The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte

by Chatlien, Ruth Hull

  Having no wish to argue further, she went to fetch her workbasket. Because she had been so sick during their voyages, she had accomplished very little sewing for her baby. As she exited the parlor, she overheard Eliza say, “Have patience, William. She must defend Napoleon because she still hopes to gain his favor.”

  “That is a fool’s hope. The emperor has already shown his implacable resentment. What could possibly induce him to change his opposition to the marriage?”

  “Jerome. If he places the emperor in his debt with some deed of glory, they might still be reunited.”

  Hiding behind her bedroom door, Betsy heard her brother sigh. “You little know my brother-in-law if you think he has the fortitude to accomplish such a plan.”

  THE NEXT DAY Betsy had further reason to curse the English papers. On May 21, the London Times published another story about her:

  The beautiful wife of Jerome Bonaparte, after being refused admittance into every port in Europe where the French influence degrades and dishonors humanity, has landed, with a part of her family, at Dover, in a state of pregnancy, under the protection of a great and generous people. This interesting lady, who has been the victim of imposture and ambition, will here receive all the rights of hospitality…. The contemptible Jerome was, for form’s sake, made a prisoner at Lisbon. His treachery toward this lovely Unfortunate, will procure him an early pardon, and a Highness-ship from the Imperial Swindler his brother.

  After reading the article aloud, Betsy slapped the paper on the table. “Now do you see what I mean? Jerome has done nothing to deserve the epithet contemptible. And what cause do they have for giving Napoleon the label Imperial Swindler?”

  “Perhaps the thousands of French troops massed on the other side of the Channel waiting to invade England?” William asked dryly.

  “Do you forget that British troops previously violated French soil in an effort to overthrow the republican government established by the Revolution?”

  William picked up the silver tongs and dropped three small clumps of sugar in his tea. “What has that to do with the topic under discussion? The day Napoleon became emperor, he ended any hopes of a lasting republic in France.”

  “He was forced to do that by foreign-sponsored plots to assassinate him!” she cried, frustrated by her brother’s refusal to admit that Napoleon had any justification for his actions.

  William looked up, his teacup in hand. “Betsy, why are you become the emperor’s mouthpiece? You could shout these opinions from the rooftops of London, and it would not alter his refusal to recognize your marriage.”

  As tears coursed down her face, Betsy inwardly cursed the way her emotions had grown so ungovernable. “Perhaps not, but if I am quoted saying one word against him—whether the attribution is accurate or no—it will destroy my hopes of reuniting with Jerome.”

  “Then perhaps we should find a less public place for you to await your confinement.”

  TWO DAYS LATER their brother Robert turned up at their inn without advance word.

  “Bobby!” Betsy cried when he came through the door. She flung down her sewing and struggled to push herself up from her armchair.

  “Little Goose,” he said, crossing the room and clasping her hands. Then he smiled. “I had not realized that you had grown into quite such a stuffed goose.”

  Blushing, Betsy ducked her head.

  “Let me order tea,” Eliza said, rising. “You will want to hold a family conference.”

  “I would like you to take part. You know all my deepest concerns.”

  Eliza nodded and went to tell Betsy’s maid Jenny to request tea from the landlady.

  Turning back to her brother, Betsy said, “Have you any news of Jerome?”

  “Yes, I found letters waiting for you when I reached Amsterdam. And I saw Le Camus.”

  “Then Jerome is not in prison?”

  “No.” Robert glanced at William, who was standing beside the table where he had been working on correspondence. Seeing his hesitation, Betsy cried, “Do you have bad news? Has he repudiated me?”

  “No, at least I do not believe so. He seems to be playing a double game, espousing the repentance that Napoleon requires, yet secretly hoping to be reconciled with you in time.”

  “Is that all? Jerome warned me he might adopt that course.”

  Relieved, Betsy took a seat at the table, while William hastily cleared away his papers, packed them in a satchel, and placed it near the door.

  “May I see Jerome’s letters?” Betsy asked.

