by A G Mogan
"Marry a German, my dear fellow. They are the best women in the world—gentle, good, artless, and as fresh as roses."
Yet, at the same time, Napoleon felt a great deal of anxiety that his wie might either fear or hate him secretly. Somewhat later Prince Metternich came from the Austrian court to Paris.
"I give you leave," said Napoleon, "to have a private interview with the empress. Let her tell you what she likes, and I shall ask no questions. Even should I do so, I now forbid your answering me."
Metternich spoke with the empress for a long while. When he returned to the ante-room, he found a very anxious Napoleon.
"I am sure," he said, "that the empress told you that I was kind to her?"
Metternich bowed and made no answer.
"Well," said Napoleon, somewhat impatiently, "at least I am sure that she is happy. Tell me, did she not say so?"
The Austrian diplomat remained unsmiling.
"Your majesty himself has forbidden me to answer," he returned with another bow.
It is possible to conclude that Marie Louise, though she altered herself to her surroundings, was never really happy. Napoleon became obsessed with her and he surrounded her with every possible honor that he could. He abandoned his business to walk or drive with her. But he must have been a little haunted by the memory of his own viciousness that first night. He was jealous of her, as he had never been jealous of Josephine. It has been noted that Napoleon took every precaution in order to prevent any person, especially any man, from approaching the empress except when she was in the company of witnesses.
During this time, Napoleon experienced a complete change of habits and demeanor. He became attentive and polished where he was once abrasive. He discarded all of his shabby uniforms and he spent hours trying on new clothes. He attempted to learn to waltz, but he gave up when he was unable to master it. Whereas before he ate quickly and at erratic intervals, he now sat at dinner with unusual patience, and the court took on a character that it had never had. Never before had he sacrificed his public duty or his private pleasure for any woman. Even during his first marriage with Josephine, when he used to write passionate love letters to her from Italian battle-fields, he did so only after he had made the outlook of his troops and had planned his movements for the following day. Now he was completely devoted and submissive to his wife. In 1811, after the birth of the little King of Rome, he was thrilled that he had finally founded a dynasty and he stopped being the earlier Napoleon altogether. He forgot the principles of the Revolution, and he ruled, as he thought, like other monarchs, by the grace of God.
Marie Louise played her part very well. Others considered her unapproachable, but she considered Napoleon's every wish. She seemed to be a loving wife, but one can not doubt that her obedience sprang from fear.
She was flattered in many ways, but especially by her appointment as advisor of the empire when Napoleon was absent during the Russian campaign that began in 1812. It was in June of that year that Napoleon held court at Dresden, where he played, as was said, to "a parterre of kings." He was at the height of his magnificence at that time, for there were gathered all the sovereigns and princes who were his allies and who helped furnish the taxes that increased his Grand Army to six hundred thousand men. Like her husband, Marie Louise was intoxicated with power. By an ominous coincidence , it was here where she first met the other man, who would prove to be an irresistible attraction.
This man was Adam Albrecht, Count von Neipperg. His early years are a bit mysterious as there is not a lot known about him and he engaged in a silent, but menacing, warfare with Napoleon. He was very young Austrian officer in 1793. His command served in Belgium and it was there where the French overpowered him even though he battled desperately. A saber slashed him across the right side of his face during this battle and he was taken prisoner. He lost his right eye and for the rest of his life he wore a black bandage to conceal the disfigurement.
After that experience, he developed a deep hatred of the French and he served against them in the Tyrol and in Italy. He always claimed that had the Archduke Charles followed his advice, the Austrians would have forced Napoleon's army to surrender at Marengo, which would have concealed the rising star of Bonaparte. Napoleon's success enraged Neipperg and made his hatred almost the hatred of a villain.
From there on out, he detested the French as a nation. He concentrated his all of his cruelty upon Napoleon himself. He tried to cross the path of Napoleon in every way he could, and though Neipperg was comparatively unknown, his determination and resolute purpose attracted Napoleon’s attention. In 1808, Napoleon wrote this significant sentence:
“The Count von Neipperg is openly known to have been the enemy of the French. Little did the great conqueror dream how deadly was the blow which this Austrian count was destined finally to deal him!”
Neipperg may not have had a particularly high title, but he still belonged to the old royalty of Austria. He was able to prove his bravery in war and he was considered both a diplomat and a soldier. Despite his disfigurement, he was considered handsome, as well as a talented courtier, a man of extensive experience, and a romantic. According to Masson, he was an Austrian Don Juan, and had won the hearts of many women. At the age of thirty, he had formed a relationship with an Italian woman named Teresa Pola, whom he had spirited away from her husband. She gave him five children; and in 1813 he had married her so these children could be made legitimate.
Neipperg’s career was almost as remarkable as Napoleon's. Aside from his exploits on the field of battle he had been attached to the Austrian embassy in Paris, and, strangely enough, had been decorated by Napoleon himself with, the golden eagle of the Legion of Honor. Four months later, he was minister of Austria at the court of Sweden, where he helped to separate Bernadotte from Napoleon's cause. In 1812, he was with Marie Louise for a short time at Dresden, developing schemes while hovering around her. Two years after this, he overthrew Murat at Naples; and then hurried on to urge Prince Eugene to abandon Bonaparte.
