Читать книгу Memoirs of the Empress Josephine - Madame de Rémusat - Страница 17

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The Marquis de Beauharnais, father of the general who was the first husband of Mme. Bonaparte, having been employed in a military capacity at Martinique, became attached to an aunt of Mme. Bonaparte’s, with whom he returned to France, and whom he married in his old age.

This aunt brought her niece, Josephine de la Pagerie, to France. She had her educated, and made use of her ascendency over her aged husband to marry her niece, at the age of fifteen years, to young Beauharnais, her stepson. Although he married her against his inclination, there is no doubt that at one time he was much attached to his wife; for I have seen very loving letters written by him to her when he was in garrison, and she preserved them with great care. Of this marriage were born Eugène and Hortense. When the Revolution began, I think that Beauharnais’s love for his wife had cooled. At the commencement of the Terror M. de Beauharnais was still commanding the French armies, and had no longer any relations with his wife.

I do not know under what circumstances she became acquainted with certain deputies of the Convention, but she had some influence with them; and, as she was kind-hearted and obliging, she used it to do as much good to as many people as possible. From that time her reputation for good conduct was very much damaged; but her kindness, her grace, and the sweetness of her manners could not be disputed. She served my father’s interests more than once with Barrère and Tallien, and owed to this my mother’s friendship. In 1793 chance placed her in a village on the outskirts of Paris, where, like her, we were passing the summer. Our near neighborhood led to some intimacy. I remember that Hortense, who was three or four years younger than I, used to visit me in my room, and, while amusing herself by examining my little trinkets, she would tell me that all her ambition for the future was to be the owner of a similar treasure. Unhappy woman! She has since been laden with gold and diamonds, and how has she not groaned under the crushing weight of the royal diadem!

In those evil days when every one was forced to seek a place of safety from the persecution by which all classes of society were beset, we lost sight of Mme. de Beauharnais. Her husband, being suspected by the Jacobins, had been thrown into prison in Paris, and condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. She also was imprisoned, but escaped the guillotine, which preyed on all without distinction. Being a friend of the beautiful Mme. Tallien, she was introduced into the society of the Directory, and was especially favored by Barras. Mme. de Beauharnais had very little fortune, and her taste for dress and luxury rendered her dependent on those who could help her to indulge it. Without being precisely pretty, she possessed many personal charms. Her features were delicate, her expression was sweet; her mouth was very small, and concealed her bad teeth; her complexion was rather dark, but with the help of red and white skillfully applied she remedied that defect; her figure was perfect; her limbs were flexible and delicate; her movements were easy and elegant. La Fontaine’s line could never have been more fitly applied than to her:

“Et la grâce, plus belle encore que la beauté.”

She dressed with perfect taste, enhancing the beauty of what she wore; and, with these advantages and the constant care bestowed upon her attire, she contrived to avoid being eclipsed by the youth and beauty of many of the women by whom she was surrounded. To all this, as I have already said, she added extreme kindness of heart, a remarkably even temper, and great readiness to forget any wrong that had been done to her.

She was not a person of remarkable intellect. A Creole, and frivolous, her education had been a good deal neglected; but she recognized her deficiencies, and never made blunders in conversation. She possessed true natural tact; she readily found pleasant things to say; her memory was good—a useful quality for those in high position. Unhappily, she was deficient in depth of feeling and elevation of mind. She preferred to charm her husband by her beauty, rather than the influence of certain virtues. She carried complaisance to excess for his sake, and kept her hold on him by concessions which, perhaps, contributed to increase the contempt with which he habitually regarded women. She might have taught him some useful lessons; but she feared him, and allowed him to dictate to her in everything. She was changeable, easy to move and easy to appease, incapable of prolonged emotion, of sustained attention, of serious reflection; and, although her greatness did not turn her head, neither did it educate her. The bent of her character led her to console the unhappy; but she could only dwell on the troubles of individuals—she did not think of the woes of France. The genius of Bonaparte overawed her: she only criticised him in what concerned herself personally; in everything else she respected what he called “the force of his destiny.” He exerted an evil influence over her, for he inspired her with contempt for morality, and with a large share of his own characteristic suspicion; and he taught her the art of lying, which each of them practiced with skill and effect.

