Part 8 (2/2)

During the childhood of Mademoiselle Stephanie de Beauharnais no one would have predicted the lofty destiny that awaited her. Her father, having lost his wife, entrusted her to a pious old aunt, who lived at Montauban, and there she remained in obscurity until it occurred to her uncle, M. de Lezay-Marnesia, to take her to Paris, and present her to the wife of the First Consul. Josephine, her cousin once removed, thought her pretty and bright, became very fond of her, and sent her to finish her education at Madame Campan's boarding-school at Saint Germain. Madame Campan wrote to Madame Louis about her young pupil as follows: ”I am certainly surprised at the way Mademoiselle Stephanie has turned out since she returned from Saint Leu. She may become a very charming woman, but not if she stays at Saint Cloud. Royal palaces have never been good schools; pleasures, the taste for excitement and flattery, corrupt not merely those who are young, but even those who go there already matured, unless they are protected by the highest principles. If you have the power, do try to let me keep Stephanie until she marries; you will thereby render her a great service, and to me, too; for the result will condemn me in the eyes of the Emperor, who will say, with a sharp glance, 'That's very bad'; and will not have time to ascertain the real reason. I can a.s.sure you that in a year she will be very charming, if I can only keep my hand on her.”

In the letter Madame Campan thus describes her pupil's character: ”It is a curious compound of ease at learning, self-love, emulation, idleness, amiability, clear-mindedness, levity, haughtiness, and piety. There are a good many qualities to dispose of, and on this proper arrangement depends her happiness or unhappiness, and my success or failure.” In personal appearance Mademoiselle de Beauharnais was very charming; she had a good figure, an expressive countenance, a brilliant complexion, bright blue eyes, light hair, and an agreeable voice. Moreover, her manners were good, she had keen mother wit, much gaiety and enthusiasm, and was, in short, a very attractive young person.

The Emperor had a sort of infatuation for her, and treated her with exceptional kindness that did not fail to excite comment. Although her father was still living, he decided to adopt her, and this was thought a singular thing to do. The young Stephanie became an Imperial Highness and took precedence of the Emperor's sisters, while her father was merely one of the herd of senators. In the decree of March 3, 1806, it was said: ”Our intention being that our daughter the Princess Stephanie Napoleon, shall enjoy all the prerogatives due to her rank; at receptions, festivities, and at table she shall sit at our side, and in our absence she shall take her place at the right of Her Majesty the Empress.” Josephine possibly thought that her young relative was a little too well treated by the Emperor, and that his feelings for her were not wholly paternal. Evil tongues a.s.serted that Napoleon was in love with his adopted daughter, but in spite of those malicious insinuations, no serious charge can be brought against her innocence. Her betrothed, the Prince of Baden, was madly in love with her, and showed by his conduct that it was he who was making a fine marriage. Mademoiselle de Beauharnais from the moment that she a.s.sumed the name of Napoleon imagined that nothing was too good for her.

It was only by condescension that she married the son of an elector, for she was never tired of saying, to her adopted father's great delight, that an emperor's daughter could marry either a king or a king's son.

The marriage was celebrated with great pomp in the chapel of the Palace of the Tuileries, April 8, 1806, at eight in the evening. The witnesses for the bridegroom were the Crown Prince of Bavaria, Baron de Gueusau, and M.

