by Alan Schom
The decision made to dissolve his marriage, Napoleon summoned Josephine’s son, Eugène, and his wife, Princess Augusta, from Milan to Fontainebleau, informing them of his intention to remarry and at the same time to remove him as Viceroy of Italy. He was going to reserve the Italian crown for his own offspring. His eldest son — Napoleon was absolutely confident he would have a son — was to be known as the king of Rome, before succeeding him as emperor. Nevertheless Napoleon remained genuinely fond of Eugène, and now instead offered him the crown of Sweden or that of some newly and specially created miniature kingdom somewhere north of Italy. Eugène proudly declined all offers, retaining only his title as Prince of Venice, although finally accepting the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt and a separate annual income from France of some 2 million francs. As for the unfortunate Hortense, she would be forced to serve in the court of her mother’s replacement, in her capacity as the “Princesse Protectrice des Maisons des Filles de la Légion d’Honneur.” It was painful and humiliating for her, but an insensitive Napoleon as usual chose to ignore it. “Come along now, ma fille, a little courage!” he said with a smile. “Oh! Sire, I have courage,” she barely uttered before falling into his arms sobbing, her entire world shattered by these Bonapartes.
Meanwhile a divorce was necessary. Napoleon arranged for an official annulment of the civil bands, and a special episcopal council selected by him agreed to an annulment of the religious vows, based on what Fesch pointed out as the technical illegalities of the ceremony he himself had performed at the Tuileries on December 1, 1804. In particular these included the absence of the local Paris priest and the required witnesses. More important, that ceremony had been carried out under duress, he now insisted. Without it the pope had threatened not to officiate on the morrow at the coronation ceremonies. Thus Cambacérès now informed Pius VII that both the civil and religious marriage had been dissolved because of irregularities. That Napoleon had been expelled from the Roman Catholic Church, excommunicated by this same Pius VII, somehow seemed irrelevant to French officialdom, which, in any event, took its orders from its paymaster, Napoleon Bonaparte. Due process had to be followed.
At 10:00 A.M. on Friday, December 15, 1809, the entire Bonaparte clan gathered in Napoleon’s office, including Louis, Jérôme and Catherine, Pauline, Joachim and Caroline Murat, and of course Madame Mère — all openly gloating in their ultimate triumph in witnessing the downfall of “that Beauharnais woman.” There they found Napoleon and Josephine, Hortense and Eugène, Duroc and Méneval. Napoleon read from a piece of paper in a loud, confident voice, but when he came to “She has graced my life for fifteen years,” he was obviously upset. Josephine then read a text prepared for her: “We are each of us glorious in the sacrifice we are now making on behalf of the country —” Tears prevented her from continuing. The document of annulment was duly signed by the two parties, and properly witnessed. Napoleon embraced Josephine and led her to her apartments. His brothers and sisters barely concealed their delight as the couple left. Later Napoleon came to take Hortense to Josephine. “I found her completely overwhelmed...crushed,” Hortense reported.
Napoleon returned to his office and “slumped down on the sofa, completely dejected,” Méneval relates. “He remained there for some time, leaning forward, resting his head in his hands, and when he finally got up again, his face was cloaked in anguish.” He then had Méneval follow him down the small private staircase to Josephine’s apartments.
Upon hearing us enter, she threw herself into his arms and burst into tears, he holding her protectively close to him, kissing her several times. But then, overwhelmed, she fainted...The emperor still holding her, put her in my arms once she began to come to, instructing me not to leave her, as he hastily left via the main salons of the ground floor to the entrance, where his carriage was waiting.
Earlier, in another twist of the knife, he had ordered her son, Prince Eugène, to appear before the Senate to announce officially the dissolution of the imperial marriage. Despite the humiliation he felt, Eugène obeyed, as he always did. And now Napoleon settled back into the carriage that was taking him to Versailles and the Trianon Palace. “The next morning,” Hortense continued, “I helped my mother into her carriage...Our journey to la Malmaison was sad and silent.” Josephine never returned to Fontainebleau.