It is said that she was the prize of his command of the army of Italy; she has often assured me that at that time Bonaparte was really in love with her. She hesitated between him, General Hoche, and M. de Caulaincourt, who also loved her. Bonaparte prevailed. I know that my mother, then living in retirement in the country, was much surprised on learning that the widow of M. de Beauharnais was about to marry a man so little known as Bonaparte.

When I questioned her as to what Bonaparte was like in his youth, she told me that he was then dreamy, silent, and awkward in the society of women, but passionate and fascinating, although rather an odd person in every way. She charged the campaign in Egypt with having changed his temper, and developed that petty despotism from which she afterward suffered so much.

I have seen letters from Napoleon to Mme. Bonaparte, written at the time of the first Italian campaign. She accompanied him to Italy, but he sometimes left her with the rearguard of the army, until a victory had secured the safety of the road. These epistles are very singular. The writing is almost illegible; they are ill spelt; the style is strange and confused. But there is in them such a tone of passionate feeling; the expressions are so animated, and at the same time so poetical; they breathe a love so different from mere “amours,” that there is no woman who would not have prized such letters. They formed a striking contrast with the graceful, elegant, and measured style of those of M. de Beauharnais. How strange it must have been for a woman to find herself one of the moving powers of the triumphant march of an army, at a time when politics alone governed the actions of men! On the eve of one of his greatest battles, Bonaparte wrote: “I am far from you! It seems to me that I am surrounded by the blackest night; I need the lurid light of the thunderbolts which we are about to hurl upon our enemies to dispel the darkness into which your absence has thrown me. Josephine, you wept when I parted from you—you wept! At that thought all my being trembles. But calm yourself: Wurmser shall pay dearly for the tears I have seen you shed.” And on the morrow Wurmser was beaten.

The enthusiasm with which General Bonaparte was received in beautiful Italy, the magnificence of the fêtes, the fame of his victories, the wealth which every officer might acquire there, the unbounded luxury in which she lived, accustomed Mme. Bonaparte from that time forth to all the pomp with which she was afterward surrounded; and she acknowledged that nothing in her life ever equaled the emotions of that time, when love came (or seemed to come) daily, to lay at her feet a new conquest over a people enraptured with their conqueror. It is, however, plain from these letters that Mme. Bonaparte, in the midst of this life of triumph, of victory, and of license, gave some cause for uneasiness to her victorious husband. His letters, sometimes sullen and sometimes menacing, reveal the torments of jealousy; and they abound in melancholy reflections, which betray his weariness of the fleeting delusions of life. It may have been that these misunderstandings, which outraged the first very keen feelings Bonaparte had ever experienced, had a bad effect upon him, and hardened him by degrees. Perhaps he would have been a better man if he had been more and better loved.

When, on his return from this brilliant campaign, the conquering general was obliged to exile himself to Egypt, to escape from the growing suspicion of the Directory, Mme. Bonaparte’s position became precarious and difficult. Her husband entertained serious doubts of her, and these were prompted by Joseph and Lucien, who dreaded the powerful influence that she might exercise through her son, who had accompanied Bonaparte. Her extravagant tastes led her into reckless expense, and she was harassed by debts and duns.

Before leaving France, Bonaparte had directed her to purchase an estate; and as she wished to live in the neighborhood of Saint Germain, where her daughter was being educated, she selected Malmaison. There we met her again, when we were residing for some months at the château of one of our friends, at a short distance from Malmaison. Mme. Bonaparte, who was naturally unreserved, and even indiscreet, had no sooner met my mother again than she talked to her very freely about her absent husband, about her brothers-in-law—in fact, about a host of people who were utter strangers to us. Bonaparte was supposed to be almost lost to France, and his wife was neglected. My mother took pity on her; we showed her some attention, which she never forgot. At that time I was seventeen years of age, and I had been married one year.

It was at Malmaison that Mme. Bonaparte showed us an immense quantity of pearls, diamonds, and cameos, which at that time constituted the contents of her jewel-case. Even at that time it might have figured in a story of the “Arabian Nights,” and it was destined to receive immense accessions. Invaded and grateful Italy had contributed to these riches, and the Pope also, as a mark of his appreciation of the respect with which the conqueror treated him by denying himself the pleasure of planting his flag upon the walls of Rome. The reception-rooms at Malmaison were sumptuously decorated with pictures, statues, and mosaics, the spoils of Italy, and each of the generals who figured in the Italian campaign exhibited booty of the same kind.

