Memoirs of the Empress Josephine, Vol. 2 of 2

by Madame de Rémusat

Mme. de la Valette, the Mistress of the Robes, was daughter to the Marquis de Beauharnais. Her complexion had been slightly spoiled by small-pox, but she had a pleasing though expressionless face. Her gentleness almost amounted to inanity, and small vanities chiefly occupied her thoughts. Her mind was narrow, her conduct was correct. Her post was a complete sinecure, for Mme. Bonaparte allowed no one to interfere with her dress. In vain did the Emperor insist that Mme. de la Valette should make up accounts, regulate expenditure, and superintend purchases; he was obliged to yield, and to give up the idea of maintaining any order on these points, for Mme. de la Valette was incapable of defending the rights of her place in opposition to her aunt. She confined herself, therefore, to taking Mme. de la Rochefoucauld’s duties when the latter absented herself on account of illness. Everybody knows what courage and energy misfortune and conjugal love subsequently developed in this young lady.

Chief among the Ladies of the Palace was Mme. de Luçay, who had held that position longest. In 1806 she was no longer young. She was a gentle and quiet person. Her husband was Prefect of the Palace; their daughter married the younger son of the Count de Ségur, and has since died.

I come next on the list, and I feel inclined to make a little sketch of myself; I believe I can do this truthfully. I was twenty-three when I first came to Court; I was not pretty, yet not altogether devoid of attraction, and I looked well in full dress. My eyes were fine, my hair was black, and I had good teeth; my nose and face were too large in proportion to my figure, which was good, but small. I had the reputation of being a clever woman, which was almost a reproach at Court. In point of fact, I lack neither wit nor sense, but my warmth of feeling and of thought leads me to speak and act impulsively, and makes me commit errors which a cooler, even though less wise, person would avoid.

I was often misinterpreted at Bonaparte’s Court. I was lively, and was supposed to be scheming. I liked to be acquainted with persons of importance, and I was accused of being ambitious. I am too much devoted to persons and to causes which appear to me to have right on their side, to deserve the first accusation; and my faithfulness to friends in misfortune is a sufficient answer to the second. Mme. Bonaparte trusted me more than others, and thereby put me into a difficult position; people soon perceived this, and no one envied me the onerous distinction of her friendship. The preference which the Emperor at first showed me was a cause of greater jealousy. I reaped little benefit from his favor, but I was flattered by it and grateful for it; and, so long as I felt a regard for him, I sought to please him. When my eyes were opened, I drew back; dissimulation is absolutely opposed to my character. I came to Court too full of inquisitiveness. It seemed to me so curious a scene that I watched it closely, and asked many questions that I might fully understand it. It was often thought that I did this from design. In palaces no action is supposed to be without a motive; “Cui bono?” is said on every occasion.

My impetuosity frequently brought me into trouble. Not that I acted altogether on impulse, but I was very young, very unaffected, because I had always been very happy; in nothing was I sufficiently sedate, and my qualities sometimes did me as much harm as my defects. But, amid all this, I have met with friends who loved me, and of whom, no matter how I may be circumstanced, I shall retain a loving recollection.

I soon began to suffer from disappointed hopes, betrayed affections, and mistaken beliefs. Moreover, my health failed, and I became tired of so arduous a life, and disenchanted both with men and things. I withdrew myself as far as possible, and found in my own home feelings and enjoyments that could not deceive. I loved my husband, my mother, my children, and my friends; I should have been unwilling to give up the peaceful pleasure I found in their society. I contrived to retain a kind of liberty amid the numerous trivial duties of my post. Lastly, when I approved of any one and when I ceased to do so, both states of mind too plainly showed. There could be no greater fault in the eyes of Bonaparte. He dreaded nothing in the world so much as that any one in his circle should use their critical faculty with regard to him.

Mme. de Canisy, a great-niece of M. de Brienne, the former Archbishop of Sens, was a beautiful woman when first she came to Court. She was tall and well made, with eyes and hair of raven-black, lovely teeth, an aquiline nose, and a rich brunette complexion.

Mme. Maret was a fine woman; her features were regular and handsome. She seemed to live on excellent terms with her husband, who imparted to her some of his own ambition. Seldom have I seen more unconcealed or more solicitous vanity in any one. She was jealous of every distinction, and tolerated superior rank in the Princesses only. Born in obscurity, she aimed at the highest distinctions. When the Emperor granted the title of countess to all the ladies-in-waiting, Mme. Maret felt annoyed at the equality it implied, and, obstinately refusing to bear it, she remained plain Mme. Maret until her husband obtained the title of Duc de Bassano. Mme. Savary and she were the most elegantly dressed women at Court. Their dress is said to have cost more than fifty thousand francs a year. Mme. Maret thought that the Empress did not sufficiently distinguish her from the others; she therefore made common cause with the Bonapartes against her. She was feared and distrusted with some reason, for she repeated things which reached the ear of the Emperor through her husband, and did a great deal of harm. She and M. Maret would have liked people to pay regular court to them, and many persons lent themselves to this pretension. As I showed a decided objection to doing so, Mme. Maret took an aversion to me, and contrived to inflict many petty annoyances upon me.

Any one who chose to speak evil of others to Bonaparte was pretty sure of gaining his ear; for he was always credulous of evil. He disliked Mme. Maret; he even judged her too severely; nevertheless he chose to believe all stories that came to him through her. I believe her to have been one of the greatest sufferers by the fall of that great Imperial scaffolding which brought us all to the ground.

During the King’s first residence in Paris, from 1814 to 1815, the Duc de Bassano was accused, on sufficient grounds, of having carried on a secret correspondence with the Emperor in the island of Elba, and kept him informed of the state of feeling in France, so that he was induced to believe he might once more offer himself to the French as their ruler. Napoleon returned, and his sudden arrival clashed with and thwarted the revolution which Fouché and Carnot were preparing. Then these two, being obliged to accept Bonaparte, compelled him to reign during the Hundred Days according to their own system. The Emperor wished to take M. Maret, whom he had so many reasons for trusting, back into his service; but Fouché and Carnot strongly objected to Maret, as a man of no ability and only capable of blind devotion to his master’s interest. Some idea of the state of bondage in which the men of the Revolution kept the netted lion at this period may be gathered from the answer that Carnot ventured to make when the Emperor proposed putting M. Maret into the Government “No, certainly not; the French do not wish to see two Blacas in one year”—alluding to the Count de Blacas, whom the King had brought with him from England, and who had all the influence of a favorite.