It was no wonder that Napoleon was anxious to get his court and society civilised, and the person to whom he chiefly turned for help and counsel in this matter was Mme. de Montesson, who knew all about the usages of great society and court etiquette.
Neither Napoleon nor any of his family had at all the manners and customs suitable to the position in which he had placed them, and he was quite aware of the fact. His mother, as he said, could speak neither French nor Italian properly, but only a kind of Corsican patois, which he was ashamed to hear. He did everything he could to win over the emigrés and those of the old noblesse who had remained in France; his great wish was to mingle the new noblesse he soon began to create with the faubourg St. Germain, and his great disappointment and anger was excited by the non-success of his attempts. From the time he rose to supreme power he contemplated a court and a noblesse for the country and a crown for himself. And that a court formed out of the materials supplied by his generals and their families would be ridiculous he knew, and meant to avoid.
“Above everything in France ridicule is to be avoided,” he had remarked.
Therefore he encouraged and promoted the marriages of his officers with the penniless daughters of the old families; therefore he sent the only sister who was young enough to the school of Mme. Campan, formerly femme de chambre to Marie Antoinette, and gave that clever, astute woman his support and approbation.
For the same reason he had, at the beginning of his career, married Joséphine, Vicomtesse de Beauharnais; it was true, as he afterwards declared that he loved her better than he ever loved any woman; but all the same he had decided that his wife must be of good blood, good manners, and good society; and although Joséphine was by no means a grande dame, she was in a much better position than himself; and her children’s name, her social connections, her well-bred son and daughter, the charming manners and savoir faire of all three were then and for long afterwards both useful and agreeable to him.
Always eager to marry his officers, he was often very peremptory about it.
At the time of the expedition to St. Domingo he desired to send Leclerc, the husband of his second sister, Pauline. Leclerc hesitated, then said he should be glad to go, but he had a tie which bound him to France.
“Paulette?” said Napoleon. “But she will follow you. I approve of her doing so; the air of Paris does not agree with her, it is only fit for coquettes, a character unbecoming her. She must accompany you, that is understood.”
It was not Paulette, explained Leclerc, he would be distressed to leave her, but she would be safe and surrounded by her family. It was his young sister, now at school at Mme. Campan’s, whom he could not leave unprotected, perhaps for ever. “I ask you, General, how can I?”