Although she was surrounded with all these treasures, Mme. Bonaparte was often without money to meet her every-day expenses; and, to get out of this difficulty, she trafficked in her influence with the people in power at the time, and compromised herself by entering into imprudent relations. Dreadfully embarrassed, on worse terms than ever with her brothers-in-law, supplying too much reason for their accusations against her, and no longer counting on the return of her husband, she was strongly tempted to give her daughter in marriage to the son of Rewbell, a member of the Directory; but Mlle. de Beauharnais would not consent, and her opposition put an end to a project whose execution would doubtless have been highly displeasing to Bonaparte.

Presently a rumor of Bonaparte’s arrival at Fréjus arose. He came back with his mind full of the evil reports that Lucien had repeated to him in his letters. His wife, on hearing of his disembarkation, set out to join him; she missed him, had to retrace her steps, and returned to the house in the Rue Chantereine some hours after his arrival there. She descended from her carriage in haste, followed by her son and daughter, and ran up the stairs leading to his room; but what was her surprise to find the door locked! She called to Bonaparte, and begged him to open it. He replied through the door that it should never again be opened for her. Then she wept, fell on her knees, implored him for her sake and that of her two children; but all was profound silence around her, and several hours of the night passed over her in this dreadful suspense. At last, however, moved by her sobs and her perseverance, Bonaparte opened the door at about four o’clock in the morning, and appeared, as Mme. Bonaparte herself told me, with a stern countenance, which, however, betrayed that he too had been weeping. He bitterly reproached her with her conduct, her forgetfulness of him, all the real or imaginary sins of which Lucien had accused her, and concluded by announcing an eternal separation. Then turning to Eugène de Beauharnais, who was at that time about twenty years old—“As for you,” he said, “you shall not bear the burden of your mother’s faults. You shall be always my son; I will keep you with me.”

“No, no, General,” replied Eugène: “I must share the ill fortune of my mother, and from this moment I say farewell to you.”

These words shook Bonaparte’s resolution. He opened his arms to Eugène, weeping; his wife and Hortense knelt at his feet and embraced his knees; and, soon after, all was forgiven. In the explanation that ensued, Mme. Bonaparte succeeded in clearing herself from the accusations of her brother-in-law; and Bonaparte, then burning to avenge her, sent for Lucien at seven o’clock in the morning, and had him, without any forewarning, ushered into the room where the husband and wife, entirely reconciled, occupied the same bed.

From that time Bonaparte desired his wife to break with Mme. Tallien and all the society of the Directory. The 18th Brumaire completely severed her connection with those individuals. She told me that on the eve of that important day she observed, with great surprise, that Bonaparte had loaded two pistols and placed them beside his bed. On her questioning him, he replied that a certain event might happen in the night which would render such a precaution necessary. Then, without another word, he lay down, and slept soundly until the next morning.

When he became Consul, the gentle and gracious qualities of his wife, which attracted many persons to his Court whom his natural rudeness would have otherwise kept away, were of great service to him. To Josephine he intrusted the measures to be taken for the return of the émigrés. Nearly all the “erasures” passed through the hands of Mme. Bonaparte; she was the first link that united the French nobility to the Consular Government. We shall learn more of this in the course of these Memoirs.

Eugène de Beauharnais, born in 1780, passed through all the phases of a sometimes stormy and sometimes brilliant life, without ever forfeiting his title to general esteem. Prince Eugène, sometimes in camp with his father, sometimes in all the leisure and luxury of his mother’s house, was, to speak correctly, educated nowhere. His natural instinct led toward what is right; the schooling of Bonaparte formed but did not pervert him; the lessons taught him by events—all these were his instructors. Mme. Bonaparte was incapable of giving sound advice; and therefore her son, who loved her sincerely, perceived very early in his career that it was useless to consult her.