  “Of course, forgive me.” Robert pulled them from the inner pocket of his coat.

  Betsy broke open the seals and scanned the pages hastily. Jerome had written both letters while he was on the road to Milan. She heard her brothers holding a whispered conversation by the fireplace and Eliza returning to the room, but Betsy paid no attention to them as she began to read the letters in earnest. The letter dated April 19 filled a page. In it, Jerome repeated his plan to do anything he could to appease Napoleon. He promised that once he had done his duty, they would withdraw, if necessary, to some “little corner of the world” where they could live in peace. Then he closed by declaring that he had complete confidence in her love and swearing that they would soon be reunited.

  Feeling much happier, Betsy turned to the second letter, dated May 3. It was only a few lines but reminded her that Jerome planned to return to her between the first and fifteenth of June. With a spurt of joy, she realized that the first was only a week away.

  Betsy pressed the letters to her breast and smiled at her brothers. “Jerome’s intentions have not changed. He is doing his duty to the emperor in the hope that all will be well, but if not, Jerome will return to me so that we can retire somewhere beyond the imperial reach.”

  Robert frowned. “I take it that he had not yet seen the emperor when he wrote those?”

  “No, he was still journeying toward Milan.”

  Gesturing for William to follow, Robert crossed to the table. When they were all seated, Robert said, “I told you that I saw Le Camus. Jerome sent him with a message.”

  Robert reached into his inner pocket for a wallet and extracted a folded paper. “When they arrived at Milan, the emperor refused to receive Jerome and sent him a formal directive instead. Le Camus would not allow me to keep the emperor’s letter, but he did allow me to copy it.” He handed it to Betsy.

  There are no faults that you have committed which may not be effaced in my eyes by a sincere repentance. Your marriage is null both in a religious and legal point of view. I will never acknowledge it. Write to Miss Patterson to return to the United States; and tell her it is not possible to give things another turn. On condition of her going to America, I will allow her a pension during her life of 60,000 francs per year, provided she does not take the name of my family.

  As she reached the end of that directive, Betsy felt the same harrowing shock she had experienced when she hit the cold saltwater after jumping from the shipwreck. “Did Le Camus claim that these were Jerome’s instructions to me?”

  “He did not go so far as to say that, but I think he wished to convey that impression. However, I do not believe Jerome would dismiss you so callously. I suspect he sent Le Camus to Amsterdam with the sole purpose of making sure we apprehend his difficulties, but the secretary took it upon himself to persuade me that you should relinquish your claims.”

  “Le Camus is no secretary,” Betsy retorted. “He is little more than a panderer.”

  William huffed as if to rebuke her, but Robert spoke first. “The salient point is that we now know the emperor means to cast doubt on the religious nature of your marriage as well as its standing in civil law. And he objects to your using the Bonaparte name.”

  “I already knew that from Sérurier, but they cannot prevent me from doing so. Were I to revert to Miss Patterson, my child would be called a bastard. If Napoleon thinks that I would subject his brother’s legitimate heir to disgrace for a mere 60,000 francs—what is that, $
12,000 a year?—then he has little idea of my mettle.”

  “I agree that you should not accept the pension while there is hope of reconciliation, nor can you resume your maiden name.”

  While there is hope of reconciliation? Betsy looked at her brother sharply, wondering if he had reason to doubt that Jerome intended to return to her.

  A rapping sound interrupted them, and Eliza rose to open the door. After the landlady laid the tray upon the table and departed, Eliza poured their tea. “So if I understand the discussion aright, you are all agreed to wait for more direct word from Jerome.”

  “Yes,” Betsy answered before either of her brothers. “You know as well as any of us what reason I have not to trust Le Camus.”

  Raising her eyebrows expressively, Eliza nodded but did not comment, and Betsy let the subject drop. She did not think it would improve her brothers’ view of the situation to learn the exact nature of the services Le Camus had rendered Jerome before their marriage.