de Dalberg; those of the bride were M. de Talleyrand, M. de Champagny, and M. de Segur. The procession went from the grand apartments to the chapel in the following order: the Empress, preceded by the officers of the Princesses, accompanied by the Prince of Baden, the Princesses, and the Crown Prince of Bavaria, and followed by the ladies of her household and of those of the Princesses; the Emperor, conducting the bride, and preceded by the officers of the Princes, his own officers, the Grand Dignitaries of the Empire, the Ministers, the High Officers of the Crown, and followed by the colonel-general of the guard on duty. At the chapel door the clergy received Napoleon and Josephine beneath a canopy, and they took their places on two small thrones in front of the altar, while the Prince of Baden and the bride took their places on two stools at the foot of its steps. The ceremony began with the blessing of thirteen pieces of gold which the Cardinal Caprara, Legate _a latere_, gave to the Prince of Baden, who presented them to his bride. The Cardinal gave them the nuptial blessing. Meanwhile Monsignor Charier-Lavoche, Bishop of Versailles, the Emperor's First Almoner, and Monsignor de Broglie, Bishop of Acqui, his Almoner in Ordinary, were holding a canopy of silver brocade over the head of the kneeling Prince and Princess. These two prelates wore a camail and rochet. Cardinal Caprara and his a.s.sistant, Monsignor de Rohan, the Empress's Almoner, wore the golden cape.

During the ceremony, which lasted about an hour, the front of the Tuileries and the garden were illuminated. At nine o'clock there were fireworks on the Place de la Concorde, which the Emperor and Empress watched from the balcony of the Hall of the Marshals. As they appeared on the balcony with the young people, they were greeted with warm applause from the dense crowd in the garden. The Empress, who was clad in a dress embroidered with gold, wore on her head, besides the Imperial crown, a million francs' worth of pearls. Princess Stephanie was charming in her white tulle dress, with silver stars, trimmed with orange flowers, and her diamond frontlet. After the fireworks came a concert and ballet in the Hall of the Marshals. But little attention was paid to the concert, although silence prevailed; the ballet, which was rendered by the best dancers from the Opera, was very successful. Then the company went to the Gallery of Diana, where tables had been set for two hundred ladies, and a magnificent supper was served. The grace and distinction of the bride aroused general admiration. Her father, Senator Beauharnais, kept silence and wept for joy.

Never had the court been more dazzling with its glittering uniforms, gorgeous dresses, and sumptuous pomp. The Emperor in his gala dress, the Empress in her Imperial splendor, the Princesses vying in luxury, the new Queen of Naples staggering under her load of precious stones, the Princess Louis covered with turquoises set in diamonds. Princess Caroline Murat decked with a thousand rubies, Princess Pauline with all the Borghese diamonds besides her own, the amba.s.sadors, grand dignitaries, marshals, generals, with their coats covered with gold and decorations, the chamberlains in red, the master of ceremonies in violet, the masters of the hounds in green, the equerries in blue, all the ladies in dresses with long trains; the two fas.h.i.+onable women, Madame Maret and Madame Savary, who each spent fifty thousand francs a year in dress; Madame de Canisy, tall, black-haired, bright-eyed, with her aquiline nose and her impressive air; Madame Lannes, with her gentle face like one of Raphael's Madonnas; Madame Duchatel, fair, with blue eyes; and that proud d.u.c.h.ess of the Faubourg Saint Germain, a lady of the palace in spite of herself, the d.u.c.h.ess of Chevreuse, who, if not the most beautiful woman there, had perhaps the grandest air. It was a most animated festivity, with its flowers, lights, and splendor. The Hall of the Marshals was radiant with its military portraits, its chandeliers, and air of triumph.... Now consider the ruins of this palace of Caesar, this Olympus of Jupiter, this sanctuary of glory, majesty, and dominion. See and reflect! Nothing is left of all that pomp and grandeur! The proudest buildings have vanished!

Such is the end of human splendor!

XIX.

THE NEW QUEEN OF HOLLAND.

At the beginning of 1804, Napoleon regarded himself the absolute master of fortune. His twofold t.i.tle of Emperor of the French and King of Italy no longer sufficed him; he yearned for that of Emperor of the West. He created kings, grand dukes, sovereign princes. He made his brother Joseph King of the Two Sicilies; his brother-in-law Murat Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves; his sister Pauline Princess of Guastalla; he conferred the princ.i.p.ality of Ma.s.sa upon his sister Elisa, who was already in possession of the Duchy of Lucca; his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Talleyrand, became Prince of Benevento; his Major-General, Berthier, Prince of Neufchatel; and his brother Joseph's brother-in-law, Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo. He also elevated members of his wife's family as well as of his own to high positions. Josephine's son was Viceroy and son-in-law of a king.

