Array Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - The Collected Works of Napoleon Bonaparte

No. 16.

Tuesday, January 23rd.

On January 21st a Privy Council was summoned to approve of Marie Louise as their "choice of a consort, who may give an heir to the throne" (Thiers). Cambacérès, Fouché, and Murat wished for the Russian princess; Lebrun, Cardinal Fesch, and King Louis for a Saxon one; but Talleyrand, Champagny, Maret, Berthier, Fontanes were for Austria.

No. 17.

Sunday, January 28th.

No. 18.

Josephine had heard she was to be banished from Paris, and so had asked to come to the Élysée to prove the truth or otherwise of the rumour.

L'Élysée. —St. Amand gives the following interesting précis : "Built by the Count d'Evreux in 1718, it had belonged in succession to the Marchioness de Pompadour, to the financier Beaujon, a Crœsus of the eighteenth century, and to the Duchesse de Bourbon. Having, under the Revolution, become national property, it had been hired by the caterers of public entertainments, who gave it the name of L'Élysée. In 1803 it became the property of Murat, who, becoming King of Naples, ceded it to Napoleon in 1808. Here Napoleon signed his second abdication, here resided Alexander I. in 1815, and here Josephine's grandson effected the Coup d'État (1851). When the Senatus-Consultus fixed the revenue of Josephine, Napoleon not only gave her whatever rights he had in Malmaison, viz., at least 90 per cent. of the total cost, but the palace of the Élysée, its gardens and dependencies, with the furniture then in use." The latter residence was, however, for her life only.

No. 19.

February 3rd is the date.

L'Élysée. —After the first receptions the place is far worse than Malmaison. Schwartzenberg, Talleyrand, the Princess Pauline, Berthier, even her old friend Cambacérès are giving balls, 86while the Emperor goes nearly every night to a theatre. The carriages pass by the Élysée, but do not stop. "It is as if the palace were in quarantine, with the yellow flag floating."

No. 20.

Bessières' country-house. —M. Masson says Grignon, but unless this house is called after the château of that name in Provence, he must be mistaken.

No. 21.

Rambouillet. —He had taken the Court with him, and was there from February 19th to the 23rd, the date of this letter. While there he had been in the best of humours. On his return he finds it necessary to write his future wife and to her father—and to pen a legible letter to the latter gives him far more trouble than winning a battle against the Austrians, if not assisted by General Danube.

Adieu. —Sick and weary, Josephine returns to Malmaison, Friday, March 9th, and even this is not long to be hers, for the new Empress is almost already on her way. The marriage at Vienna took place on March 11th, with her uncle Charles, 87the hero of Essling, for Napoleon's proxy; on the 13th she leaves Vienna, and on the 23rd reaches Strasbourg. On the 27th she meets Napoleon at Compiègne, spends three days with him in the château there, and arrives at St. Cloud on April 1st, where the civil marriage is renewed, followed by the triumphal entry into Paris, and the religious ceremony on April 2nd. This day Josephine reaches the château of Navarre.

Navarre , on the site of an old dwelling of Rollo the Sea-King, was built by Jeanne of France, Queen of Navarre, Countess of Evreux. At the time of the Revolution it belonged to the Dukes of Bouillon, and was confiscated. In February 1810, Napoleon determined to purchase it, and on March 10th instructed his secretary of state, Maret, to confer the Duchy of Navarre, purchased by letters patent, on Josephine and her heirs male. The old square building was, however, utterly unfit to be inhabited: not a window would shut, there was neither paper nor tapestry, all the wainscoting was rotten, draughts and damp everywhere, and no heating apparatus. 88What solace to know its beautiful situation, its capabilities? No wonder if her household, banished to such a place, sixty-five miles from the "capital of capitals," should rebel, and secessions headed by Madame Ney become for a time general. Whist and piquet soon grow stale in such a house and with such surroundings, and even trictrac with the old bishop of Evreux becomes tedious.

Eugène as usual brings sunshine in his path, and helps to dispel the gloom caused by the idle gossip imported from Paris—that Josephine is not to return to Malmaison, and the like.

No. 1.

This was Josephine's second letter, says D'Avrillon, the first being answered vivâ voce by Eugène.

To Malmaison. —Napoleon had promised Josephine permission to return to Malmaison, and would not recant: his new wife was, however, very jealous of Josephine, and very much hurt at her presence at Malmaison. Napoleon managed to be away from Paris for six weeks after Josephine's arrival at Malmaison.

No. 1a.

It is written in a bad style. —M. Masson, however, is loud in its praises, and adds, "Voilà donc le protocol du tutoiement" re-established between them in spite of the second marriage, and their correspondence re-established on the old terms.

No. 2.

This letter seems to have been taken by Eugène to Paris, and thence forwarded to the Emperor with a letter from that Prince in which he enumerates Josephine's suggestions and wishes—(1) that she will not go to Aix-la-Chapelle if other waters are suggested by Corvisart; (2) that after stopping a few days at Malmaison she will go in June for three months to the baths, and afterwards to the south of France; visit Rome, Florence, and Naples incognito, spend the winter at Milan, and return to Malmaison and Navarre in the spring of 1811; (3) that in her absence Navarre shall be made habitable, for which fresh funds are required; (4) that Josephine wishes her cousins the Taschers to marry, one a relative of King Joseph, the other the Princess Amelie de la Leyen, niece of the Prince Primate. To this Napoleon replies from Compiègne, April 26th, that the De Leyen match with Louis Tascher may take place, 89but that he will not interest himself in the other (Henry) Tascher, who is giddy-headed and bad-tempered. "I consent to whatever the Empress does, but I will not confer any mark of my regard on a person who has behaved ill to me. I am very glad that the Empress likes Navarre. I am giving orders to have £12,000 which I owe her for 1810, and £12,000 for 1811 advanced to her. She will then have only the £80,000 from the public treasury to come in.... She is free to go to whatever spa she cares for, and even to return to Paris afterwards." He thinks, however, she would be happier in new scenes which they had never visited together, as they had Aix-la-Chapelle. If, however, the last are the best she may go to them, for "what I desire above all is that she may keep calm, and not allow herself to be excited by the gossip of Paris." This letter goes far to soothe the poor châtelaine of Navarre.

No. 2a.

Two letters. —The other, now missing, may have some reference to the pictures to which he refers in his letter to Fouché the next day. "Is it true that engravings are being published with the title of Josephine Beauharnais née La Pagerie ? If this is true, have the prints seized, and let the engravers be punished" ( New Letters , No. 253).

No. 3.

Probably written from Boulogne about the 25th. His northern tour with Marie Louise had been very similar to one taken in 1804, but his entourage found the new bride very cold and callous compared to Josephine. Leaving Paris on April 29th Napoleon's Correspondence till June is dated Laeken (April 30th); Antwerp (May 3rd); Bois-le-Duc; Middleburg, Gand, Bruges, Ostend (May 20th); Lille, Boulogne, Dieppe, Le Havre, Rouen (May 31st). He takes the Empress in a canal barge from Brussels to Malines and himself descends the subterranean vault of the Escaut-Oise canal, between St. Quentin and Cambrai. He is at St. Cloud on June 2nd.