XXVI.
THE EMPRESS'S HOUSEHOLD.
We have just tried to draw a picture of the appearance and character of Marie Louise in 1812, when at the summit of her fortune; let us turn our attention to the organization of her household at this epoch, and to the details of her daily life. Her first almoner was Count Ferdinand de Rohan, formerly Archbishop of Cambrai; her knight-of-honor was the Count of Beauharnais, who had held the same position to the Empress Josephine, a relative of his. Napoleon had at first meant to appoint the Count of Narbonne to this place, but Marie Louise had dissuaded him. M. Villemain says in his Life of M. de Narbonne: "The Empress Marie Louise, generally so yielding to her husband, on this occasion manifested great opposition. Whether through womanly kindness or through her pride as a sovereign, possibly through some superstitious scruple as a second wife, she insisted on the retention in this post of the Count of Beauharnais; she was unwilling on any terms to seem to exclude, in the person of this relative of Josephine, the first name of the Princess whom she succeeded on the French throne. On the other hand, it is fair to suppose that in the dashing and attractive Count of Narbonne she was willing to keep away certain things which were unfamiliar and so alarming to her, such as the lighter graces, the jesting spirit of the old court, and doubtless too the melancholy presentiments attached, in her mind, to everything that recalled Versailles and the daughters of Louis XV., who had become the aunts of Marie Antoinette. In a word, Marie Louise, cold and calm, was inflexible in her opposition to the choice which the Emperor announced to her. He at once yielded the point, and smoothed matters over by appointing M. de Narbonne one of his aides, an odd favor for a man fifty-five years old, a relic of the former court, suddenly made a member of the most warlike and most active staff in Europe." For first equerry Marie Louise had Prince Aldobrandini, and for master of ceremonies, the Count de Seyssel d'Aix.
The maid-of-honor was Madame Lannes, Duchess of Montebello, the widow of the famous marshal who was killed in Austria in the first war. Méneval tells us that Napoleon in making this appointment hesitated between this lady and the Princess of Beauvau. "The fear of introducing into his court influences hostile to the national ideas, such as a German princess might have favored, with the prejudices of her birth and position, made him give up this idea. He decided for the Duchess, thinking this an honor due to the memory of one of his oldest and bravest comrades." It was a most happy choice. Madame de Montebello was ten years older than the Empress; very handsome, stately, above reproach, of whom the Emperor said when he appointed her, "I give the Empress a real lady-of-honor."
In the purity of her features, the Duchess of Montebello recalled Raphael's Virgins. There was in her appearance, and in her life, a quality of calmness, of regularity, which greatly pleased Marie Louise, who was also much touched by her untiring devotion at the time of her child's birth, when for nine whole days Madame de Montebello remained in the Empress's room, sleeping at night on a sofa, and the Empress was grateful to her for having rigorously performed what could be demanded only of affection or devotion.
Madame Durand says that Marie Louise felt the need of a friend, and that the Duchess won her confidence and good graces to such an extent that the Empress could not do without her; she got to love her like a sister, and tried to prove her affection by great confidence to her and to her children. She was always delighted to choose presents that the Duchess would like, and offered them to her with charming amiability. Naturally a preference of this sort aroused a great deal of jealousy, especially among the ladies of the palace, most of whom belonged to older families than did the Duchess, and were somewhat annoyed that she was preferred to them. Whenever the Emperor was away, Madame de Montebello used to stay with the Empress, and every morning Marie Louise used to go to her room to chat with her, and in order to avoid passing through the drawing-room, where the other ladies had assembled, she used to go through a dark passage, which greatly offended these ladies. According to Madame Durand, Madame de Montebello scorned to hide her real opinions about any one of whom she was talking, and gave her opinion clearly and frankly. This openness—a virtue rare in courts—inspired the Empress's confidence, but earned her many enemies; but they, in spite of their ill-will, could not injure her reputation. The lady of the bedchamber to the Empress was the Countess of Luçay, who had been a lady-in-waiting since the beginning of the Consulate. She was a gentle, modest, distinctly virtuous person, who enjoyed general esteem and sympathy. The Emperor set great store by her. "In private life," says General de Ségur, "Napoleon was gentle and confiding, and especially fond of honorable people, whose delicacy and uprightness were above suspicion, and of women of the best reputation; he was a good judge, and he demanded a great deal. This was undeniably true, and the exceptions were very few: the way he chose his council and the officers attached to his person, shows it. In corroboration I will quote first the Grand Marshal Duroc with all the household of the palace, whose affairs were managed more honestly and better than those of any private house that can be named. As to the ladies of the court, it will be enough to name Madame de Luçay, my mother-in-law, the Lady of the Bedchamber, and Madame de Montesquiou, governess of the King of Rome, whom the Emperor chose when my mother declined the position from ill-health. His confidence, when once given, was unlimited."