In 1814, Napoleon was about to be defeated by the united armies of Europe and it was obvious that the Austrian emperor would soon be able to separate his daughter from her husband. When Napoleon was sent to Elba, Marie Louise returned to Vienna. The Austrian diplomats declared that she should never again meet her imperial husband. She was made Duchess of Parma in Italy, and set out for her new possessions. Her escort and companion turned out to be the man with the black band across his sightless eye.
When Neipperg received this command, he was with Teresa Pola at Milan. A strange smile flitted across his face; and presently he remarked, with cynical honesty:
"Before six months I shall be her lover, and, later on, her husband."
In his post as chief escort of Marie Louise, they journeyed to Munich and Baden and Geneva, dallying along the way. The couple managed to go unnoticed amidst the events that were shaking up Europe. Meanwhile, in Elba, Napoleon ached for wife and his son, the King of Rome. He sent numerous messages and many couriers; but every message was intercepted, and no courier reached his destination. Meanwhile Marie Louise happy to have escaped politics in Switzerland. Neipperg was always by her side and devoted himself to pleasing her. She spent many pleasant evenings with him while he sang to her songs of love. He seemed romantic with a touch of mystery, a gallant soldier whose soul was also touched by sentiment.
One would have said that the rank of Marie Louise would have prevented her from being captivated with someone so inferior to herself and who was less than her husband in so many ways. Even though she had never really loved Napoleon, she might still have preferred to maintain her dignity and to go down in history as the empress of the greatest man whom modern times have known.
But Marie Louise decided to follow her heart like many women before her. To her, Napoleon was still the man who had met her in the rain-storm at Courcelles, and had dishonored all the instincts of a virgin. His attempts to make amends could not remove her memory of that night. Marie Lo
uise had never given Napoleon her heart. She had been his empress and it could be said that she had been his mistress more than his wife. But she had never been wooed and won and made his wife, an experience that every woman desires. And so this Neipperg, with his respectful manners, his calm voice, his magnetic touch, his passion, and his devotion, gave her what she had been missing from Napoleon.
In less than the six months, Neipperg’s first prediction had come true. In the dim twilight she listened to his words of love and then she sank into her lover's arms, knowing that she would be parted from him no more except by death.
From that moment, he and Marie Louise were inseparable and he lived with her at the court of Parma. Teresa Pola died, and then Napoleon died, and after this Marie Louise and Neipperg were united in marriage. Neipperg’s second prediction had come true. They had three children together before he died in 1829.
It is easy to get a sense of Marie Louise’s feelings about the final exile of her husband to St. Helena. When the news was brought her she observed casually:
"Thanks. By the way, I should like to ride this morning to Markenstein. Do you think the weather is good enough to risk it?"
Napoleon, however, could think of nothing else but Marie Louise and he experienced vast amounts of doubt and longing about the lack of communication from her. When his faithful friend and constant companion at St. Helena, the Count Las Casas, was ordered by Sir Hudson Lowe to depart from St. Helena, Napoleon wrote to him:
"Should you see, some day, my wife and son, embrace them. For two years I have, neither directly nor indirectly, heard from them. There has been on this island for six months a German botanist, who has seen them in the garden of Schoenbrunn a few months before his departure. The barbarians (meaning the English authorities at St. Helena) have carefully prevented him from coming to give me any news respecting them."
At last he was told the truth about Marie Louise and he received it with a certain amount of high fairness, or maybe it was resignation. He never spoke a single word against her for the rest of his days. It may be possible that he made excuses for her actions in the end. In his will he spoke of her with great affection, and shortly before his death he said to his physician, Antommarchi:
"After my death, I desire that you will take my heart, put it in the spirits of wine, and that you carry it to Parma to my dear Marie Louise. You will please tell her that I tenderly loved her—that I never ceased to love her. You will relate to her all that you have seen, and every particular respecting my situation and death."
The story of Marie Louise is tragic and yet, there is something to be learned from this heartbreaking tale, the lesson that true love cannot be forced, that it is destroyed before its birth by outrage, and that it goes out only when evoked by sympathy, by tenderness, and by devotion.
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8
Lady Blessington & Count D'orsay
Richard Nash, also known as "Beau Nash," made himself a leader in the English fashionable world during the eighteenth century. He was not considered very attractive and in fact, he was very clumsy and had features that were irregular and harsh. Nevertheless, Beau Nash was considered an authority of fashion for nearly fifty years. Goldsmith, who wrote his life, declared that his authority was due to his agreeable manners, "his assiduity, flattery, fine clothes, and as much wit as the ladies had whom he addressed." He transformed the town of Bath from a little hamlet into an English Newport, of which he dictated society. Even the highest-ranking citizens intensely followed the set of written rules that Nash wrote for the people of the town.
