by Lyndon Orr
THE STORY OF THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE AND COUNT NEIPPERG
There is one famous woman whom history condemns while at the same timeit partly hides the facts which might mitigate the harshness of thejudgment that is passed upon her. This woman is Marie Louise, Empressof France, consort of the great Napoleon, and archduchess of imperialAustria. When the most brilliant figure in all history, after hisoverthrow in 1814, was in tawdry exile on the petty island of Elba,the empress was already about to become a mother; and the father of herunborn child was not Napoleon, but another man. This is almost all thatis usually remembered of her--that she was unfaithful to Napoleon, thatshe abandoned him in the hour of his defeat, and that she gave herselfwith readiness to one inferior in rank, yet with whom she lived foryears, and to whom she bore what a French writer styled "a brood ofbastards."
Naturally enough, the Austrian and German historians do not have muchto say of Marie Louise, because in her own disgrace she also broughtdisgrace upon the proudest reigning family in Europe. Naturally, also,French writers, even those who are hostile to Napoleon, do not careto dwell upon the story; since France itself was humiliated when itsgreatest genius and most splendid soldier was deceived by his Austrianwife. Therefore there are still many who know little beyond the barefact that the Empress Marie Louise threw away her pride as a princess,her reputation as a wife, and her honor as a woman. Her figure seems tocrouch in a sort of murky byway, and those who pass over the highroad ofhistory ignore it with averted eyes.
In reality the story of Napoleon and Marie Louise and of the Count vonNeipperg is one which, when you search it to the very core, leads youstraight to a sex problem of a very curious nature. Nowhere else doesit occur in the relations of the great personages of history; but inliterature Balzac, that master of psychology, has touched upon the themein the early chapters of his famous novel called "A Woman of Thirty."
As to the Napoleonic story, let us first recall the facts of thecase, giving them in such order that their full significance may beunderstood.
In 1809 Napoleon, then at the plenitude of his power, shook himself freefrom the clinging clasp of Josephine and procured the annulment of hismarriage to her. He really owed her nothing. Before he knew her she hadbeen the mistress of another. In the first years of their life togethershe had been notoriously unfaithful to him. He had held to her fromhabit which was in part a superstition but the remembrance of the wrongwhich she had done him made her faded charms at times almost repulsive.And then Josephine had never borne him any children; and without ason to perpetuate his dynasty, the gigantic achievements which hehad wrought seemed futile in his eyes, and likely to crumble intonothingness when he should die.
No sooner had the marriage been annulled than his titanic ambitionleaped, as it always did, to a tremendous pinnacle. He would wed. Hewould have children. But he would wed no petty princess. This man who inhis early youth had felt honored by a marriage with the almost declasseewidow of a creole planter now stretched out his hand that he might taketo himself a woman not merely royal but imperial.
At first he sought the sister of the Czar of Russia; but Alexanderentertained a profound distrust of the French emperor, and managed toevade the tentative demand. There was, however, a reigning family farmore ancient than the Romanoffs--a family which had held the imperialdignity for nearly six centuries--the oldest and the noblest blood inEurope. This was the Austrian house of Hapsburg. Its head, the EmperorFrancis, had thirteen children, of whom the eldest, the ArchduchessMarie Louise, was then in her nineteenth year.
Napoleon had resented the rebuff which the Czar had given him. Heturned, therefore, the more eagerly to the other project. Yet there weremany reasons why an Austrian marriage might be dangerous, or, at anyrate, ill-omened. Only sixteen years before, an Austrian arch-duchess,Marie Antionette, married to the ruler of France, had met her deathupon the scaffold, hated and cursed by the French people, who had alwaysblamed "the Austrian" for the evil days which had ended in the flamesof revolution. Again, the father of the girl to whom Napoleon's fancyturned had been the bitter enemy of the new regime in France. His troopshad been beaten by the French in five wars and had been crushed atAusterlitz and at Wagram. Bonaparte had twice entered Vienna at the headof a conquering army, and thrice he had slept in the imperial palaceat Schonbrunn, while Francis was fleeing through the dark, a beatenfugitive pursued by the swift squadrons of French cavalry.
The feeling of Francis of Austria was not merely that of the vanquishedtoward the victor. It was a deep hatred almost religious in its fervor.He was the head and front of the old-time feudalism of birth and blood;Napoleon was the incarnation of the modern spirit which demolishedthrones and set an iron heel upon crowned heads, giving the sacredtitles of king and prince to soldiers who, even in palaces, still showedthe swaggering brutality of the camp and the stable whence they sprang.Yet, just because an alliance with the Austrian house seemed in so manyways impossible, the thought of it inflamed the ardor of Napoleon allthe more.