After issuing a new decree on January 10, 1810, effectively removing all his brothers and sisters from the line of succession to his expanding imperial domains in favor of the son he expected to have, on January 28 Napoleon had convoked what proved to be a boisterous privy council meeting, including his ministers and high state dignitaries, as well as some male members of the family, including King Louis, Murat, and Uncle Fesch (now archbishop of Paris, following the demise of Cardinal Belloy). Their task, in Fouché’s words, was “to discuss, decide, and declare” the name of Josephine’s successor. Emotional personal interests were to have nothing to do with it. Napoleon had had quite enough of that sort of thing. It must be a hard-boiled, well-calculated decision. The three bridal candidates — the daughter of the king of Saxony, the younger sister of Czar Alexander, and the daughter of Austria’s Emperor Franz — were discussed in considerable detail by these gentlemen, seated before him in their state uniforms of blue velour, encrusted in silver and gold according to their rank. To Napoleon’s surprise Louis opted strongly for the princess of the House of Saxony, while Murat, in the guise of a scion of the Revolution, protested his outrage at the very idea of marital ties with Austria:“always so odious to the nation.” Their differences resolved by February 2, 1810, their final decision was announced in favor of the eighteen-year-old Austrian archduchess and princess royal of Hungary and Bohemia, Marie-Louise.
For Josephine, shortly to become France’s first ex-empress, a new life had to be planned, and Napoleon was not ungenerous. In addition to Malmaison, he gave her the historic, rambling Château de Navarre in Normandy — a good distance from the court — then created it a duchy. A steady stream of correspondence flowed between Napoleon and Josephine, which gradually dwindled over the next few weeks, Napoleon all the while protesting his deep fondness for her and his concern for her well-being, partially ensuring this with the promise of an annual income of five million francs. It helped soften the blow.
Just as Napoleon had ordered Prince Eugène to announce the divorce to the Senate, he was now given the further painful task of making what Fouché described as “the diplomatic overture to Prince von Schwarzenberg,” requesting the hand of Marie-Louise, which was accepted forthwith. One of the first persons to be notified of this decision was Czar Alexander, who had kept Napoleon dangling for two and a half months without a final reply to Napoleon’s earlier proposal of marriage to the czar’s sister. It was now too late; Alexander and Russia were out of the picture. Thereafter Russia would play only a secondary role at best, Austria now taking precedence, with all that that implied. The Archduchess Marie-Louise had a wide network of aristocratic relations through both her father, Franz (or to be more precise, Franz II, emperor of Austria until 1805, thereafter reduced by Napoleon to the lesser status of Franz I); and her mother, the former Princess Maria-Theresa, daughter of Ferdinand IV, king of the Two Sicilies.
Marie-Louise had been raised in utter isolation from popular, and even from court, life, yet educated to speak many languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, English — even Latin — in order to render her more marriageable. In the words of Méneval: “She regarded herself almost as a victim to be devoured by the Minotaur [Napoleon],” a man who for the past dozen years she had been taught to hate as the devil incarnate. But “raised in the family custom of passive obedience, Marie-Louise had to resign herself to whatever fate awaited her.”
A personal exchange of correspondence passed between the conquering Minotaur and his defeated future father-in-law, Franz I of Austria. The mere writing of the critical letter, however, proved most embarrassing for Napoleon, almost more of a trial than all his previous battles with the Austrians
. After writing and rewriting this document several times, even the devoted Méneval was forced to admit that it was “just barely legible,” and then only after “he had me correct some of the letters, without making this appear too noticeable...I did my best as his school prefect, and then had that letter, along with marriage documents, dispatched by courier to ‘Sa Majesté monsieur mon fère l’empéreur d’Autriche.’”