The Countess of Montesquiou, the governess of the King of Rome, was the wife of the Emperor's Grand Chamberlain. The Baron de Méneval thus speaks of her: "Madame de Montesquiou, who was of high birth, received the highest consideration and thoroughly deserved it. She was forty-six years old when she was appointed governess of the Imperial children; her reputation was above reproach. She was a woman of great piety, yet indifferent to petty formalities; her manners had a noble simplicity, her whole nature was dignified but benevolent, her character was firm, and her principles were excellent. She combined all the qualities that were required for the important position which the Emperor, of his own choice, had given her." Madame Durand speaks as warmly about the Countess of Montesquiou: "It would have been hard to make a better choice. This lady, who belonged to an illustrious family, had received an excellent education; to the manners of the best society she added a piety too firmly fixed and too wise to run into bigotry. Her life had been so well ordered that she escaped any breath of calumny. Some were inclined to call her haughty, but this haughtiness was tempered by politeness and the most gracious consideration for others. She took the most tender and constant care of the young Prince, and there could be nothing nobler and more generous than the devotion which led her later to leave the country and her friends, to follow the lot of this young Prince whose hopes had been destroyed. Her sole reward was bitter sorrow and unjust persecution.
"The Duchess of Montebello and the Countess of Montesquieu had little sympathy for each other, but they never betrayed any coolness. Even had they desired it, they would have been held in awe by fear of Napoleon, who insisted on harmony in his court. Still, there could be distinguished at the Tuileries two parties in occult opposition, belonging respectively to the old and to the new nobility. At the head of the first stood the Count and the Countess of Montesquieu; of the second, the Duchess of Montebello, to whom the Empress's preference gave great authority. Madame Durand says that all the influence which the Grand Chamberlain and his wife, the governess of the King of Rome, enjoyed was exercised in obtaining pardon, favors, pensions, and places for the nobles, whether they had left France or not; they assured the Emperor that this was the best way of attaching them to his person, of making them love his government. They said this because they really thought it; and since they believed that the destiny of France was firmly fixed, they were anxious to secure for the ruler of this Empire those men whom they regarded as its strongest support. Since he had seen Madame de Montesquiou's unwearying devotion to his son, it was seldom that he refused her whatever she asked."
The new nobility, which was jealous of the old, had a representative in the Duchess of Montebello, who was very proud, and did not admit the superiority of the old aristocracy to the illustrious plebeians, who, like her husband, had no ancestors, but were destined to become ancestors themselves. She thought that the title of Duke was not enough for her valiant husband, and that the Emperor, in not making him a prince like Davout, Masséna, and Berthier, had been unjust, and that Marshal Lannes was of more account than all the dukes and marquises of the Versailles court.
There was at court, between these two groups of the old and the new nobility, a third party, the military party, headed by the Grand Marshal of the Palace, Duroc, Duke of Frioul, who, seeing honor and glory only in the career of a soldier, looked down on all other occupations. The Emperor secretly favored him, but he nevertheless remained true to his usual system of neutralizing all opinions, by trying to balance their forces. Each one of the three rival parties kept an eye on the other two, and thus everything of interest came to the Emperor's ears.
In 1812, the ladies-in-waiting were the Duchess of Bassano, the Countess Victor de Mortemart, the Duchess of Rovigo, the Countesses of Montmorency, Talhouet, Law de Lauriston, Duchâtel, of Bouillé, Montalivet, Perron, Lascaris Vintimiglia, Brignole, Gentile, Canisy, the Princess Aldobrandini, the Duchesses of Dalberg, Elchingen, Bellune, Countesses Edmond de Périgord and of Beauvau, Mesdames de Trasignies, Vilain XIV., Antinori, Rinuccini, Pandolfini Capone, and the Countesses Chigi and Bonacorsi. They accompanied the Empress in her walks and drives and at the theatre. They were real women-chamberlains, always at her side when she appeared in public, but they had no part in her domestic life and did not reside in the Imperial palaces. This privilege belonged to only six other women, who occupied a humbler position in the court hierarchy, but yet saw much more of the Empress.
