The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte

by Chatlien, Ruth Hull

  “Eliza, I cannot. If I am to have any hope of appeasing the emperor, I must not do anything he would judge unseemly.”

  After taking a bite of shortbread, Eliza asked, “So you still believe that your husband will return for you?”

  “Until I hear from his own hand that he has repudiated me, I must continue to hope.”

  “I know you may not wish to hear this, but I must try to spare you some of the heartache I have endured. Judging from my experience, a man who deserts his wife rarely owns to it in a forthright manner. One of the agonies of our lot is the wearying uncertainty of never knowing absolutely that the scoundrel is gone forever.”

  Betsy’s eyes filled with tears at that accurate summation of her plight, yet she forced herself to say, “Jerome did not leave of his own accord. I cannot believe that he would allow me to suffer such prolonged ambiguity.”

  “I pray that you are right.”

  They drank their tea in silence for a minute, and then Betsy said, “You would scarce believe how much baby Jerome has changed the last month. He responds to his name now, and he laughs if I show him his reflection in a mirror.”

  “I wish I could see him.” Eliza stood and brushed crumbs from her skirt. “I am sorry to leave so soon, but I am obliged to finish an essay I promised to give the editor tomorrow.”

  Disappointed at her hasty departure, Betsy said, “Thank you for coming when you are so occupied.”

  They walked together to the hall, and Eliza departed. After closing the front door, Betsy leaned against it wearily. For a moment her mind raced with questions about whether it would be possible to use her talents to earn a living. Then Betsy realized that she had spoken the truth. Because of her rank by marriage, she could not be seen to do anything menial or common. She would have to continue to wait upon Jerome and pray that he won her a place at court.

  EACH MORNING WHEN Betsy woke up, she faced a day very like the one before with a never-ending schedule of child rearing, domestic obligations, utilitarian needlework, and social calls. Her life was as tedious as if she had never met Jerome—more so, because she could no longer dream of escaping by marriage. Her visits to Washington and New York had only confirmed her opinion that Baltimore was a cultural desert with little to offer a person of intellect. Often as she sat at her dressing table brushing her hair or in the nursery feeding Bo, she drifted into memories of the parties she had attended with Jerome. She spent hours dwelling upon past social triumphs because the memory of more intimate moments stirred her passion and made her irritable.

  When Betsy attended parties that winter, she discovered that local attitudes toward her had changed. Now that she was perceived as an abandoned wife, many people saw her as more pitiable than fascinating. Some of the young women who had formerly resented her as their chief competitor for beaux could not resist expressing glee at her downfall. At one ball, a former schoolmate interrupted Betsy as she recounted her experience at Texel. “Napoleon certainly showed you how pathetic your pretensions to rank are.”

  “On the contrary, the fact that the emperor went to such pains to keep me from the continent proves that he views me as a rival worthy of respect. Not that I would expect you to understand the satisfaction of receiving such a mark of esteem.”

  After receiving a few such lightning-quick jabs, the young women of Baltimore learned to keep their venom to themselves. Betsy had no doubt, however, that they gloated about her situation behind her back.

  For the first few months after her return, no news came from Europe. Because of the difficulties of sailing the Atlantic in winter, Betsy did not expect to hear from Jerome, yet her heart still lurched painfully each time mail arrived or a knock sounded on the door. The second anniversary of her marriage passed without anyone marking the occasion, and Betsy lay awake most of that night crying.

  As the weeks passed, she began to imagine terrible things. When she learned of the Battle of Trafalgar, in which the British navy had routed a combined Spanish and French fleet in October 1805, Betsy’s fears sharpened. For all she knew, Jerome’s ship might have been one of the twenty or so vessels lost, leaving her a widow and her son fatherless.

  The only thing that kept her from sinking into a swamp of despair was Bo, who was an even-tempered, healthy baby. By January, he could sit on his own, and he even said Mama—a title that made Betsy as proud as if someone had called her Princess. Whenever she felt despondent over the silence from Jerome, she would place Bo on her lap and read or sing to him in French, so he would learn his father’s language.