"Impossible?" he had once said, contemptuously. "The word 'impossible'is not French."
The Austrian alliance, unnatural though it seemed, was certainly quitepossible. In the year 1809 Napoleon had finished his fifth war withAustria by the terrific battle of Wagram, which brought the empire ofthe Hapsburgs to the very dust. The conqueror's rude hand had strippedfrom Francis province after province. He had even let fall hints thatthe Hapsburgs might be dethroned and that Austria might disappear fromthe map of Europe, to be divided between himself and the Russian Czar,who was still his ally. It was at this psychological moment that theCzar wounded Napoleon's pride by refusing to give the hand of his sisterAnne.
The subtle diplomats of Vienna immediately saw their chance.Prince Metternich, with the caution of one who enters the cage of aman-eating-tiger, suggested that the Austrian archduchess would be afitting bride for the French conqueror. The notion soothed the woundedvanity of Napoleon. From that moment events moved swiftly; and beforelong it was understood that there was to be a new empress in France, andthat she was to be none other than the daughter of the man who had beenNapoleon's most persistent foe upon the Continent. The girl was to begiven--sacrificed, if you like--to appease an imperial adventurer. Aftersuch a marriage, Austria would be safe from spoliation. The reigningdynasty would remain firmly seated upon its historic throne.
But how about the girl herself? She had always heard Napoleon spoken ofas a sort of ogre--a man of low ancestry, a brutal and faithless enemyof her people. She knew that this bold, rough-spoken soldier less than ayear before had added insult to the injury which he had inflicted onher father. In public proclamations he had called the Emperor Francis acoward and a liar. Up to the latter part of the year Napoleon was toher imagination a blood-stained, sordid, and yet all-powerful monster,outside the pale of human liking and respect. What must have been herthoughts when her father first told her with averted face that she wasto become the bride of such a being?
Marie Louise had been brought up, as all German girls of rank were thenbrought up, in quiet simplicity and utter innocence. In person she wasa tall blonde, with a wealth of light brown hair tumbling about a facewhich might be called attractive because it was so youthful and sogentle, but in which only poets and courtiers could see beauty. Hercomplexion was rosy, with that peculiar tinge which means that in thecourse of time it will become red and mottled. Her blue eyes were clearand childish. Her figure was good, though already too full for a girlwho was younger than her years.
She had a large and generous mouth with full lips, the lower onebeing the true "Hapsburg lip," slightly pendulous--a feature which hasremained for generation after generation as a sure sign of Hapsburgblood. One sees it in the present emperor of Austria, in the late QueenRegent of Spain, and in the present King of Spain, Alfonso. All theartists who made miniatures or paintings of Marie Louise softened downthis racial mark so that no likeness of her shows it as it really was.But take her all in all, she was a simple, childlike, German madchenwho knew n
othing of the outside world except what she had heard from herdiscreet and watchful governess, and what had been told her of Napoleonby her uncles, the archdukes whom he had beaten down in battle.
When she learned that she was to be given to the French emperor hergirlish soul experienced a shudder; but her father told her how vitalwas this union to her country and to him. With a sort of piteous dreadshe questioned the archdukes who had called Napoleon an ogre.
"Oh, that was when Napoleon was an enemy," they replied. "Now he is ourfriend."
Marie Louise listened to all this, and, like the obedient German girlshe was, yielded her own will.
Events moved with a rush, for Napoleon was not the man to dally.Josephine had retired to her residence at Malmaison, and Paris wasalready astir with preparations for the new empress who was to assurethe continuation of the Napoleonic glory by giving children to herhusband. Napoleon had said to his ambassador with his usual bluntness:
"This is the first and most important thing--she must have children."
To the girl whom he was to marry he sent the following letter--an oddletter, combining the formality of a negotiator with the veiled ardor ofa lover:
MY COUSIN: The brilliant qualities which adorn your person have inspiredin me a desire to serve you and to pay you homage. In making my requestto the emperor, your father, and praying him to intrust to me thehappiness of your imperial highness, may I hope that you will understandthe sentiments which lead me to this act? May I flatter myself that itwill not be decided solely by the duty of parental obedience? Howeverslightly the feelings of your imperial highness may incline to me, Iwish to cultivate them with so great care, and to endeavor so constantlyto please you in everything, that I flatter myself that some day I shallprove attractive to you. This is the end at which I desire to arrive,and for which I pray your highness to be favorable to me.
Immediately everything was done to dazzle the imagination of the girl.She had dressed always in the simplicity of the school-room. Her onlyornaments had been a few colored stones which she sometimes wore as anecklace or a bracelet. Now the resources of all France were drawn upon.Precious laces foamed about her. Cascades of diamonds flashed before hereyes. The costliest and most exquisite creations of the Parisian shopswere spread around her to make up a trousseau fit for the princess whowas soon to become the bride of the man who had mastered continentalEurope.
