The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

X.

THE JOURNEY.

In the course of the 17th the Empress reached Haag, where the Bavarian Crown Prince received her, and at ten in the evening she was in Munich. The next day, M. de Boyne, the French chargé d'affaires, wrote to the Duke of Cadore: "Her Majesty the Empress has received all along her route, and yesterday, on her arrival in Munich, countless expressions of love and respect. This capital was illuminated with a taste and magnificence that had never been seen here. The Crown Prince went as far as Haag to pay his respects to her. The troops and the militia were under arms, and the King and Queen, with the whole court, met her at the foot of the staircase of honor." Marie Louise was not to leave Munich till the 19th of March. On the 18th she received a letter from her husband, brought by one of his equerries, the Baron of Saint Aignan. That evening there was a state dinner at the palace, a levee, and a theatrical representation. The next day, the 19th, the Empress was destined to suffer a heavy blow. She had brought with her from Vienna to Braunau, and from Braunau to Munich, her grand mistress, a confidential friend, a woman who had had faithful charge of her infancy and youth,—the Countess Lazansky. When she reached the Bavarian capital, she was sure that this woman was not to leave her. Since the Countess had not gone away at Braunau, she had every reason to suppose that she would accompany her to Paris, and Marie Louise fully intended to keep her with her at least a year. The Austrian court showed this belief, and the French Ambassador had written March 6th to the Duke of Cadore: "I shall not, even indirectly, oppose Madame Lazansky's going, since His Majesty is willing to permit her accompanying the Empress. This attention will be gratefully received." But that did not at all suit Napoleon's sister, the Queen of Naples, who had not pleased the Austrian lady, and who wished to control the new Empress without a rival.

The Queen of Naples was a very agreeable, very charming woman; but Count Otto was mistaken when he wrote that the Austrian court was flattered by hearing that Napoleon had chosen his sister Caroline to meet the new Empress; the choice was not a happy one, and the Emperor would doubtless have done better to send some other princess of his family. Could it be forgotten that there was another woman, also a queen, and also bearing the name of Caroline, Marie Louise's grandmother, whom Marie Louise tenderly loved, and whose throne was occupied by Murat's wife? It should have been remembered that in the eyes of the court of Vienna, the true, the legitimate, queen of the Two Sicilies was not Caroline, Napoleon's sister, but another Caroline, the daughter of the great Marie Thérèse, the sister of Marie Antoinette.

This is what the widow of General Durand says on the subject, in her interesting Memoirs: "Princess Caroline, Madame Murat, then Queen of Naples, had gone to Braunau to meet her sister-in-law. The Duchess of Montebello, a beautiful, sensible woman, the mother of five children, who had lost her husband in the last war, had been appointed a maid-of-honor,—a feeble compensation on the part of the Emperor for her sad bereavement. The Countess of Luçay, a gentle, kindly woman, thoroughly familiar with the customs of good society, was lady of the bedchamber. I shall speak later of the other ladies of the suite, whose functions, as established by etiquette, brought them very little into personal relations with the Empress. Each one of them had pretensions to which the presence of Madame Lazansky was an obstacle. They complained to Queen Caroline, and she decided on an act of despotism which deeply wounded her sister-in-law." This act was the dismissal of Madame Lazansky. By this course the Queen of Naples expected to add to her influence over the Empress; but, on the contrary, she only diminished it appreciably.

"Madame Murat," continues Madame Durand, "was very anxious to acquire great power over Marie Louise, and she might have been successful had she taken, more precautions. Talleyrand said of her that she had the head of a Cromwell on the body of a pretty woman. Endowed by nature with a marked character, great intelligence, far-reaching ideas, a supple and crafty mind, with a grace and amiability that made her very charming, she lacked nothing but the power of hiding her love of rule; and when she missed her aim, it was because she had been too eager. The moment she saw the Austrian Princess, she imagined that she had read her character; but she was utterly mistaken. She took her timidity for weakness, her embarrassment for awkwardness; and, fancying that she needed only to give her orders, she hardened against her for all time the heart of the woman whom she expected to control."

Madame Durand thus describes the conspiracy which these women formed: "The presence of the Countess Lazansky had excited the jealousy and the fears of all the ladies of the household. They intrigued and caballed, telling the Queen of Naples that she could never win her sister-in-law's confidence or affection so long as she kept with her a person whose influence rested on so many years of devotion and intimacy. Her maid-of-honor lamented that her functions would amount to nothing, if the Princess were to keep near her this foreigner who looked after everything. Finally they persuaded the Queen to ask Marie Louise to send back her grand mistress, although she had been promised that she could keep her for a year."

The Empress might have resisted. They showed her no order from the Emperor; they merely said that the presence of the Austrian lady with a French sovereign was something anomalous,—an infringement of the laws of etiquette,—and that the best way for the Empress to please the Emperor was by this voluntary sacrifice. Marie Louise yielded for the sake of peace, and gave up her friend, as later she was to give up her husband, out of weakness. Her decision gave her great pain, and it was not without a pang that she parted from the Countess Lazansky. "How agonizing this separation is!" she wrote to her father. "I really could not make a greater sacrifice for my husband, and still I do not think that this sacrifice was intended by him."

Another thing that added to the grief of the new Empress was that she was compelled to part with a pet dog which she was very fond of: the Countess was to carry it back to Vienna. They told Marie Louise that Napoleon disliked dogs, that he could not endure Josephine's, and that they were perpetual subjects of discord. Besides, was it not her duty, on entering France, to give up everything that came from her former home? General de Ségur, who had been part of the Empress's escort since leaving Braunau, makes no mention of the Countess Lazansky, but he speaks of the dog: "The complete change of dress was simply an entertainment: that of the escort had been anticipated; it was necessary to endure it. This painful change would have taken place without too much evidence of grief, if the superfluously jealous interference of Napoleon's sister had not extended itself to a little dog from Vienna, which, it was insisted, must be sent back, though this cost Marie Louise many tears." The acquisition of a colossal empire did not console the sovereign for the loss of a little dog.

March 19, in the morning, Marie Louise and Countess Lazansky parted. "The worst thing in the conduct of the Queen of Naples," writes Madame Durand, who did not like her, "was that after having demanded the Empress's consent to Madame Lazansky's departure, she gave orders to the ladies-in-waiting not to admit that lady to the Empress if she came to say good by. This order was not obeyed; the two ladies admitted her by a secret door; she spent two hours with the Empress, and the ladies who admitted her never regretted what they had done, in spite of the many reproaches of the Queen of Naples."