  William then explained their idea to remove to London so Betsy’s comings and goings might be less noticed. Approving of the plan, Robert offered to write to James Monroe, the U.S. Minister to the Court of St. James, to ask his advice about neighborhoods.

  THEY MOVED TO a hotel in the Mayfair district in late May. As their carriage drove through the main London streets—crowded with closed coaches, open chaises, sedan chairs, horseback riders, and pedestrians—Betsy stared out the window feeling as rustic as the settler’s wife she had met on the way to Niagara. During her stay in New York, she had thought it an immense city with its population of 60,000, but London had some 800,000 people, making it so much larger as to be incomprehensible.

  The English capital sprawled in all directions. The Pattersons’ hired carriage drove for miles past broad green parks with towering trees, stone town houses with classical porticos and ornamental urns on the rooflines; brick churches with stained glass windows and soaring white steeples; and whole blocks of simple two-story structures with businesses below and living quarters above. Most shops had flat signs extending along the wall above their display windows. Two kinds of establishments, however, had old-fashioned hanging signs that dangled into the street. Pawnshops displayed three balls descending from a metal bar, a symbol that dated back to the Renaissance, while each tavern had a colorfully painted signboard with artwork symbolizing its distinctive name—such as the Grapes, the Red Lion, and Ye Olde Cheddar Cheese.

  One thing that astonished Betsy was the number of vendors walking the streets and shouting descriptions of their wares. Within one two-minute stretch, she saw a young man carrying a brace of rabbits and calling, “Fresh country coneys”; a woman pushing a heavy cart and crying, “Hot spiced gingerbread, all hot”; and an old man with a bundle of rushes slung across his shoulder singing, “Old chairs to mend, old chairs to mend, if I had money to spend, I would not call, ‘Old chairs to mend.’ ”

  Pulling back from the window, Betsy exclaimed, “This city is so lively! And noisy.”

  Eliza nodded in agreement, but Robert barely looked up from the newspaper he was reading as he said, “Yes, it can be damned annoying.”

  Betsy sighed at her brother’s world-weary reaction. She had already noticed that, after a year traveling about Europe, conducting family business as well as working on her behalf, Robert had acquired an air of sophistication. His wealth of experience stirred Betsy’s envy. Were it not for Napoleon’s opposition to her marriage, she too could have been familiar enough with European life to remark casually as they passed St. James’s Palace, “Rumor has it that King George is having fits of madness.”

  Never mind, she told herself. Wait until Napoleon finally accepts me as his sister-in-law. For the remainder of the drive to their hotel, she amused herself by imagining how her brothers would have to bow to her whenever they came to the French court.

  Their hotel was a four-story, brown brick building with white pilasters rising to the cornice that rimmed the flat roof. Much to Betsy’s consternation, even in the hurry-scurry of the city, she attracted attention. Reports about her continued to appear in the London journals, and knots of people gathered across the street from the hotel, hoping to glimpse the lovely American victim of Boney’s fury. The commotion had caused the recently installed prime minister, William Pitt, to place a guard outside her place of lodging.

  At the beginning of June, the newspapers announced that there would be a new type of public entertainment for King George III’s June 4 birthday. The trooping of the colors, in which regiments of the British army would display their flags before the monarch, would take place on the Horse Guard Parade Ground near St. James Palace. Robert and Eliza both wanted to see it, but Betsy was afraid she would cause too much disruption if she appeared at such an event. “Please go enjoy yourselves,” she said. “I will be fine. I have several weeks to go before my child is due, and Jenny will be here if I need to send for help.”

  Betsy spent much of that day sitting alone near her hotel window, positioned behind the lace curtain so she would not be visible from the street. All across the skyline, Union Jacks snapped in the breeze, and at noon, church bells tolled across the city. It seemed to Betsy that everyone in the world except her had something purposeful or celebratory to do. Now that she had a few hours alone, she could no longer ignore her inner certainty that June would certainly pass without the reunion Jerome had promised. To be sure, he could not come to her here in England, but she had hoped he would send a message about where she should meet him. Instead, the silence had grown increasingly ominous. To stave off the despondency that threatened to engulf her, Betsy began to sew another gown for her baby.