Count de Montesquiou was dispatched to Vienna bearing a portrait of the French emperor, and Berthier followed as ambassador extraordinary to the Schönbrunn, escorted by Prince Paul Esterhazy, passing the ancient walls of the city that were being razed to the ground on Napoleon’s imperious orders. On March 8, Emperor Franz’s brother and Napoleon’s stalwart foe at Wagram, Archduke Karl, under duress, signed the necessary papers on behalf of his niece, and the next day she solemnly renounced all claims to the succession of the imperial throne and swore her new allegiance to France. That same evening the official marriage contract was signed at the Schönbrunn Palace, and Berthier was handed a strongbox containing the bride’s dowry — the equivalent of five hundred thousand francs in stacks of gold ducats. Content with the proceedings, the sycophantic Berthier reported back to Napoleon that “all is truly worthy of the spouse of the greatest man in the world.” Two days later the religious ceremony was performed in the Church of the Augustins, followed by a gala state banquet, despite noisy public demonstrations in the streets of the Old City against this heinous marriage to the ravager of their country, the excommunicated Napoleon. For, as Méneval acknowledged, “the Peace of Vienna and even the marriage were far from having established good relations between Paris and Vienna. Austria was humiliated but not beaten. She bowed her head for the moment, bitterly biding her time until she could avenge herself.”
Unlike the unchallenged one-man rule in France, some three hundred ancient aristocratic families had considerable influence in the affairs of the Austrian Empire. “Politics made this marriage,” a prophetic Schwarzenberg warned, and “politics can unmake it later,” although he himself had been given the unenviable task of replacing Metternich as ambassador to Paris, to keep an avuncular eye on the Austrian war bride. Napoleon dismissed these unsettling reports, just as he had lightly dismissed the assassination attempt against him by a knife-wielding Thuringian university student with the unfortunate name of Stabb just prior to his departure from Vienna. Time would heal all wounds, Napoleon insisted optimistically, and even if it did not, what could the Austrians possibly do now?
And thus it was that despite vociferous public protests against the French in Vienna and the festering anger of the three hundred ruling families, the archduchess, followed by nearly three dozen carriages, under strong military escort, made her way to Strasbourg, where she was greeted by Queen Caroline of Naples. Instead of putting the young lady at her ease, however, Caroline — whom Talleyrand pithily described as having “the head of a Machiavelli and the body of a pretty woman” — immediately demanded that the bride’s entire retinue, including ladies-in-waiting and even her closest confidante, be sent back across the Rhine to Vienna. Then, for good measure, the sadistic Caroline, with the usual Bonaparte twist of the knife, demanded that Marie-Louise send back her little dog as well. (As Napoleon himself acknowledged, “Of my entire family, it’s Caroline who most resembles me.”) Clearly Marie-Louise was now on foreign territory, in the hands of that ruthless Corsican ogre. This disheartening impression was only partially offset by a series of letters and bouquets of flowers she received from Napoleon en route between Strasbourg and Soissons. Her father’s instructions had been most explicit: to obey her husband’s every wish. Literally entirely on her own now, she was another pawn in the great game of survival.
Everyone agreed that Bonaparte’s actions over the ensuing weeks were bewildering. Acting more like a very young bridegroom just beginning life than a forty-year-old rogue with at least two bastards tucked away well out of sight, Bonaparte threw himself into feverish activity in preparation for this marriage, which would cement the Bonapartes of Ajaccio with the Habsburgs of Vienna. With Josephine now out of the way, he gave orders for any trace of her to be removed, her state quarters converted into “virginal white apartments,” as the caustic Victorine de Chastenay called them, while a special new suite of apartments was also prepared for the son he was positive he would have by this daughter of the remarkably fertile Habsburgs. Special outfits and uniforms, including miniature — but real — pistols, swords, and cannon, were ordered: No boy should be without them. Napoleon was humming again, for the first time in years, as usual out of tune. He was rushing about, harrying everyone: Everything had to be perfect. Having had his bride-to-be’s measurements sent him, along with a portrait of the rosy-cheeked, slightly plump girl, he ordered an entirely new wardrobe for her, much of it in white silk, including dresses, formal gowns, undergarments, hosiery, shoes, hats — Josephine’s personal dressmaker receiving the brunt of the order. And then came the jewelry, seemingly without limit or budget. Napoleon personally inspected every item, one by one, as it arrived. There must be no imperfection, no blemish. Méneval and Duroc were quite bewildered by this intense, frenzied concentration, to the exclusion of everything else. When all seemed in readiness in the Tuileries, he rushed off with dozens of domestics and staff to Compiègne, again feverishly inspecting all preparations, not to mention his own wardrobe.