In her time Josephine had four other ladies who held a position of something like female ushers, and whose duty it was to announce the persons who came to her apartments. These four ladies had numerous squabbles with the ladies-in-waiting over points in etiquette; and Napoleon, to put a stop to these heart-burnings, decided to substitute for them four new ladies, who should be chosen from those who had charge of Madame Campan's school at Ecouen for the daughters of members of the Legion of Honor.
Among those thus appointed was the widow of a general, Madame Durand, whose curious Memoirs we have often consulted. Some months later the Emperor raised their number to six, and appointed two of the pupils of this school, a daughter and a sister of distinguished officers, Mesdemoiselles Malerot and Rabusson.
These six ladies had an important position. Not only did they announce all the Empress's visitors; they also had actual charge of the domestic service, with six chambermaids under their orders, who only entered the Empress's rooms when she rang for them, while they, four, being in attendance every day, spent all their time with Marie Louise. They went to the Empress as soon as she was up, and did not leave her till she had gone to bed. Then all the doors of the Empress's room were locked, except one, leading into the next room, where slept the one of the ladies in charge, and Napoleon himself could not go into Marie Louise's room at night without passing through this room. No man, with the exception of the Empress's private secretary, her keeper of the purse, and her medical attendants, could enter her apartment without an order from the Emperor. Even ladies, other than the Lady of Honor and the Lady of the Bedchamber, were not received there except by appointment. The six ladies we have mentioned had charge of the enforcement of these rules, and were responsible for their observance. One of them was present at the Empress's drawing, music, and embroidery lessons. They wrote at her dictation, or under her orders. The same etiquette prevailed when the court was on its travels. Always one of these six ladies slept in the next room to the Empress, and that was the only approach to her chamber.
Madame Durand tells vis the goldsmith Biennais had made for the Empress a letter-case with a good many secret drawers which she alone could know, and he asked to be allowed to explain it to her. Marie Louise spoke about it to the Emperor, who gave her permission to receive him. Biennais was consequently summoned to Saint Cloud and admitted into the music-room, where he stood at one end with the Empress, while Madame Durand was in the same room, but so far off that she could not overhear his explanation. Just when this was finished the Emperor came in, and seeing Biennais, he asked who that man was; the Empress hastened to tell him, to explain the reason of his coming, mentioning that he had himself given him permission. This the Emperor absolutely denied, and pretended that the lady-in-waiting was to blame; he scolded her so severely that the Empress could scarcely stop him, although she said, "But, my dear, it is I who ordered Biennais to come." The Emperor laughed, and told her that she had nothing to do about it; that the lady was responsible for every one she admitted, and was alone to blame; and that he hoped that nothing of the sort would ever happen again.
Another time, when M. Paër was giving Marie Louise a music-lesson, the lady, who was present as usual at the lesson, had an order to give. She opened the door and was leaning half out to give the order, when Napoleon came in. At first he did not see her, and thought she was not present. The music-master went out. "Where were you when I came in?" the Emperor asked. She called his attention to the fact that she had not left the room. He refused to believe her, and gave her a long sermon in the course of which he said that he was unwilling that any man, no matter what his rank, should be able to flatter himself that he had been two seconds alone with the Empress. He added with some warmth: "Madame, I honor and respect the Empress; but the sovereign of a great empire must be placed above any breath of suspicion."
The gynæceum of Marie Louise was thus guarded with the greatest care and submitted to a very severe discipline. Napoleon entered freely into his wife's room whenever he pleased, and she never complained; for having absolutely nothing to conceal from him, she had no desire to be unfaithful to him even in her thoughts.
Madame Durand tells us that the Emperor, who desired to rule in important matters, endured, and even liked to be contradicted on minor matters. "When he was with Marie Louise, he used to be forever teasing her ladies about a thousand things; it often happened that they stood up against him, and he would carry on the discussion and laugh heartily when he had succeeded in vexing the young girls, who, in their frankness and ignorance of the ways of the world and the court, made very lively and unaffected answers which were amusing for those to whom they were addressed."
The nearness of these six ladies to the Empress aroused much jealousy. The name by which they were to be called was often changed. For some time they were allowed to call themselves First Ladies of the Empress; but this title offended the ladies of the palace, who wanted to call them First Chambermaids, which made them very angry. The Emperor at last gave them the name of Lectrices. They had under them six ordinary chambermaids who had no position in the court; these dressed the Empress, put on her shoes and stockings, and did her hair every morning; they were, in fact, chambermaids.