The archives of Vienna were ransacked for musty documents which wouldshow exactly what had been done for other Austrian princesses who hadmarried rulers of France. Everything was duplicated down to the lastdetail. Ladies-in-waiting thronged about the young archduchess; andpresently there came to her Queen Caroline of Naples, Napoleon's sister,of whom Napoleon himself once said: "She is the only man among mysisters, as Joseph is the only woman among my brothers." Caroline, byvirtue of her rank as queen, could have free access to her husband'sfuture bride. Also, there came presently Napoleon's famous marshal,Berthier, Prince of Neuchatel, the chief of the Old Guard, who had justbeen created Prince of Wagram--a title which, very naturally, he did notuse in Austria. He was to act as proxy for Napoleon in the preliminarymarriage service at Vienna.
All was excitement. Vienna had never been so gay. Money was lavishedunder the direction of Caroline and Berthier. There were illuminationsand balls. The young girl found herself the center of the world'sinterest; and the excitement made her dizzy. She could not but beflattered, and yet there were many hours when her heart misgave her.More than once she was found in tears. Her father, an affectionatethough narrow soul, spent an entire day with her consoling andreassuring her. One thought she always kept in mind--what she had saidto Metternich at the very first: "I want only what my duty bids mewant." At last came the official marriage, by proxy, in the presence ofa splendid gathering. The various documents were signed, the dowry wasarranged for. Gifts were scattered right and left. At the operathere were gala performances. Then Marie Louise bade her father a sadfarewell. Almost suffocated by sobs and with her eyes streaming withtears, she was led between two hedges of bayonets to her carriage, whilecannon thundered and all the church-bells of Vienna rang a joyful peal.
She set out for France accompanied by a long train of carriages filledwith noblemen and noblewomen, with ladies-in-waiting and scores ofattendant menials. The young bride--the wife of a man whom she had neverseen--was almost dead with excitement and fatigue. At a station in theoutskirts of Vienna she scribbled a few lines to her father, which are acommentary upon her state of mind:
I think of you always, and I always shall. God has given me power toendure this final shock, and in Him alone I have put all my trust. Hewill help me and give me courage, and I shall find support in doing myduty toward you, since it is all for you that I have sacrificed myself.
There is something piteous in this little note of a frightened girlgoing to encounter she knew not what, and clinging almost franticallyto the one thought--that whatever might befall her, she was doing as herfather wished.
One need not recount the long and tedious journey of many days overwretched roads, in carriages that jolted and lurched and swayed. She wassurrounded by unfamiliar faces and was compelled to meet at every townthe chief men of the place, all of whom paid her honor, but stared ather with irrepressible curiosity. Day after day she went on and on. Eachmorning a courier on a foaming horse presented her with a great clusterof fresh flowers and a few lines scrawled by the unknown husband who wasto meet her at her journey's end.
There lay the point upon which her wandering thoughts were focused--thejourney's end! The man whose strange, mysterious power had forced herfrom her school-room, had driven her through a nightmare of strangehappenings, and who was waiting for her somewhere to take her tohimself, to master her as he had mastered generals and armies!
What was marriage? What did it mean? What experience still lay beforeher! These were the questions which she must have asked herselfthroughout that long, exhausting journey. When she thought of the pastshe was homesick. When she thought of the immediate future she wasfearful with a shuddering fear.
At last she reached the frontier of France, and her carriage passed intoa sort of triple structure, the first pavilion of which was Austrian,while the middle pavilion was neutral, and the farther one was French.Here she was received by those who were afterward to surround her--therepresentatives of the Napoleonic court. They were not all plebeians andchildren of the Revolution, ex-stable boys, ex-laundresses. By this timeNapoleon had gathered around himself some of the noblest families ofFrance, who had rallied to the empire. The assemblage was a brilliantone. There were Montmorencys and Beaumonts and Audenardes in abundance.But to Marie Louise, as to her Austrian attendants, they were all alike.They were French, they were strangers, and she shrank from them.
Yet here her Austrians must leave her. All who had accompanied her thusfar were now turned back. Napoleon had been insistent on this point.Even her governess, who had been with her since her childhood, was notallowed to cross the French frontier. So fixed was Napoleon's purposeto have nothing Austrian about her, that even her pet dog, to whichshe clung as a girl would cling, was taken from her. Thereafter she wassurrounded only by French faces, by French guards, and was greeted onlyby salvos of French artillery.
