JOSEPHINE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH AND QUEEN OF ITALY. 1805.
Designed by Buguet.
The one real pleasure in her life was undoubtedly her toilet. She had always been extravagantly fond of personal decoration—she loved brilliant stones, gay silks, fine laces, soft cashmeres; and when she found herself an Empress, with every reason and every opportunity for indulging her love of finery, she abandoned herself to the pleasure until her wardrobe became the chief amusement of her life.
Almost every day men and women, bearing stuffs of all sorts—jewels, models, laces, everything, in short, that French fancy could devise for a woman’s toilet—found their way to Josephine’s private apartments. Before these wily tradespeople she had no self-restraint—one should say, perhaps, no self-respect,—for almost invariably she allowed herself to be wheedled into buying. The numbers of pieces added to her wardrobe each year indicates a startling prodigality. Thus, in one year, she bought one hundred and thirty-six dresses, twenty cashmere shawls, seventy-three corsets, forty-eight pieces of elegant stuffs, eighty-seven hats, seventy-one pairs of silk stockings, nine hundred and eighty pairs of gloves, five hundred and twenty pairs of shoes. If this had been an unusual purchase, it might be explained; but it was not. With every season there was the same thoughtless buying of all that struck her fancy. It was out of the question for her to wear all she bought, for Josephine was not one who prided herself on never appearing twice in the same costume. Many of the things she bought she never put on at all; and when her wardrobes were overburdened, she made a little fête of the task of lightening them, giving away piece after piece of uncut lace, pattern after pattern of velvet, silk or muslin, rich gowns, hats, stockings, shoes. Anything and everything was scattered in the same reckless fashion in which it had been acquired. Not that her giving of personal articles was confined to this occasional clearing out of stock; she gave as one of her royal prerogatives, whenever it pleased her to do so. Often she took from her shoulders a delicate scarf or superb cashmere shawl to throw about some one of her ladies whom she heard admiring it, and not infrequently she sent a gown to one who had complimented her on its beauty. Mlle. Ducrest says that one day she heard a gentleman of the household, in admiring a cashmere gown which the Empress wore, remark that the pattern would do very well for a waistcoat. Josephine picked up a pair of scissors, and cutting the skirt of her dress into three pieces, gave one to each of the three gentlemen in the room.
Josephine’s prodigality caused great confusion in her budget. She was allowed, at the beginning of her reign, $72,000 a year for her toilet, and later this was increased to $90,000. But there was never a year during the time that she did not far over-reach her allowance and oblige the Emperor to come to her relief. According to the estimate Masson has made, Josephine spent on an average $220,000 yearly on her toilet during her reign. It is only by going over her wardrobe article by article and noting the cost and number of each piece that one can realize how a woman could spend this amount. Take the simple item of her hose—which were almost always white silk, often richly embroidered or in open work. She kept 150 or more pairs on hand, and they cost from $4.00 to $8.00 a pair. She employed two hair-dressers—one for every day, at $1,200 a year; the other for great occasions, at $2,000 a year; and she paid them each from one thousand to two thousand dollars a year for furnishings. It was the same for all the smaller items of her toilet.
Coming to gowns, the sums they cost were enormous. Her simple muslin gowns, of which her wardrobe always contained two hundred and more, cost from one hundred to four hundred dollars apiece. Her cashmere and velvet gowns were much more costly, ornamented as many of them were with ermine and with buckles, buttons, and girdles set with precious stones. One of her great extravagances was cashmere shawls. She never had enough of them—it is true she gave away many—and she rarely appeared without one within reach. Her collection of shawls is said to have been the most valuable ever seen in Europe. Many of them were made after patterns which she sent herself to the Orient. They were of every delicate shade of color, and in texture they were like gossamer. Her coquetry with these beautiful drapes was like the coquetry of the Spanish signora with a fan. She said everything with them.
A large lump of Josephine’s yearly allowance for dress went into jewels. Her extravagance in this particular was less justifiable than in any other, because she already owned a large quantity of precious stones of all sorts when she became Empress, many of them gifts to her in Italy, and because as Empress she had at her command the magnificent crown jewels—$1,000,000 worth of gems, in fact, were hers when she wished. Nevertheless, she bought—evidently for the mere pleasure of buying and laying away—innumerable ornaments of every description, scores of which she probably never put on; rings, bracelets, necklaces, girdles, buckles, all by the hundreds. No stone known to commerce but was represented in her collection. No form into which gold and silver can be fashioned which was not found there. She had specimens of the ornaments of all ages and all countries, and of the novelties of the times she bought by the score. She not only added incessantly, but she exchanged, reset, recut, carried on, in fact, a trade. To the end of her life she kept her interest in her jewels, and loved to show them to her companions, to play with them, to decorate herself with them. They were kept together for many years after her death, but were finally sold by Hortense. When experts came to value them, it was found that according to the prices they set—fully one-third below the cost price—the large pieces alone, such as her diadem of diamonds and her splendid pearl necklace, were worth nearly a million dollars; and as for the small pieces—the innumerable trinkets of every size and kind and style—their value was never computed.
The effect on the Emperor of Josephine’s prodigality can be imagined. He appreciated as she never could the lack of dignity in her reckless spending, and did his utmost to persuade her to keep her accounts in order. He even resorted to severe measures, turning out of the palace tradespeople who he knew hung about her apartments watching an opportunity to show her a novelty in modes or in ornamentation, a rare jewel or a rich shawl. He ordered that her expenses be regulated by a person especially appointed for that purpose and that Josephine herself be not allowed to buy anything without supervision. None of these means effected anything. Annually there was a great debt run up by her, and when the settlement could be put off no longer, Josephine would confess. She always put the amount far below what it actually was, and only after much badgering could Napoleon get at the real state of things. Then there was a scene, ending always in tears from Josephine. Invariably they conquered Napoleon. “Come, come, pet, dry your tears,” he would beg, “don’t worry;” and he paid the debts, and raised her income. In twelve months the scene was repeated.