This is the way in which Marie Louise passed the day: At eight in the morning her window shutters were thrown open, and the curtains of her bed pushed back. The newspapers were brought to her, and she took her first breakfast in bed. At nine she dressed, and received intimate friends. At twelve she ate her second breakfast. Then she would practise a little, or draw, or sew, or play billiards. At two, if the weather was pleasant, she would drive out with the Duchess of Montebello, the Knight of Honor, and two ladies-in-waiting. Sometimes she rode on horseback; it was Napoleon who had given her lessons at Saint Cloud. "He used to walk by her side, holding her hand, while an equerry led the horse by the bridle; he allayed her fear and encouraged her. She profited by her lessons, became bolder, and at last rode very well. When she did credit to her teacher, the lessons went on, sometimes in the avenues of the private park just outside of the family drawing-room, so called because it was adorned with portraits of the Imperial family. When the Emperor had a moment's leisure after breakfast, he used to have the horses brought around, would get on one himself in his silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes, and ride by the Empress's side. He would urge her horse on, get it to gallop, laughing heartily at her terrified cries, although all danger was guarded against by the presence of a line of huntsmen ready to stop the horse and prevent a fall."
On returning, Marie Louise often took a lesson in music or painting. She was a real musician, and had a real talent for the piano. Prudhon and Isabey, who taught her drawing and painting, praised her talents. As Lamartine says: "When she entered her own rooms or the solitude of the gardens, she was once more a German woman. She cultivated poetry, drawing, singing. Education had perfected these talents in her, as if to console her, far from her country, for the absence and the sorrows to which the young girl would be one day condemned. She excelled in these things, but for herself alone. She used to read and recite from memory the poets of her own language and country." Marie Louise busied herself with charities, but without ostentation, almost secretly; hence she never won the credit for it that she deserved. Her generosity did not limit itself to the ten thousand francs which she set aside out of her allowance of fifty thousand francs a month; she never heard of a case of suffering without at once trying to relieve it.
In private life Marie Louise was kind and amiable. She was very polite and gentle; unlike many princesses, she was not given to fickle preferences and to infatuations as intense as they were brief; she was not unjust, violent, or capricious. She was never angry; she did not give empty promises, or affect any excessive interest, but she could always be depended on; she never distressed or humiliated any one. Having been trained from her infancy to court life, she was a kind mistress, for she had learned to combine two qualities that are often irreconcilable—dignity and gentleness. All who were thrown into her society agree in this. Sometimes, according to Madame Durand, when she was in company her face had a melancholy expression inspired by the demands of etiquette that were made upon her; but "when she had returned to her own quarters, she was gentle, merry, affable, and adored by all who were with her every day…. Nothing was more gracious, more amiable, than her face when she was at her ease, quietly at home in the evening, or among those to whom she was particularly attached."
Marie Louise gave a great deal of care to her son, whom she tenderly loved. She had him brought to her every morning, and she kept him with her until she had to dress. In the course of the day, in the intervals of her lessons, she used to visit the little King in his apartment, and sit by his side and sew. Often she took him and his nurse to the Emperor; the nurse would stop at the door of the room in which Napoleon was, and Marie Louise would enter, with the child in her arms, always afraid that she was going to drop him. Then the Emperor would run up, take the child, and cover him with kisses.
The Baron de Méneval writes thus: "Sometimes he was seated on his favorite sofa, near the mantel-piece, on which stood two magnificent bronze busts, of Scipio and Hannibal, and was busily reading an important report; sometimes he went to his writing-desk, hollowed in the middle, with two projecting shelves, covered with papers, to sign a despatch, every word of which had to be carefully weighed; but his son, sitting on his knees, or held close to his chest, never left him. He had such a marvellous power of concentration that he could at the same time give his attention to important business and humor his son. Again, laying aside the great thoughts which haunted his mind, he would lie down on the floor by the boy's side, and play with him like another child, eager to amuse him and to spare him every annoyance."
M. de Méneval also tells us that the Emperor had had made little blocks of mahogany, of different lengths and various colors, with one end notched, to represent battalions, regiments, and divisions, and that when he wanted to try some new combination of troops, he used to set out these blocks on the floor. "Sometimes," adds M. de Méneval, "we used to find him seriously occupied in arranging these blocks, rehearsing one of the able manuvres with which he triumphed on the battle-field. The boy, seated at his side, delighted by the shape and color of the blocks, which reminded him of his toys, would stretch out his hand every minute and disturb the order of battle, often at the decisive moment, just when the enemy was about to be beaten; but the Emperor was so cool and so considerate of his son, that he was not disturbed by the confusion introduced into his manoeuvres, but he would begin again, without annoyance, to arrange the blocks. His patience and his kindness to the boy were inexhaustible."