Josephine's daughter was about to become a queen.

France, which, fourteen years before, had wanted to convert every monarchy into a republic, was now endeavoring to turn the oldest republics into monarchies. The ill.u.s.trious republics of Genoa and Venice had become an integral part, the one of the French Empire, the other of the Kingdom of Italy. The Batavian Republic was about to be transformed into the Kingdom of Holland. When it became known in Paris that this new kingdom was to be created by the Emperor's will, people wondered who was to fill the throne; some were betting on Louis Bonaparte; others on his brother Jerome; still others on Murat. The Emperor, however, had settled the question, and without even consulting him, had decided that Louis was to be King of Holland.

This new monarch, who was born September 2, 1778, was then twenty-seven years old. Four years before he had married Josephine's daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, but the marriage had been an unhappy one. As he himself wrote, his marriage was celebrated in sadness. The author of a very remarkable study, _Holland and King Louis_, M. Albert Reville, says with great truth: ”Like Hortense, Louis had literary tastes; but there the resemblance ceases. It was not that there was nothing romantic in Hortense's character; she was among the first to become interested in the Middle Ages, the Gothic revival, the imitation of the troubadours; but her romanticism was wholly different from that of her husband. Her ideal was, perhaps, a young and handsome soldier, pensive when away from the lady of his thoughts, but not when in her company.” M. Reville goes on: ”Such a character could not understand the sensitiveness, the shrinking, morbid melancholy of the husband thrust upon her. Her gaiety, her devotion to pleasure, the frivolity of her talk, could only pain more and more a man of a gloomy temperament, who took the greatest care of his health, who fretted himself over the most trivial details, and whose distrust amounted to injustice.”

Hortense was expansive, merry, ardent, enthusiastic, young in heart and mind, a thoroughly open nature. Her husband, on the other hand, was of a morose, sombre, melancholy, reserved nature. In spite of her superior intelligence Hortense had a sort of childlike air; but Louis, though young in years, had the character and appearance of an old man. As much as Hortense loved liberty, her suspicious husband wished to hold firmly the reins of conjugal authority. He was prematurely afflicted with various infirmities, almost always morbidly nervous and impressionable, disposed to take a dark view of everything, and bore no resemblance to the type of hero which Hortense had imagined. Moreover, the unhappy husband endured a hidden anguish which he had to conceal from every one and which tortured his heart; he imagined that his rival with his wife was his own brother, Napoleon. Thiers says in discussing this delicate subject: ”Louis, ill, puffed-up with pride, a.s.suming virtue and really upright, pretended that he was sacrificed to the infamous necessity of covering, by his marriage, the weakness of Hortense de Beauharnais for Napoleon,--an odious calumny, invented by the emigres, spread abroad in a thousand pamphlets, about which Louis did wrong to betray such anxiety that he seemed to believe it himself.”

In a word, there existed between husband and wife a real incompatibility of temper, and the constraint of their position only added to the mutual repulsion which they felt for each other in private, though they did not dare confess it through fear of Napoleon's reproaches. They were married January 4, 1802, and had a son born the next October, whom their enemies a.s.serted was the son of the Emperor, and the greater the interest and affection the Emperor showed to this child, the more freely were calumnies circulated. Louis Bonaparte imagined his honor tainted, and suffered tortures.

As for Hortense, she was unhappy, but she had consolations. Her mother's love, the society of her old schoolmates, her interest in art, worldly successes, the distractions of Paris life, made her forget some of her domestic troubles. The thought of leaving that congenial spot to live alone with her husband in the cold dampness of Holland filled her with gloom. She did not care for a throne, for she felt that a royal palace would be for her nothing but a prison.

