And in the closing scene at St. Helena it was the same. The dying man thought no more of the Austrian woman. Even in his delirium, the wandering memory recalled and the fast freezing lips named “Josephine!”
* * * * *
Yet calculation played its part in Napoleon’s marriage, as it did in everything he undertook. He was made to believe that Josephine had fortune and high station in society. He weighed these advantages in considering the match. Both the fortune and the social position would be valuable to him. In fact, Josephine had no fortune, nor any standing in society. Men of high station were her visitors; their wives were not. All the evidence tends to show that Barras arranged the match between his two hangers-on, and that the appointment to the command of the Army of Italy became involved in the negotiation. Napoleon received this coveted commission March 7, 1796; two days later the marriage occurred.
On the register both Napoleon and Josephine misrepresented their ages. He had made himself one year older, and she three years younger, than the facts justified. There was a difference of six years between them, and Madame Letitia angrily predicted that they would have no children.
In forty-eight hours after the marriage, Napoleon set out for Italy. At Marseilles he stopped, spending a few days with his mother and sisters. On March 22, 1796, he was at Nice, the headquarters of the army with which he was to win immortality.
Almost at every pause in his journey Napoleon had dashed off hot love-letters to the languid Josephine whom he left at Paris. The bride, far from sharing the groom’s passion, did not even understand it—was slightly bored by it, in fact. Now that he had gone off to the wars, she relapsed into her favorite dissipations, she and her graceful daughter Hortense.
Madame Junot gives an account of a ball at the banker Thellusson’s, which not only illustrates the social status of Josephine, but also the mixed conditions which the Revolution had brought about in society.
Thellusson was a rich man, and not a nobleman; one of those unfortunate creatures who, in the eyes of lank-pursed aristocrats, have more money than respectability. In our day he would be called a plutocrat, and he would hire some bankrupt imbecile with a decayed title to marry his idiotic daughter. For Thellusson, just like a plutocrat with more money than respectability, craved what he did not have, and was giving entertainments to foist himself up the social height. Of course he crowded his sumptuous rooms with a miscellany of people, most of whom despised him, while they feasted with him. It was one of these entertainments, a ball, at which took place the incidents Madame Junot relates.
It seems that a captious, querulous, nose-in-the-air Grand Dame, Madame de D., had been decoyed to this Thellusson ball by the assurance of the Marquis de Hautefort that she would meet none but the best people—her friends of the Old Régime. Very anxious to see former glories return, and very eager to meet her friends of this bewitching Old Régime, Madame de D. not only came to the ball herself, but consented to bring her daughter, Ernestine. As all high-born people should, Madame de D. and her daughter Ernestine arrived late. The ballroom was brilliant, but crowded. The high-born late comers could find no seats, an annoyance which the Marquis de Hautefort, who was on the lookout for them, at once tried to remedy.
A sylph-like young lady, who had been divinely dancing, was being led to her place beside another beautifully dressed woman who seemed to be an elder sister. So charming was the look of these seeming sisters that even Madame de D. admired.