  The suspicions Betsy formed the night of the Homewood dance turned out to be correct, and Robert began to court Marianne Caton. On one of Marianne’s visits to Betsy, she confided that her mother had doubts about the match. “She wants me to marry someone with a plantation.”

  Recalling the bankruptcy brought about by the disastrous commercial investments of Marianne’s father, Betsy could understand Mrs. Caton’s concerns, so she said, “My father might be a merchant, but he has invested half of his wealth in property.”

  “That was prudent,” Marianne said lightly and shook Bo’s rattle at him.

  The conversation lingered with Betsy. She did not want Marianne’s family to scorn Robert because of his mercantile background. On the other hand, Betsy was not sure she favored the match. Marianne was sweet-tempered and undemanding, and she kept herself unnaturally calm in an effort to control her asthma. Yet, she spent much of her time talking about clothes, parties, and music, mingled with jarring references to works of Catholic piety such as Pascal’s Pensées. Robert’s two main interests were commerce and horses, and he was not at all religious. Whenever Betsy saw them together, she noticed that her brother barely spoke while Marianne prattled about the latest novel or the last eminent person to visit her grandfather. The dissimilarity between their temperaments troubled Betsy.

  The budding romance tried her nerves in another way. Both Marianne and Robert used their time with her to probe for information about each other, and Betsy felt increasingly slighted. Even worse, watching them exchange tender glances and coy smiles was like having grit thrown in the open wound of her loneliness.

  In February, shortly after Betsy’s twenty-first birthday, Marianne accepted Robert’s proposal, and the two families began to negotiate a marriage contract. William Patterson took every opportunity to praise his son’s intended: “She comes from a good republican family, and her demeanor is everything a young woman’s should be. She is gentle and unassuming, not puffed up about her beauty or unduly ambitious.”

  Betsy was convinced that such statements were directed at her, and the effusive tributes planted seeds of resentment toward her friend. No one can be as perfect as Marianne pretends to be. Someday they may find out that a reservoir of vinegar lurks beneath all that sugar.

  Despite such lapses into bitterness, Betsy tried to be glad about the upcoming marriage. At least, she would gain a sister closer to her age than thirteen-year-old Margaret, and if Marianne had a baby right away, Bo would have a cousin to play with.

  AS SPRING ARRIVED, so did ships with news from Europe, and Betsy learned that Napoleon had won a stunning victory at Austerlitz in Austria on December 2, exactly one year after his coronation. A French army of fewer than 70,000 had smashed a combined force of 90,000 Austrians and Russians. The French victory was so one-sided that Francis I of Austria had been forced to make peace, while the tsar returned to Russia in defeat.

  After reading the accounts, Betsy said to her mother, “Another victory like this and perhaps the war will end, and the emperor will no longer feel it necessary to form defensive alliances for France. Perhaps he will allow Jerome to recall me to Europe.”

  “I hope so, dear,” Dorcas said, barely looking up from her sewing.

  In April, Betsy received a series of letters that Jerome had written the previous October in Paris. Whether the six-month-old correspondence was delayed by the vagaries of shipping or the interference of Napoleon’s secret police, B
etsy could not tell, but she was ecstatic to hear from Jerome directly rather than through intermediaries.

  The first letter was dated October 4, the day he arrived in Paris: “Life holds nothing for me without you and my son. We, my dear Elisa, will be separated a short time longer, but eventually our misery will end. Be calm, your husband will never abandon you.”

  In the second letter, dated October 7, Jerome wrote explicit instructions:

  If you go to the United States, I insist, these are my orders, that you live in your own house; that you keep four horses, and that you live in a suitable manner, as though I were to arrive at any moment; tell your father, whom I love as though he were my own, that I should like it thus, and that I have special reasons for wishing it so.

  Reading that, Betsy felt a pain like a hot poker stabbing her side. She set the letter aside to show her father, but she knew it would make no difference. Even though she had been home for five months, he still found ways nearly every day to remind her of the expense and trouble she had cost him. He would never agree to set her up in a house just because Jerome had “special reasons for wishing it so.”

