Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century

by Virginia Tatnall Peacock

The dress worn by Elizabeth on her bridal night was of exquisitely fine white muslin, elaborately embroidered. She said of the gown in after years that it was one she had frequently worn, as she particularly desired to avoid anything like vulgar display. "And to tell the truth," she added, "there was as little as possible of any gown at all, dress in that day being chiefly an aid in setting off beauty to advantage," which concurs with the statement made by a man who was present at the wedding, to the effect that he could have put all the clothes worn by the bride into his pocket.

The honeymoon days of Jerome and Elizabeth were passed at her father's estate outside of Baltimore, "Homestead." Late in January they were mingling with the merrymakers one afternoon in Market Street. There was good sleighing, and the crisp air rang with the joyousness of an old-time winter. A snowball, sent with the unerring aim and democratic disregard of a small boy of the town, struck Elizabeth. Jerome was outraged at the indignity, and offered a reward of five hundred dollars for the discovery of the youthful miscreant. How trivial seems this "missile light as air" by comparison with those shafts sped later by a not less unerring hand, and striking into the very soul of her womanhood, Jerome making no effort to avert them.

In February this bride and groom of the early century went to Washington, whither since have wended their way so many happy bridal couples. Of the journey there, made in a stage-coach, General Samuel Smith, member of Congress from Maryland, wrote to Mr. William Patterson describing the runaway of the horses as they entered the city and Betsy's presence of mind. The driver having been thrown from his seat, Jerome sprang from the coach with the hope of catching the horses. But as they still sped on, and her danger increased as they penetrated towards the centre of the straggling little capital, Elizabeth opened the door and jumped out into the snow without injury.

While in Washington they were the guests of the French Minister, General Tureau. Aaron Burr, then Vice-President of the United States, meeting Elizabeth at this time, wrote to his daughter Theodosia, whom he thought Elizabeth much resembled, and referred to her as "a charming little woman with sense, spirit, and sprightliness."

Jerome's thoughts were already turning towards France, where every effort was being made to bring about his return—alone. While in New York during the following summer he was made acquainted with the annulment of his marriage, as follows: "By an Act of the 11 Ventose, all the civil officers of the Empire are prohibited from receiving on their registers the transcription of the act of celebration of a pretended marriage that Jerome Bonaparte has contracted in a foreign country during the age of minority, without the consent of his mother and without the publication in the place of his nativity."

In February following the marriage Mr. William Patterson had written to our Minister at Paris, Robert Livingston, enclosing him letters from the President and Secretary of State, to be presented to Napoleon with the hope of obtaining his approval, or at least mitigating any displeasure the marriage might have caused. "I can assure you," he wrote to Livingston, "that I never directly or indirectly countenanced or gave Mr. Bonaparte the smallest encouragement to address my daughter, but, on the contrary, resisted his pretensions by every means in my power consistent with discretion. Finding, however, that the mutual attachment they had formed for each other was such that nothing short of force or violence could prevent their union, I with much reluctance consented to their wishes."

He had, moreover, despatched his eldest son, Robert Patterson, to Paris, to discover which way the wind of the imperial temper blew. As the matter lay rather outside the pale of usual diplomatic issues, it required most delicate manipulation, and while young Patterson received kindly yet cautious expressions of interest and good-will from Napoleon's brothers, an ominous and forbidding silence enveloped the First Consul. His indignation increased with Jerome's continued absence, and when at length he spoke through his Minister of Marine, it was to bid Jerome, as lieutenant of the fleet, to return to France, at the same time forbidding all captains of French vessels to receive on board "the young person to whom Jerome had attached himself." Through the same channel Napoleon offered his forgiveness to Jerome on condition that he abandon Elizabeth and return to France, there to associate himself with his fortunes. Should he persist in bringing her, she would not be allowed to put foot on French territory. Jerome's mother wrote to him at the same time, suggesting that he return to France alone and send his wife to Holland. Robert Patterson, however, who succeeded admirably in keeping himself posted on the variations in the attitude of Jerome's family, advised that Jerome should not return to France without his wife.

Though he made several efforts during the year that followed to return thither, there is only one on record when it was his purpose to sail alone.

In September, 1804, General Armstrong sailed from New York to replace Livingston at Paris. He had agreed with Jerome to take Madame Bonaparte with him, Jerome himself intending to go on one of the French frigates then in New York harbor. She could thus, at least, have landed in France as a member of the family of the American minister, who might have succeeded in presenting her to Napoleon, with whom she could, no doubt, have pleaded her cause with more effect than could have been produced by any amount of diplomatic correspondence or family intervention. She had the gifts which he most admired in women, great personal beauty and wit, and though the latter might have been too keen for his entire appreciation, she no doubt would have been shrewd enough to temper it to his taste.

She wrote her father from New York, September 5, 1804, of her disappointment at Armstrong's having sailed without her. The reason given was that Jerome and Elizabeth had arrived by stage a few hours after the ship had sailed.