George Bryan Brummel, commonly called "Beau Brummel," who by his friendship with George IV, then Prince Regent, was an visionary at court on everything related to dress, etiquette and the appropriate mode of living, was even better known to us. Richard Mansfield’s impersonation of him is a big reason why his memory has been kept alive. The play is based upon the true story of Brummel losing royal favor and dying as an insane poor person in the French town of Caen. Bulwer-Lytton's novel Pelham is really the story of Brummel's remarkable career.
Long after Brummel, Lord Banelagh led the golden youth of London, and it was at this time that the notorious Lola Montez made her first appearance in the British capital.
All of these men, Nash, Brummel, and Ranelagh, were Englishmen, and, therefore, they did not suffer from the outdated English suspicion of foreigners. It was during the early part of Queen Victoria's reign that saw a social leader rise through the masses and influence the world of fashion, art, and literature.
This was a Frenchman by the name of Count Albert Guillaume d'Orsay, who was the son of one of Napoleon's generals, and was descended from the King of Wurttemburg. His father imparted many qualities to his son, including courage, a striking appearance, and an intense intellect. When Count d'Orsay came of age, the Napoleonic era had ended and Louis XVIII now ruled France. Count d'Orsay was given a command in the army in a squadron stationed at Valence in the southeastern part of France. He was already quite familiar with England due to the time that he had spent there. He knew the language and he had made some illustrious friends there, among who were Lord Byron and Thomas Moore.
When he returned to France, he began his life at Valence and he was able to show some of the better qualities of his character. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word; he showed an extreme amount of courteousness, he was handsome and accomplished and he was so charming that he was able to win the affections of those around him; these qualities were different than those exhibited by Nash and Brummel. When he attended his regiment’s balls, he always looked for the plainest girls so that he could shower them with flattery and attention; this was despite the fact that more women courted him than any other officer. D'Orsay refused to neglect the "wallflowers" in his presence.
It’s fascinating to think that this young French officer living in a small town in the valley of the Rhone would become not only a Londoner, but a favorite at the British court, a model of fashion, an authoritarian of etiquette, widely known for his accomplishments, the patron of literary men and of distinguished artists. It is even more fascinating to think that all of these things happened by sheer luck.
When Count d'Orsay first came to London, he was invited to receptions given by the Earl and Countess of Blessington. Even though he was well received, his attendance was only the result of his visit to England. Before this story continues any further, I would like to give an account of the Earl and of Lady Blessington, since both of their careers had been unusual, to say the least.
Lord Blessington was an Irish peer for whom an ancient title had been revitalized. He had royal blood running through his veins as he was remotely descended from the Stuarts of Scotland. He was well educated and was pleasing in many ways. On the other hand, his good fortunes had made him willful and extravagant. He had inherited a very large property that provided him an income of about thirty thousand pounds a year. He owned property in Ireland, and he owned nearly the whole of a fashionable street in London, with the buildings erected on it.
Even as a child he would demand to be dressed in the most gorgeous uniforms; and when he retained ownership of his many properties, he became even more obsessed with personal displays of wealth. He had a theater added to his country home in Ireland and brought in actors from all over to perform in it. He loved socializing with the actors and trying to their various costumes. It pleased him to dress as an oriental prince and then a Roman emperor.
In London, he could often be seen hanging around the green-rooms and he was almost always in attendance wherever actors and actresses were located. He was so infatuated with the theater that he wanted to marry into the profession and the woman he desired for this was Mary Campbell Browne, a girl who was very beautiful to look at, but didn’t have a very noticeable intellect or a moral sense. Unfortunately, she was already married and her husband was still very much alive. When Lord Blessington proposed marriage to her and she told him this, she also stated that she would con
sent to live with him and do away with the marriage ceremony. For several years, they lived together and she bore him two children.
When her husband eventually died, they were immediately married and Mrs. Browne became a countess. After she gave him a few more children, she tragically died and so the earl was a widower at the age of forty. There was only one legitimate son born during their marriage, but unfortunately he died not longer after his mother. It seemed inevitable that the earldom of Blessington was likely to become extinct. However, when his wife died, he saw an opportunity to create public and extravagant displays. He spent more than four thousand pounds on the funeral ceremonies, importing from France a huge black velvet ornament for her coffin that had been used at the public funeral of Napoleon's marshal, Duroc, while the house blazed with enormous wax tapers and glittered with cloth of gold.
Lord Blessington rushed again into the busy life of London. Since he had no heir, there was no limit on his expenses. It made him quite happy to spend his money on lavish and indulgent items. He even borrowed huge sums in order to buy additional estates and houses. At this time, he had his lands in Ireland, a town house in St. James's Square, another in Seymour Place, and still another, which was afterward to become famous as Gore House, in Kensington.
Years before he had met a woman by the name of Mrs. Maurice Farmer and it just so happened that she now came to London. It is important to know a little of her earlier life because her name became famous and because her story is a perfect example of the crude and lawless period of the Regency, when England was fighting her long war with Napoleon and when prize-fighting, deep drinking, and dueling, were practiced in all the large cities and towns of the United Kingdom. It was, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has said, "an age of folly and of heroism"; for, while it produced some of the greatest black-guards known to history, it produced also such men as Wellington and Nelson, the two Pitts, Sheridan, Byron, Shelley, and Sir Walter Scott.