  As the days passed, she came to regard the wooden divisions of her mullioned windows as the bars of a cage. Because of the crowds and her fear of appearing in newspapers, she refused to attend concerts or plays, or even to take carriage rides. Having to forego the cultural attractions she had craved for so long frustrated her, but her situation gave her little choice. She would not be the one to provide more gossip for the British newspapers to use against Napoleon. In consequence, the few times she needed to go out, she wore a veil.

  Despite her withdrawal from public view, hardly a day passed without curious aristocrats sending up their cards and requesting permission to call on her. Their visits invariably left Betsy feeling like an exotic animal in a menagerie.

  The only visitor who did not make her feel on display was Lady Frances Erskine, a young Pennsylvania woman who had married a British baron. A pretty twenty-four-year-old with large eyes and a fresh complexion, Lady Erskine commiserated with Betsy over her separation from Jerome. In addition, Lady Erskine suggested a reliable doctor who could deliver Betsy’s child.

  “He is quite abreast of the latest ideas. My mama was shocked when she learned that he persuaded me to nurse my children, but that is what all the best doctors here advise.”

  “Really!” Betsy exclaimed. “My mother used a wet nurse with all of us.”

  “Mine too, but think of the filth you might be exposing your child to by entrusting him to some low creature.”

  Betsy stared at the baby frock she was sewing. Although she would never discuss anything so private, she desperately missed her physical relationship with Jerome. Perhaps, if she nursed his child, it would help restore a sense of an intimate connection with him.

  EVEN AFTER SEVERAL weeks, the hullabaloo over Betsy’s presence in London failed to subside. Feeling like a prisoner in her hotel, she asked her brothers to find a place to stay in one of the quieter outlying districts. After again consulting with James Monroe, Robert rented a house in the rural village of Camberwell, located south of the Thames and said to be healthy because of its mineral springs.

  They moved in mid June to one of three identical, attached town houses. The buildings were each three windows wide and three stories high with basements and attics. They were constructed of yellow brick with red brick dressing above the mullioned windows, and they each had a blac
k, six-panel door with a decorative fanlight above. Inside the house, the first floor had a parlor, dining room, and kitchen, while each of the upper two stories had four bedrooms.

  The fifteenth of June passed without any word from Jerome, and Betsy spent the next day crying. Since coming to England, she had been trying to think of some way to contact her husband, from whom she had heard nothing since the letters Robert brought. She could not write Jerome directly because Napoleon’s spy network would certainly intercept any correspondence. Using either Garnier or Le Camus as intermediaries would be useless, and she did not know where Henriette and Jean-Jacques Reubell were because Henriette had ceased to write to her.

  Still, Betsy did not cease her efforts. She wrote to several people who might have a chance to deliver a letter surreptitiously. One was Paul Bentalou, a French officer her family had known since he fought in the Revolutionary War. Bentalou had been Robert’s interpreter during his meetings with Jerome’s brothers Joseph and Lucien—and for providing that assistance, Napoleon had briefly imprisoned him. Despite that, Bentalou remained willing to work on their behalf. Although Betsy feared placing him in further jeopardy, she sent him a sealed letter for Jerome and begged him to use his own judgment to determine whether delivering it was safe.

  Betsy sent letters through various channels to Lucien Bonaparte, who was still exiled to Italy as punishment for his own marriage. He did not answer. She also contacted James Monroe’s daughter, who was living in Paris and had gone to school with Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine’s daughter from her first marriage. Betsy wrote to Miss Monroe and, after apologizing for the presumption, asked her to give her old schoolmate a letter to hand privately to Jerome. Since Jerome had often said how close he was to Josephine, Betsy hoped that Hortense—whom Napoleon had pressured into marriage with his unstable brother Louis—would sympathize with her plight. After two weeks, Miss Monroe wrote back that she had left the letter with Hortense but did not know if it had been passed on.