Napoleon and his court

by C. S. Forester

It must be admitted that the various parties at court made at least as dangerous a mixture as the constituents of gunpowder. To begin with, the members of the Imperial family itself were as jealous of each other as they could possibly be. Pauline, who was a mere Serene Highness, would grind her teeth when she had to address her sister Caroline as “Your Majesty.” Caroline and the other Queens would rejoice openly because, being Queens, they were given armchairs when Napoleon’s own mother had to be content with a stool. And they were one and all scheming for the succession in the event of Napoleon’s fall.

Then there were still a few Republicans among the Princes and Dukes. One of the Marshals, compelled by Napoleon to be present at the solemn Mass which celebrated the Concordat, salved his conscience by swearing horribly throughout the ceremony, and, when asked by the First Consul how he had liked it, replied that it only needed to complete the picture the presence of the half million men who had died to uproot the system. Such men as these thought little of pushing in front of Serene Highnesses, or of laughing loudly when Pauline Bonaparte made the gesture which led to her banishment from court.

Then there were a few representatives of the old noblesse, to whom Napoleon, in his wholehearted snobbery, had offered large inducements to come to his court. These people regarded the ennobled barrel-coopers, smugglers and stable-boys with a mild but galling amusement. On one occasion Lannes, finding his path to the throne-room blocked by these ci-devants, drew his sword and swore to cut off the ears of the next person who impeded him. It was naturally exasperating to the Marshals, who had risen from the ranks in the course of twenty campaigns, after receiving wounds in dozens, to find these nobles given high positions purely on account of their names. To make matters worse, there were very lively suspicions that many of them had actually borne arms against France as émigrés, in La Vendée, on the Rhine, or in Italy. Yet even these considerations were of small account compared to the wrath of the new nobility when they found that the old still clung stubbornly together, and refused, apparently, to admit even the existence of anyone outside the Faubourg St. Germain.

The largest group at court was that of the new nobility, but its superiority of numbers was discounted by the violent jealousies of its individual members. The maxim which guided Napoleon in his dealings with his subordinates was, apparently, “Divide et impera.” He set his generals and ministers by the ears until there was not one of them who had not some cherished hatred for another. Davout hated Berthier, Lannes hated Bessières, Ney hated Masséna, Fouché hated them all, Savary hated Talleyrand; and the resultant bickerings were incessant. At court this was merely undignified; in the field, as was proved twenty times over in the Peninsular War, it was positively dangerous. It might be thought that Napoleon, with inexhaustible funds and domains at his disposal, and unlimited princely titles in his gift, could have satisfied them all. But that was where the trouble began. Napoleon could not give them all they desired, as otherwise (such was the condition of the Empire) they would have nothing to fight for. There were glaring examples of this. When Masséna had been made a prince, and had accumulated wealth and glory past calculation, he deteriorated hopelessly. He failed badly in the Busaco campaign of 1810-11, and sank promptly into an effete degeneracy at the age of fifty-five. No, Napoleon could not afford to give his Marshals all they desired, and in consequence jealousies and friction increased unbearably.

With the junior officers the difficulties were just as great. Brutes like Vandamme, aristocrats like Belliard and Ségur, rakes like Lasalle and fools like Grouchy, were all mingled together. What was worse was that generals and diplomats of subject states necessarily came into contact with them also. It must have been maddening for the Prussian, Von Yorck, to hear Vandamme discoursing on the plunder he had acquired in Silesia in 1806, or for Schwartzenburg, the Austrian, to hear Lasalle boasting of his successes among the ladies of Vienna during the Austerlitz campaign.

But for a whole year, beginning in 1810, Napoleon in spite of these difficulties was supremely happy. There was peace all over the Continent, and the Continental system seemed at last to be on the point of success, for England’s finances were undoubtedly shaken. So short was gold in England that Wellington in the Peninsula rarely had enough for his needs, and the Portuguese and Spanish subsidies were heavily in arrears. Masséna with a hundred thousand men had plunged into the fog of guerilla warfare on the Tagus, and everyone was confidently expecting to hear of the fall of Lisbon and the expulsion of the English from Portugal.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was savouring the delights of respectable married life. With his nineteen-year-old wife he indulged in all sorts of innocent pleasures, riding, hunting, practical joking, theatricals. He so far forgot himself as to tutoyer his Imperial bride in the presence of his whole Court, and the mighty nobles (who never indulged in such behaviour even in the intimacy of their wives’ boudoirs) were astonished to hear the Emperor and Empress exchanging “thees” and “thous.”

Napoleon gave up hours of his precious time to his wife, waited patiently when she was late for an appointment (Josephine was never guilty of such an offence) and generally acted the devoted husband to the life. For a whole year he was faithful to Marie Louise, a feat which he never achieved before or after until St. Helena. And as the months rolled by and hope changed to certainty his devotion grew greater still.

For the birth of the child the most elaborate preparations were made. Some time before he was born Mme. de Montesquieu was named Governess of the Children of France, a healthy Normandy girl who was in the same condition as the Empress was secured as prospective wet nurse and kept under strict surveillance (her own child died when it was taken from her, but that is not usually recorded), and all France waited in a hush of expectation.

Once again Napoleon was risking nothing. He was going to leave no possible foundation for rumours to the effect that the child was not his, or was not Marie Louise’s. Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles was born in the presence of the four doctors, Dubois, Corvisart, Bourdier and Yvan; of the Duchess of Montebello, dame d’honneur; of Mme. de Luçay, dame d’atours; of Mme. de Montesquieu, Governess of the Children of France; of six premières dames de chambre; of five women of inferior rank, and of two filles de garde-robe. Cambacères, Duke of Parma and Archchancellor of the Empire, was present in an ante-room, and should have witnessed the birth even if he did not; Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel and Wagram, was in attendance on Napoleon, and also may have witnessed it, while immediately after the birth all the other Grand Dignitaries of the Empire and the representatives of all the friendly countries of Europe were paraded through the room. Napoleon had ordered Corvisart, whose nerve was giving way under the strain of the business, to treat Marie Louise like a bourgeois wife, but he hardly practised what he preached. The birth took three days; it certainly seemed a good omen for this scrap of humanity to keep all these dozens of people with high-sounding titles waiting for seventy-two consecutive hours.