Meanwhile foreign affairs, state finances, France’s internal problems — including vast agricultural shortfalls and a declining economy — even the military and the Spanish situation, received at most but cursory attention. Never before had Bonaparte ignored the military, especially when in “mid-campaign,” as France still was in the Iberian Peninsula, with well over two hundred thousand men fighting there and the position steadily deteriorating. Napoleon lost all interest it.
If he was agitated, irritable, never satisfied with the smallest detail, despite the occasional smile and badly hummed tune, it was because this was a period of great crisis in his life. His second Danube campaign had deeply shaken him — all those military checks and setbacks, ending with the fiasco at Ratisbon and then the disaster at Aspern-Essling. Of course there was ultimately the victory of Wagram, but how narrowly won, and at what a price! Never before had he had to concentrate, tax every fiber of his ability and energy to cope with one close shave after another on the battlefield, and after making unheard-of military preparations with a superior field force. At forty Napoleon found himself getting too old for active campaigning, now a twenty-four-year veteran with so many battles behind him that he could not count or even remember them all. Was he finished? Emotionally he could not afford another Wagram campaign. He was, like everyone else now, patently war-weary, but was he also slipping, losing that Bonaparte touch, his special genius on the field of battle? Nevertheless, superstitious, he believed in his star. All had to be swept away in his path. He was untouchable. He could walk across dozens of major deadly battlefields, with hundreds of thousands falling on every side, and go untouched — or could he?
Something had clearly happened during this last military campaign. He found himself without real allies; even Czar Alexander had distanced himself from him. The invincible Lannes, whom he loved after his own fashion, perhaps more than any of his own brothers, was gone, with no one to replace him. All those years together, all those dangers shared. Masséna had held, thank God, and along with the stout-hearted Davout, Oudinot, and MacDonald, helped save the day that July before Wagram. And there was the accident at Ratisbon, when he, Napoleon himself, had nearly had his foot shot away. This had never happened before. There were portents in the air. And now not only the faithful Lannes, whom he had treated so shabbily years before by refusing to give him the money he had promised to cover the costs of his new Paris mansion, was gone, but so was his beloved Josephine, the only woman in the world he truly loved, if in his own brutal, callous manner. She who had brought him his good fortune, who had helped start him on his way with those important
introductions, who had shared in his great triumphs as a general in the field, as life consul, and then as emperor of the French, was offstage, never again to participate in his life or career. And then he had dismissed his faithful stepson, Eugène, from his position as viceroy of Italy. This same Eugène who had just marched at the head of his army to stand by him on the bloody fields of battle round Wagram, summarily dismissed! Despite his usual outward arrogance, Napoleon was feeling old, tired, jaded, uncertain of himself and his future. He who had promised to return to Spain within a month was instead counting his new wife’s underwear and shoes, directing painters, harrying his officials to have all in order for the young bride who was to replace the discarded Josephine, while his troops were dying by the thousands.
Behind it all loomed the problem of Spain. This full-scale war continued to tax heavily the French national budget and economy, despite the enforced annual “war contributions” of hundreds of millions of francs extorted from Napoleon’s dozens of “allies,” allies whom he barely kept in check with his armies of occupation. Remove one major army and one commander, the vigilant, tough, and demanding Marshal Davout, and Napoleon knew in his heart that the whole of Europe would come tumbling down over his head as easily as any house of cards. As for Spain, could it be conquered? If so, could he admit to the world that Bonaparte had made a horrendous miscalculation, forcing him to withdraw all his forces? Those few associates courageous enough to point out the Spanish ulcer, and the necessity to evacuate the peninsula, were quickly put in their place. Napoleon, who had never liked gratuitous advice, was even less open to it now and continued to brook no contrary view. After the wedding ceremonies he was ordering a most reluctant Masséna — that wily old Niçois looter who had salted away literally tens of millions and who now strongly hinted that he wished to retire to enjoy his last few active years — back to Spain. Another war-weary veteran tired of this state of perpetual warfare would soon be returning to the Iberian war zone.