Napoleon was also very kind to Marie Louise. He did everything that he could to make his wife happy and respected. He arranged matters in such a way that etiquette should not interfere with her favorite occupations. She dined alone with him every evening, and when he was absent, she dined with the Duchess of Montebello. After dinner there was generally a small reception or a little concert. At eleven Marie Louise withdrew to her own apartment, and her life was monotonous, but agreeable. She generally spent the summer at Saint Cloud and the winter at the Tuileries. At Saint Cloud, where the park was a great attraction to her, she slept in a room on the first floor, which had been occupied by Marie Antoinette and Josephine. (In the time of Napoleon III. it was the Council Hall of the Ministers.) At the Tuileries, her rooms were on the ground floor, between the Pavilion of the Clock, and that of Flora, and had also been occupied by the Queen and the first Empress. They looked out on the garden, and consisted of a gala apartment and a private one. The first consisted of an ante-chamber, a first and second drawing-room, a drawing-room of the Empress, a dining-room, and a concert-room; the second, of a bedchamber, the library, the dressing-room, the boudoir, and the bathroom. A rigid etiquette controlled the entrance to the Empress's as well as the Emperor's apartment. Napoleon lived on the first floor, where he had the bedroom which had been previously occupied by Louis XV. and by Louis XVI.; but there was a little private staircase, which he used constantly, leading to his wife's apartment.
Marie Louise was on good terms with the princes and princesses of the Imperial family, who were less offended by the superiority of an archduchess than they had been by that of a woman of humble origin, like Josephine. In accordance with her husband's directions, the second Empress was always polite and affable in her relations with his family, but she was never too familiar. No one of her sisters-in-law was as intimate with her as was the Duchess of Montebello. One incident, for which Marie Louise was in no way responsible, threw a little coolness on her relations with the princesses, although it was of but brief duration. Soon after the birth of the King of Rome the Emperor noticed that near the bed on which the Empress was to lie there had been placed three armchairs,—one for his mother, the other two for the Queens of Spain and of Holland. He found fault with this arrangement, saying that since his mother was not a queen, she ought not to have an armchair, and that none of them should have one. Accordingly, for the armchairs he had three handsome footstools substituted. When the three ladies came in, they noticed, with some annoyance, the change that had been made, and soon left. They would have done wrong to blame the Empress; for it was the Emperor who was responsible, and when Napoleon gave an order, no one, not even his wife, could have thought of saying a word. In matters of etiquette he controlled the minutest details and regarded them as very important. Nothing came of this little incident, and in general the members of the Emperor's family got on better with the second Empress than with the first.
In short, what did Marie Louise lack in the beginning of 1812? She had a husband, at the height of his fame and glory, who gave her more affection, regard, and consideration than any one else in the world. She was the mother of a superb child, whom every one admired. Around her she saw respect on every face. For maid-of-honor she had a real friend, a woman whom she would herself have chosen, so highly did she value her character and manners. Her household consisted of the flower of the French aristocracy. She followed her own tastes, studied with the best masters, distributed alms as she pleased, lived in the handsomest palaces in Europe. There were no discomforts, no difficulties, in her position. She had no conflicting duties, no occasion to decide between her father and her husband, between the country of her birth and that of her adoption, none of those struggles and heartrending perplexities which so cruelly beset her afterwards. At that time the Emperor Francis was well contented with his son-in-law, and corresponded with him in a most friendly way. At that happy moment the Frenchwoman could be an Austrian without injury to her mission and her duty. The path she was to follow was clearly traced. Alas! it was not for long that she was to enjoy this calm and equable happiness, so well suited to her timid nature, which was made to obey, not to rule. She had then no cause to blame her fate or herself. As a young girl, as a wife, as a mother, she had nothing to ask for. Her satisfaction was furthered by the thought that she was soon to see again her father, her family, her country; and apart from the matter of feeling, she must have been gratified by the thought that she was to appear again in Austria with a brilliancy and splendor such as no other woman in the world could show. Her stay in Dresden was the crowning point of her brief grandeur, the end of the swift but dazzling period of prosperity and good fortune which may be described as the happy days of the Empress Marie Louise.