Louis, too, seemed devoid of ambition for the crown that was held before him. Annoyed at not being consulted in the negotiations on which depended his call to the throne, he maintained a pa.s.sive att.i.tude. But as he was accustomed to comply with every wish of a brother who had taken charge of his education, and thereby acquired special authority over him, he invariably obeyed his orders. The Batavian deputation, of which the most important member was Admiral Verhuel, had just arrived in Paris, and with it the Emperor was settling the fate of Holland. Baron Duca.s.se, in an interesting paper In the _Revue Historique_ for February, 1880, has recounted all the unfortunate Louis Bonaparte's attempts to escape having royalty forced upon him. He gave as a pretext, for his reluctance, the rights of the old Stadtholder. The Batavian deputation in reply announced to him the death of that official, ”The hereditary Prince,” they said, ”has received in compensation Fulda; hence you can have no reasonable objection. We come, in accordance with the votes of nine-tenths of the nation, to beg of you to ally your fate with ours, and to prevent our falling into other hands.” Napoleon used even plainer language. He declared to his brother without beating the bush that he had accepted for him, and that, even if he had not consulted him, a subject could not refuse obedience.

A few days later, Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, went to Saint Cloud and read to Louis and Hortense the treaty with Holland, and the const.i.tution of that country. It was of no use for the King to say that he could not judge such important doc.u.ments from a simple reading, he was not granted a moment's reflection. In vain he pleaded his health, which could not fail to suffer from the damp climate of Holland. Napoleon was inflexible, and said, ”It is better to die on a throne than to live a French Prince.” There was nothing for him to do but to give his consent.

The new King's proclamation was delivered at the Palace of the Tuileries in the Throne Room, June 5, 1806. Early in the same day, the Emperor had formally received Mahib Effendi, Amba.s.sador of the Sultan Selim. The Oriental diplomatist had greeted him as ”the first and greatest of Christian monarchs, the bright star of glory of the western nations, the one who held in a firm hand the sword of valor and the sceptre of justice.” Napoleon had replied: ”Whatever good or bad fortune may befall the Ottomans will be fortunate or unfortunate for France. Report, I beg of you, my words to the Sultan Selim. Bid him never to forget that my enemies, who are also his, would like to get at him. He has nothing to fear from me; united with me, he need not fear the power of any of his enemies.” When the audience was over, the Amba.s.sador made three deep bows and withdrew, but stopped in the next room, where the presents of the Grand Porte were set out on a table; they consisted of an aigret of diamonds, and a costly box set with gems and adorned with the monogram of the Sultan. Mahib Effendi, after offering the presents to the Emperor, showed him those sent to the Empress. They were a pearl necklace, perfumes, and Oriental stuffs. Napoleon examined them, and then went to the window to see some superbly harnessed Arabian horses, presented to him in the name of the Sultan.

The proclamation of the King of Holland was read a few moments later.

Admiral Verhuel took the floor and began to speak of the happiness a.s.sured to his country when it should have made fast the ties that bound it to the ”immense and immortal Empire.” The Emperor said to the Dutch representatives: ”France has been so generous as to renounce all the rights over you which were given it by the events of the war, but I cannot confide the fortresses that guard my northern frontiers to any unfaithful or even uncertain hands. Representatives of the Batavian people, I grant the prayer you present to me, and proclaim Prince Louis King of Holland.”

Then turning to his brother, he said: ”You, Prince, reign over this people; their fathers acquired their independence only by the constant aid of France. Since then Holland was the ally of England; it was conquered; and still owes its existence to us. She will owe to us the kings who protect its laws, its liberties, its religion! But do not ever cease to be a Frenchman. The dignity of Constable of the Empire will ever belong to you and to your descendants; it will define for you your duties towards me and the importance I attach to the guard of the fortresses protecting the north of my states, which I confide to you. Prince, maintain among your troops that spirit which I have seen in them on the field of battle.

Encourage in your new subjects the feelings of union and love which they ought always to have for France. Be the terror of evil-doers and the father of the upright; that is the character of a great king.”

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