Napoleon: His Wives and Women. Christopher Hibbert

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       7 CHEZ LES PERMONS

      ‘Napoleon, there are two men in you.’

      AN UNCLE OF CÉCILE AND LAURE PERMON, the girls who had teased Napoleon in his absurdly big boots, found him ‘pretty morose’. This uncle, Demetrius Comnène, had first caught sight of the fifteen-year-old boy in the Palais Royal as he looked all about him, his ‘nose in the air’. He had invited him to dinner; but the occasion was not a success: the boy’s conversation was largely limited to condemnation of the extravagance of his fellow students, so much better off, so much more aristocratic than the little Corsican upstart.

      Napoleon had created no better impression when subsequently he had gone for dinner and had been put up for the night by the Permons. But some time later, when Laure Permon saw him again, she felt that there was, after all, something peculiarly arresting about him. Through a window she watched him approach across the courtyard:

      He was very careless of his appearance [Laure wrote]; and his hair, which was ill combed and ill powdered, gave him a slovenly look…He had a shabby round hat drawn over his forehead, and I recollect his hair hanging over the collar of his grey greatcoat, which afterwards became as famous as the white plume of Henri IV. He wore no gloves, because, as he used to say, they were a useless luxury. His boots were ill-made and unpolished…His complexion was yellow and seemingly unhealthy, his features angular and sharp.

      He approached the house in a clumsy walk. Yet, when he was inside the house, Laure Permon was struck by ‘his face without being able to explain why’. When he smiled his features, which she had earlier thought ugly, were lent an undeniable charm.

      He became a regular visitor to the Permons’ house; and, when in one of his happier moods, he and Laure, by then eleven years old, would dance together in the middle of the room while Cécile played tunes for them on the piano. Or he would sit by the fire after dinner, stretching his legs out on the hearth, crossing his arms on his chest, and call out to Mme Permon, asking her to come to sit by him to talk about Corsica and his mother. She would do so with reluctance for the smell of his dirty, wet boots drying by the flames was so nauseous that she was compelled to bury her nose in a handkerchief or make some excuse to leave the room until Napoleon, at last realizing what drove her away, would have the maid scrape the mud from his boots before entering the sitting room.

      The more he saw of Mme Permon the more he admired her. She was an attractive woman, vivacious, amusing, elegant in her dress and, in Napoleon’s words, ‘very amiable’. ‘She loves her country dearly,’ he said, ‘and she loves the company of Corsicans.’ She claimed to have read only one book in her whole life, Fénelon’s didactic romance Télé-maque; but she was quick-witted and astute.

      In common with most men, Napoleon found her alluring. One day he called at the house holding a bunch of violets and this gallantry, as her daughter Laure said, was ‘so unusual’ for him that they could not help laughing.

      On another occasion, he found Laure and her mother in tears: Monsieur Permon was gravely ill and not expected to survive. He died two days later; and, not long afterwards, Napoleon astonished Mme Permon by proposing that, as soon as her widowhood would conventionally allow it, they should get married. Once again Mme Permon could not help laughing. ‘My dear Napoleon,’ she said, according to Laure, ‘do let us talk seriously. You think you know my age. But really you know nothing about it; and I shan’t tell you. That’s my secret; though I will tell you that I’m old enough to be your mother. So spare me this kind of joke. It upsets me.’ It was ‘a ridiculous proposal’.

      ‘I want to get married,’ Napoleon persisted with characteristic lack of tact, ‘and what I’ve suggested would suit me in many ways. Think it over.’ He had given the matter much careful thought, he said. He was clearly much disgruntled when he took his leave, and was never to forgive her for his rebuff.

      Before he left, she reminded him of his undertaking to try to obtain a commission for a cousin of hers. Although he had seemed quite willing to do so when she had first broached the subject, Laure said that ‘he did not seem quite as willing’ now.

      ‘Napoleon,’ Mme Permon said, ‘there are two men in you. I beg you always to be the one I love and admire…Do not allow the other one to gain the upper hand.’ He did not reply.

      Two days later, he called once more at the house, on this occasion taking with him several aides-de-camp. Mme Permon, so Laure said, once again brought up the subject of her cousin’s commission. Napoleon was now non-committal. She accused him of prevarication. He told her she was being unjust to him. He took her hand to kiss it in farewell; but she snatched it away so violently that she hit him in the eye. She did not apologize. Promises were nothing to her, she told him, ‘actions everything’.

      ‘These young men are laughing at us,’ he said to her quietly, indicating the aides-de-camp, as he tried to take her hand again. ‘We are acting like two children.’ She made no reply as she folded her arms across her chest so that he could make no further attempt to kiss her hand. He picked up his hat and left.

      Some years later at a reception at the Tuileries, Laure Permon, by then married to Napoleon’s friend, General Andoche Junot, encountered Napoleon again.

      ‘Well, mam’selle Loulou – you see I don’t forget the names of old friends – haven’t you got a kind word for me?’

      He had taken my hand [Laure Junot recalled] and, pulling me towards him, he looked at me so closely that it made me lower my eyes…‘General,’ I replied, smiling, ‘it’s not for me to speak first.’

      He smiled and said, ‘Very well parried…She’s got her mother’s quickness…By the way, how is Mme Permon?’

      ‘Ill, General. She is very ill.’

      ‘Ah! Really, as bad as that. Please give her my kind regards.

      She’s wrong-headed, damnably wrong-headed. But she has a kind heart and she’s very generous.’

      A few days later, Mme Permon, by then feeling better, invited General Junot and her daughter to dinner. After the meal, she lay down on a sofa and informed them that she would give a dance to celebrate their recent wedding. Junot offered to make a list of the people who were to be invited. Mme Permon suggested Napoleon. The others expressed their astonishment; but Mme Permon said, ‘Why do you sound so surprised? Just because I’m a Corsican, do you think I want to indulge in a vendetta? I can’t be bothered with that.’

      ‘All right,’ said Junot, ‘I’ll come to fetch you.’

      ‘Come to fetch me! Why? Where do you want to take me?’

      ‘To go to the Tuileries, СКАЧАТЬ