Prince Eugène did not lack personal attractions. His figure was graceful; he was skilled in all bodily exercises; and he inherited from his father that fine manner of the old French gentleman, in which, perhaps, M. de Beauharnais himself gave him his earliest lessons. To these advantages he added simplicity and kindheartedness; he was neither vain nor presumptuous; he was sincere without being indiscreet, and could be silent when silence was necessary. Prince Eugène had not much natural talent; his imagination was not vivid, and his feelings were not keen. He was always obedient to his stepfather; and, although he appreciated him exactly, and was not mistaken with regard to him, he never hesitated to observe the strictest fidelity to him, even when it was against his own interests. Never once was he surprised into showing any sign of discontent, either when the Emperor, while loading his own family with honors, seemed to forget him, or when his mother was repudiated. At the time of the divorce Eugène maintained a very dignified attitude.

Eugène, as colonel of a regiment, was beloved by his soldiers. In Italy he was held in high honor. The sovereigns of Europe esteemed him, and the world was well pleased that his fortunes have survived those of his family. He had the good fortune to marry a charming princess, who never ceased to love him, and whom he rendered happy. He possessed in perfection those qualities which make the happiness of home life—sweet temper, and that natural cheerfulness which rises above every ill, and was perhaps due to the fact that he was never profoundly moved by anything. When, however, that kind of indifference toward the interests of other people is also displayed in one’s own personal troubles, it may fairly be called philosophy.

Hortense, Prince Eugène’s younger sister (she was born in 1783), was, I think, the most unhappy person of our time, and the least formed by nature to be so. Cruelly slandered by the Bonapartes, who hated her, included in the accusations which the public delighted to bring against all who belonged to that family, she was not strong enough to contend against such a combination of ills, and to defy the calumnies that blighted her life.

Mme. Louis Bonaparte, like her mother and brother, was not remarkable for intellect; but, like them, she possessed tact and good feeling, and she was more high-minded and imaginative than they. Left to herself in her youth, she escaped the contagion of the dangerous example of evil. At Mme. Campan’s select and elegant boarding-school she acquired accomplishments rather than education. While she was young, a brilliant complexion, beautiful hair, and a fine figure rendered her agreeable to look upon; but she lost her teeth early, and illness and sorrow altered her features. Her natural instincts were good; but, being absolutely ignorant of the world and the usages of society, and entirely given up to ideal notions drawn from a sphere which she had created for herself, she was unable to rule her life by those social laws which do not indeed preserve the virtue of women, but which procure them support when they are accused, without which it is impossible to pass through the world, and which the approbation of conscience can not replace. It is not sufficient to lead a good life in order to appear virtuous; women must also obey those rules which society has made. Mme. Louis, who was placed in circumstances of extreme difficulty, never had a guide; she understood her mother, and could not venture to place any confidence in her. As she held firmly to the principles, or rather to the sentiments, her imagination had created, she was at first very much surprised at the lapses from morality in which she detected the women by whom she was surrounded, and was still more surprised when she found that these faults were not always the result of love. Her marriage cast her on the mercy of the most tyrannical of husbands; she became the resigned and dejected victim of ceaseless and unremitting persecution, and sank under the weight of her sorrow. She yielded to it without daring to complain, and it was not until she was on the point of death that the truth became known. I knew Mme. Louis Bonaparte very intimately, and was acquainted with all the secrets of her domestic life. I have always believed her to be the purest, as she was the most unfortunate, of women.

Her only consolation was in her tender love for her brother; she rejoiced in his happiness, his success, his amiable temper. How many times have I heard her say, “I only live in Eugène’s life!”

She declined to marry Rewbell’s son, and this reasonable refusal was the result of one of the errors of her imagination. From her earliest youth she had persuaded herself that a woman, if she would be virtuous and happy, should marry no man unless she loved him passionately. Afterward, when her mother wished her to marry the Comte de Mun, now a peer of France, she again refused to obey her.

M. de Mun had emigrated; Mme. Bonaparte obtained permission for his return. He came back to a considerable fortune, and asked for the hand of Mlle. de Beauharnais in marriage. Bonaparte, then First Consul, had little liking for this union. Mme. Bonaparte would, however, have had her own way about it, only for the obstinate resistance of her daughter. Some one said before her that M. de Mun had been, while in Germany, in love with Mme. de Staël. That celebrated woman was in the imagination of the young girl a sort of monster, whom it was impossible to know without scandal and without taint. M. de Mun became odious to her, and thus he missed a great match and the terrible downfall that was to ensue. It was a strange accident of destiny, thus to have missed being a prince, perhaps a king, and then dethroned.

