Memoirs of the Empress Josephine Bonaparte. Madame de Rémusat

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