  In a letter from October 16, Jerome wrote in a more dejected mood:

  You know how much I love Octavius, Jeromia, and the other children; you can therefore imagine how I shall adore my own son, ill-starred from the day he was born. He has not even known the gentle embrace of his unfortunate father. At least, my Elisa, take the greatest care of him, teach him to love and respect his father and tell him, “Your father will always prefer you to distinctions, a fortune, and all the glitter of high rank.” I have never had the fatal thought of leaving you, my good wife, but am acting as an honorable man, a brave and loyal soldier; I do without my wife, without my son, to fight a war and defend my country and after I have fulfilled the obligations of a brother of the Emperor, I shall fulfill those of a father and a husband.

  Even though she knew it made no sense to try to make a nine-month-old child understand, Betsy immediately carried that letter upstairs and read it to Bo. To be able to hear the sound of Jerome’s own words at last was like being able to eat the first morsel of pastry after months of illness in which all she could take was broth.

  The following week, shouting in the street below caused Betsy to rise from the sofa where she sat sewing and look out the window. To her astonishment, she saw her brother Joseph jump down from the driver’s seat of a wagon and gesture to two workingmen who rode in back. Joseph hurried in the house and into the drawing room. “Betsy, why did you fail to warn Father that you were expecting a shipment from England?”

  “What?”

  “Two crates have arrived from the London, and they are directed to you.” He pivoted and went outside again.

  Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. The two laborers came through the doorway, set down the wooden containers—one larger than the other—and stood there awkwardly.

  Joseph re-entered the room with a crowbar. He handed it to the brawnier of the two men, who pried off the lids with ease. Then the men left.

  Seeing fabric in the larger crate, Betsy went to it and saw that it contained several folded garments. On top were two letters addressed to her. The first one was from a Lady Elgin, whom Jerome had asked to convey a box of presents to Betsy in London. “Your husband especially wished me to say that the only pleasure he has known since your separation was the act of selecting the most beautiful gifts for his most beloved wife.”

  For an instant, Betsy was carried back to the morning after her wedding when Jerome had surprised her with a bedroom full of French fashions. Now, he was repeating the gesture to prove that his love had not diminished.

  The other letter, from a Mrs. McKenzie, explained that Lady Elgin had sent the crates to her husband’s shipping firm, but by the time they arrived in London, Betsy had already sailed.

  As Betsy pulled out the clothes, she saw that Parisian fashions had changed. None of these gowns were sheer. Some were of lined muslin, while others were silk in shades of rose, jonquil, and pearl grey. One was even a deep rich brown. More decoration also seemed to be in vogue. The brown evening gown had a center panel with inserts of cream-colored diamonds, while a muslin gown was embroidered with sunflowers stitched in gilt thread and further embellished with gold sequins.

  After Betsy had removed the dresses, she found three hatboxes, each containing an elaborately trimmed bonnet—one of which featured a bunch of silk violets that reminded her of the nosegay Jerome had bought her in Lisbon. The crate also held fine undergarments. “This is an entire wardrobe,” she exclaimed to her mother. Excitedly, Betsy hurried to the large gilt-framed mirror that hung on the wall near her father’s desk and held up a deep blue gown trimmed in exquisite Valenciennes lace.

  As she examined her reflection, Joseph dug through the straw in the smaller crate and pulled out two caskets. “Come see what these contain.”

  “All right.” Betsy draped the blue dress across the sofa back and knelt by him.

  The smaller casket was about a foot long, eight inches wide, and eight inches high. Betsy opened it and then sat back on the floor in astonishment. The coffer contained stacks of bright gold coins. As she picked up a handful of coins and let them slip through her fingers, she began to feel breathless.

  Joseph picked up two coins that had tumbled to the floor. He counted the stacks in the casket and checked the number of coins in a single stack. “There are a thousand coins.”

  “How much are they worth?”