A little while after, Duroc, then one of the Consul’s aides-de-camp, and in high favor with him, fell in love with Hortense. She was not insensible to his passion, and thought she had at length found that other half of her being which she sought for. Bonaparte was in favor of the marriage; but this time Mme. Bonaparte was inflexible. “My daughter,” she said, “must marry a gentleman or a Bonaparte.” Then Louis was proposed. He had no liking for Hortense, he detested the Beauharnais family, and despised his sister-in-law: but, as he was taciturn, he was supposed to be amiable; as he was severe in his judgments, he was supposed to be a good man. Mme. Louis has since told me that when she first heard of this arrangement she suffered terribly. Not only was she forbidden to think of the man she loved, but she was also to be given to another, whom she instinctively distrusted. However, as this marriage was in accordance with her mother’s wishes, as it would cement the family ties, and might advance her brother’s interests, she yielded herself a submissive victim; nay, she did even more. Her imagination was full of the duties imposed on her; she determined to make every sort of sacrifice to the wishes of a husband whom she had the misfortune not to love. Too sincere and too reserved to feign sentiments she did not feel, she was gentle, submissive, full of deference, and more anxious perhaps to please him than if she had loved him. The false and suspicious disposition of Louis Bonaparte led him to regard the gentle deference of his wife as affectation and coquetry. “She practices on me,” he said, “to deceive me.” He believed that her conduct was dictated by the counsels of her experienced mother; he repelled the efforts she made to please him, and treated her with rude contempt. Nor was this all. He actually divulged to Mme. Louis all the accusations which had been brought against her mother, and, after having gone as far in that direction as he could go, he signified his pleasure that confidential relations between his wife and her mother should cease. He added, “You are now a Bonaparte. Our interests should be yours; those of your own family no longer concern you.” He accompanied this cruel notification with insulting threats, and a coarse expression of his disdainful opinion of women; he enumerated the precautions he meant to take in order, as he said, to escape the common fate of all husbands, and declared that he would not be the dupe either of her attempts to escape his vigilance or of the tricks of pretended docility by which she might hope to win him over.

The effect of such a declaration upon a young woman full of fancies may easily be conceived. She conducted herself, however, as an obedient wife, and for many years only her sadness and her failing health betrayed her sufferings. Her husband, who was hard and capricious, and, like all the Bonapartes, selfish—worn and embittered besides by a painful disease which he had contracted during the Egyptian campaign—set no limit to his exactions. As he was afraid of his brother, while at the same time he wanted to keep his wife away from Saint Cloud, he ordered her to say it was by her own wish that she seldom went thither, and forbade her to remain there a single night, no matter how much her mother might press her to do so. Mme. Louis became pregnant very soon after her marriage. The Bonapartes and Mme. Murat, who were displeased at this marriage, because, as Joseph’s children were girls, they foresaw that a son of Louis, who would also be a grandson of Mme. Bonaparte, would be the object of natural interest, spread the outrageous report that this pregnancy was the result of an intimacy between the First Consul and his step-daughter, with the connivance of Josephine herself. The public was quite ready to believe this scandalous falsehood, and Mme. Murat repeated it to Louis, who, whether he believed it or not, made it a pretext for every kind of conjugal tyranny. The narrative of his cruelty to his wife would lead me too far at present; I shall return to the subject hereafter. Her servants were employed as spies upon her; the most trifling notes addressed to or written by her were opened; every friendship was prohibited; Louis was jealous even of Eugène. Scenes of violence were frequent; nothing was spared her. Bonaparte was not slow to perceive this state of affairs, but he was grateful to Mme. Louis for her silence, which put him at his ease, and exempted him from the necessity of interference. He, who never esteemed women, always professed positive veneration for Hortense, and the manner in which he spoke of and acted toward her is a formal contradiction of the accusations which were brought against her. In her presence his language was always careful and decent. He often appealed to her to arbitrate between his wife and himself, and he took rebukes from her that he would not have listened to patiently from any one else. “Hortense,” he said more than once, “forces me to believe in virtue.”