beauharnais, who, at a moment when the tide of popular favour was running against him, hoped by this act to gain reputation.[[13]]
A thousand stories have been told and written respecting the marriage of Napoleon and Josephine. The campaigns of Italy explain the circumstance that first brought about their acquaintance and their union. After Vendemiaire, Eugène, who was yet a child, presented himself to General Bonaparte, then General-in-chief of the army of the Interior, to request that his father’s sword might be restored to him. Lemarrois, one of Napoleon’s aides-de-camp, introduced the boy, who, the moment he beheld the sword, burst into tears. The General-in-chief was moved by this incident, and loaded the boy with caresses. When Eugène described the manners of the young General to his mother, she lost no time in introducing herself to him. “It is well known,” said the Emperor, "that she put faith in presentiments and prophecies. In her childhood, some fortuneteller had predicted that she would attain splendid rank, and would even ascend a throne. She moreover possessed a considerable share of art; and, after we became acquainted, she frequently assured me that her heart beat when she first heard Eugène describe me, and that she then caught a glimpse of her future greatness and the accomplishment of the prophecies respecting her fate.
“Another peculiar shade in the character of Josephine,” said the Emperor, “was her constant habit of negation. At all times, and whatever question I put to her, her first movement was negative, her first answer No; and this no,” continued the Emperor, “was not precisely a falsehood, but merely a precaution, or a defence.”—"This," observed Madame Bertrand, “is a characteristic distinction between our sex and yours.”—"But, after all, Madam," resumed the Emperor, "this distinction arises only from the difference of education. You love, and you are taught to say no; we, on the contrary, take a pride in declaring that we love, whether we really do or not. This is the whole course of the opposite conduct of the two sexes. We are not, and never can be, similar.
EUGENE BEAUHARNAIS CLAIMING HIS FATHER’S SWORD.
London: Published for Henry Colburn, February, 1836.
“During the reign of terror,” said the Emperor, “Josephine was thrown into prison, while her husband perished on the scaffold. Her son Eugène was bound apprentice to a joiner, which trade he actually learned. Hortense had no better prospects. She was, if I mistake not, sent to learn the business of a sempstress.”[[14]]
Fouché was the first who ventured to touch the fatal string of the Imperial divorce. He took upon himself, without any instructions, to advise Josephine to dissolve her marriage for the welfare of France. Napoleon, however, conceived that the proper moment had not yet arrived. The step taken by Fouché was a source of great vexation and trouble: it very much displeased the Emperor, and if, at the earnest solicitation of Josephine, he did not dismiss Fouché, it was because he had himself secretly determined on the divorce, and he did not wish, by thus punishing his minister, to give any check to public opinion on the subject.
However, it is but justice to observe that, as soon as the Emperor shewed himself resolved on the divorce, Josephine consented to it. It cost her, it is true, a severe sacrifice: but she submitted without murmuring, and without attempting to avail herself of those obstacles which she might, however uselessly, have opposed to the measure.[[15]] She conducted herself with the utmost grace and address. She desired that the Viceroy might be put at the head of this affair, and she herself made offers of service to the house of Austria.
Josephine would willingly have seen Maria Louisa. She frequently spoke of her with great interest, as well as of the young King of Rome. Maria Louisa, on her part, behaved wonderfully well to Eugène and Hortense; but she manifested the utmost dislike and even jealousy of Josephine. “I wished one day to take her to Malmaison,” said the Emperor; “but she burst into tears when I made the proposal. She said she did not object to my visiting Josephine, only she did not wish to know it. But whenever she suspected my intention of going to Malmaison, there was no stratagem which she did not employ for the sake of annoying me. She never left me; and, as these visits seemed to vex her exceedingly, I did violence to my own feelings and scarcely ever went to Malmaison. Still, however, when I did happen to go, I was sure to encounter a flood of tears and a multitude of contrivances of every kind. Josephine always kept in view the example of the wife of Henry IV., who, as she observed, lived in Paris, visited the Court, and attended the coronation after her divorce. But she remarked that her own situation was still preferable, for she already had children of her own, and could not hope to have more.”
Josephine possessed a perfect knowledge of all the different shades of the Emperor’s character, and she evinced the most exquisite tact in turning this knowledge to the best account. “For example,” said the Emperor, “she never solicited any favour for Eugène, or thanked me for any that I conferred on him. She never even shewed any additional complaisance or assiduity, at the moment when the greatest honours were lavished on him. Her grand aim was to prove that all this was my affair, and not hers, and that it tended to my advantage. Doubtless she entertained the idea that one day or other I should adopt Eugène as my successor.”
The Emperor said he was well convinced that he was the individual whom Josephine loved best in all the world: and he added, with a smile, that he was sure she would have relinquished any assignation to attend him. She never failed to accompany him on all his journeys. Neither fatigue nor privation could daunt her; and she employed importunity and even artifice to gain her point. "If I stepped into my carriage at midnight, to set out on the longest journey, to my surprise I found Josephine all ready prepared, though I had had no idea of her accompanying me. ‘But,’ I would say to her, ‘You cannot possibly go, the journey is too long and will be too fatiguing for you.’—‘Not at all,’ Josephine would reply. ‘Besides, I must set out instantly.’—‘Well, I am quite ready.’—‘But you must take a great deal of luggage.’—‘Oh, no! every thing is packed up;‘ and I was generally obliged to yield. In a word, Josephine rendered her husband happy, and constantly proved herself his sincerest friend. At all times and on all occasions, she manifested the most perfect submission and attachment; and thus I shall never cease to remember her with tenderness and gratitude.