  “Each one is a little less than a dollar and a half. You probably have about $1,400 here.”

  “Oh.” Betsy tried to calculate what that meant, but she was too flustered.

  “Does the other casket have coins too?”

  “I don’t know,” Betsy answered but made no move to open it. After waiting a few seconds, Joseph flung open the lid, revealing that the casket was filled with velvet pouches. He grabbed the top one, pulled open the mouth, and looked inside.

  “Jewelry,” he said in a tone of disgust

  “Jewelry,” Betsy repeated as Joseph left the room.

  Dorcas approached and carefully lowered herself to sit by her daughter. “Do you want me to help you look through them?”

  “All right,” Betsy said, but she could not take her eyes off the bright gold. Was there enough money to rent a house? She tried to remember if she had ever heard how much her father charged for his rental properties, but her mind was awhirl.

  “Oh, look!” Dorcas took out a choker of fine cameos set in filigree and linked together. A second pouch held a diamond necklace, a third held a square-cut emerald ring, and a fourth held a gold locket engraved with Napoleon’s imperial bee. “How stunning.”

  After glancing inside the fifth pouch, she gave it to Betsy. “You should do this one.”

  Intrigued, Betsy reached into the velvet bag and pulled out a miniature of Jerome wearing a heavily braided dark blue uniform—and a narrow moustache that reached to the corners of his mouth. “Oh, no! He looks like a pirate!” Betsy dropped the miniature in her lap. “I might not know him when he comes back.”

  Dorcas gave her a one-armed hug. “Of course you will.”

  They heard the front door slam, and then William Patterson strode into the room. “Joseph said that the shipment is from Jerome.”

  “Yes.” Betsy placed the miniature on her palm and wondered how it would feel to kiss a mustached Jerome. Then, seeing movement to her side, she glanced up to see her father lift the casket of money.

  “This will repay perhaps half the debt your husband owes me.”

  “Father, you cannot take it.” Fighting against her skirts, Betsy scrambled to her feet. “Jerome sent me that money so I can set up my own household.”

  “Do not be absurd. You would run through this in two months.”

  “That is not fair. I have never had the chance to prove my ability to manage money. You continually complain about supporting me and Bo, so let us move out.”

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p; Patterson tucked the casket more firmly under his arm. “And when this is gone, you will have to move back here and I would again have to pay your expenses.”

  “Mr. Patterson, please don’t be so harsh.” Dorcas came to stand beside her daughter. “None of this is Betsy’s fault.”

  “There I disagree with you, madam.”

  “Never mind, Mother,” Betsy said in a low voice. To her father, she said, “You forget that I have furnishings in storage. My only expense will be rent and food, and I can learn to economize. I am sure Jerome intends to send for us before the money runs out.”

  “That will not happen, Elizabeth. The emperor will never let you live together again. Accept your fate.”

  “No, sir,” she said, lifting her chin. “The most recent letters have restored my hope. Jerome is exerting all his energies to soften Napoleon’s anger.”

  Although her father shook his head, he walked to the table by the front windows and set the casket down. To Betsy’s surprise, he began to divide the coins into two portions. “I will give you half. It won’t be enough for you to indulge this foolish scheme of setting up your own household, but it will allow you to spend some money on your boy.”

  “It should all be mine!”

  He turned to stare at her. “Do you wish me to repeat the exercise of proving that Jerome owes me far more than this?”

  “No, sir,” she said, staring at the floor to hide her resentment.

  “I expect a little gratitude for the fact that I am allowing you half.”

  Gratitude. For what is rightfully mine! Betsy knew that if she expressed such thoughts, her father might change his mind, so she pushed down her anger, which felt like swallowing a sizable stone. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  After her father finished dividing the money, he swept his half into the casket and picked it up. Before leaving, he said, “Be grateful that I do not confiscate the pieces of jewelry. If you are absolutely determined to live on your own, I suggest you consider selling them and the other luxuries with which your husband has indulged you. You are not a princess, Elizabeth, and there is no reason for you to live as if you were.”