“Josephine,” continued the Emperor, “placed the qualities of submission, obedience, and complaisance in her sex on a level with political address; and she often condemned the conduct of her daughter Hortense and her relation Stephanie, who lived on very bad terms with their husbands, frequently indulging in caprice, and pretending to assert their independence.
“Louis,” said the Emperor, “had been spoiled by reading the works of Rousseau. He contrived to agree with his wife only for a few months. There were faults on both sides. On the one hand, Louis was too teazing in his temper, and on the other Hortense was too volatile. They were attached to each other at the time of their marriage, which was agreeable to their mutual wishes. The union was, however, contrived by Josephine, who had her own views in promoting it. I, on the contrary, would rather have extended my connection with other families, and for a moment I had an idea of forming a union between Louis and a niece of M. de Talleyrand’s, who was afterwards Madame Juste de Noailles.”
The most ridiculous reports were circulated respecting an improper intercourse between Napoleon and Hortense, and it was even affirmed that the latter had had a child by the Emperor. “Such a connection,” said he, "would have been wholly repugnant to my ideas; and those who knew anything of the morality of the Tuileries must be aware that I need not have been reduced to so unnatural and revolting a choice. Louis knew perfectly well the value to which these reports were entitled; but his vanity and irritability of temper were nevertheless offended by them, and he frequently alluded to them as a ground for reproaching his wife.
“But Hortense,” continued the Emperor, "the virtuous, the generous, the devoted Hortense, was not entirely faultless in her conduct towards her husband. This I must acknowledge, in spite of all the affection I bore her, and the sincere attachment which I am sure she entertained for me. Though Louis’ whimsical humours were in all probability sufficiently teasing, yet he loved Hortense; and in such a case a woman should learn to subdue her own temper, and endeavour to return her husband’s attachment. Had she known how to repress her temper she would have spared herself the vexation of her late lawsuit; she would have passed a happier life; she would have accompanied her husband to Holland, and would have staid there. Louis would not then have fled from Amsterdam; and I should not have been compelled to unite his kingdom to mine, a measure which contributed to ruin my credit in Europe. Many other events might also have taken a different turn.
“The Princess of Baden,” continued the Emperor, "pursued a wiser course. On witnessing Josephine’s divorce, she recollected her own situation, and used every endeavour to gain her husband’s affections. They were afterwards a most happy couple.
"Pauline was too careless and extravagant. She might have been immensely rich, considering all that I gave her; but she gave all away in her turn. Her mother frequently lectured her on this subject, and told her that she would die in a hospital. Madame, however, carried her parsimony to a most ridiculous extreme. I offered to furnish her with a very considerable monthly income, on condition that she would spend it. She, on the other hand, was very willing to receive the money provided she were permitted to hoard it up. This arose not so much from covetousness as excess of foresight; all her fear was that she might one day be reduced to beggary. She had known the horrors of want, and they now constantly haunted her imagination. It is, however, but just to acknowledge that she gave a great deal to her children in secret. She is indeed a kind mother.
“Nevertheless,” continued the Emperor, “this woman, who was so reluctant to part with a single crown, would willingly have given me her all, on my return from the Island of Elba; and after the battle of Waterloo, she would have surrendered to me all she possessed in the world, to assist me in re-establishing my affairs. This she offered to do; and would, without a murmur, have doomed herself to live on brown bread.[[16]] Loftiness of sentiment still reigned paramount in her heart: pride and noble ambition were not yet subdued by avarice.”
Here the Emperor observed that he had still present in his memory the lessons of pride which he had received from his mother in his childhood, and which had influenced his conduct through life. The naturally powerful mind of Madame Mère had been exalted by the great events of which she had been a witness; she had seen five or six revolutions; and her house had been thrice burnt to the ground by factions in Corsica.
“Joseph,” said the Emperor, "rendered me no assistance; but he is a very good man. His wife, Queen Julia, is the most amiable creature that ever existed. Joseph and I were always attached to each other, and kept on very good terms. He loves me sincerely, and I doubt not that he would do every thing in the world to serve me. But his qualities are only suited to private life. He is of a gentle and kind disposition, possesses talent and information, and is altogether a very amiable man. In the discharge of the high duties which I confided to him, he did the best he could. His intentions were good; and therefore the principal fault rested not so much with him as with me, who raised him above his proper sphere. When placed in important circumstances, he found his strength unequal to the task imposed on him.
“The Queen of Naples had chiefly formed herself amidst great events. She had solid sense, strength of character, and boundless ambition.... She must naturally suffer severely from her reverses, more particularly as she may be said to have been born a Queen. She had not, like the rest of us,” observed the Emperor, "moved in the sphere of private life. Caroline, Pauline, and Jerome, were still in their childhood when I had attained supreme rank in France; thus they never knew any other state than that which they enjoyed during the period of my power.
“Jerome was an absolute prodigal. He plunged into boundless extravagance, and the most odious libertinism. His excuse perhaps may be his youth, and the temptations by which he was surrounded. On my return from the Isle of Elba, he appeared to be much improved, and to afford great promise. One remarkable testimony in his favour was the love with which he had inspired his wife, whose conduct was admirable, when, after my fall, her father, the despotic and harsh King of Wurtemberg, wished to procure her divorce. The Princess then, with her own hands, honourably inscribed her name in history.”
To our great regret, dinner was announced; but the Emperor continued to be very talkative during the whole of the evening. He took a familiar retrospect of various subjects, principally alluding to the conduct of many persons of note during his absence and at the time of his return. He did not retire until midnight, and he closed the evening’s conversation with the following words:—"What is doing at this moment in France and in Paris? and what shall we ourselves be doing on this day twelvemonth!"