In the mean time what was Napoleon doing at Paris. Since the annulmentof his marriage with Josephine he had gone into a sort of retirement.Matters of state, war, internal reforms, no longer interested him; butthat restless brain could not sink into repose. Inflamed with the ardorof a new passion, that passion was all the greater because he hadnever yet set eyes upon its object. Marriage with an imperial princessflattered his ambition. The youth and innocence of the bride stirred hiswhole being with a thrill of novelty. The painted charms of Josephine,the mercenary favors of actresses, the calculated ecstasies of the womenof the court who gave themselves to him from vanity, had long sincepalled upon him. Therefore the impatience with which he awaited thecoming of Marie Louise became every day more tense.
Fo
r a time he amused himself with planning down to the very last detailsthe demonstrations that were to be given in her honor. He organizedthem as minutely as he had ever organized a conquering army. He showedhimself as wonderful in these petty things as he had in those greatstrategic combinations which had baffled the ablest generals ofEurope. But after all had been arranged--even to the illuminations, thecheering, the salutes, and the etiquette of the court--he fell into afever of impatience which gave him sleepless nights and frantic days. Hepaced up and down the Tuileries, almost beside himself. He hurried offcourier after courier with orders that the postilions should lash theirhorses to bring the hour of meeting nearer still. He scribbled loveletters. He gazed continually on the diamond-studded portrait of thewoman who was hurrying toward him.
At last as the time approached he entered a swift traveling-carriage andhastened to Compiegne, about fifty miles from Paris, where it had beenarranged that he should meet his consort and whence he was to escort herto the capital, so that they might be married in the great galleryof the Louvre. At Compiegne the chancellerie had been set apart forNapoleon's convenience, while the chateau had been assigned to MarieLouise and her attendants. When Napoleon's carriage dashed into theplace, drawn by horses that had traveled at a gallop, the emperor couldnot restrain himself. It was raining torrents and night was comingon, yet, none the less, he shouted for fresh horses and pushed on toSoissons, where the new empress was to stop and dine. When he reachedthere and she had not arrived, new relays of horses were demanded, andhe hurried off once more into the dark.
At the little village of Courcelles he met the courier who was riding inadvance of the empress's cortege.
"She will be here in a few moments!" cried Napoleon and he leaped fromhis carriage into the highway.
The rain descended harder than ever, and he took refuge in the archeddoorway of the village church, his boots already bemired, his great coatreeking with the downpour. As he crouched before the church he heard thesound of carriages; and before long there came toiling through themud the one in which was seated the girl for whom he had so long beenwaiting. It was stopped at an order given by an officer. Within it,half-fainting with fatigue and fear, Marie Louise sat in the dark,alone.
Here, if ever, was the chance for Napoleon to win his bride. Could hehave restrained himself, could he have shown the delicate considerationwhich was demanded of him, could he have remembered at least that he wasan emperor and that the girl--timid and shuddering--was a princess, herfuture story might have been far different. But long ago he had ceasedto think of anything except his own desires.
He approached the carriage. An obsequious chamberlain drew aside theleathern covering and opened the door, exclaiming as he did so, "Theemperor!" And then there leaped in the rain-soaked, mud-bespatteredbeing whose excesses had always been as unbridled as his genius. Thedoor was closed, the leathern curtain again drawn, and the horses setout at a gallop for Soissons. Within, the shrinking bride was at themercy of pure animal passion, feeling upon her hot face a torrent ofrough kisses, and yielding herself in terror to the caresses of wantonhands.
At Soissons Napoleon allowed no halt, but the carriage plunged on, stillin the rain, to Compiegne. There all the arrangements made with so muchcare were thrust aside. Though the actual marriage had not yet takenplace, Napoleon claimed all the rights which afterward were given in theceremonial at Paris. He took the girl to the chancellerie, and not tothe chateau. In an anteroom dinner was served with haste to the imperialpair and Queen Caroline. Then the latter was dismissed with littleceremony, the lights were extinguished, and this daughter of a line ofemperors was left to the tender mercies of one who always had about himsomething of the common soldier--the man who lives for loot and lust....At eleven the next morning she was unable to rise and was served in bedby the ladies of her household.
These facts, repellent as they are, must be remembered when we callto mind what happened in the next five years. The horror of that nightcould not be obliterated by splendid ceremonies, by studious attention,or by all the pomp and gaiety of the court. Napoleon was thenforty-one--practically the same age as his new wife's father, theAustrian emperor; Marie Louise was barely nineteen and younger than heryears. Her master must have seemed to be the brutal ogre whom her uncleshad described.
Installed in the Tuileries, she taught herself compliance. On theirmarriage night Napoleon had asked her briefly: "What did your parentstell you?" And she had answered, meekly: "To be yours altogether and toobey you in everything." But, though she gave compliance, and though herfreshness seemed enchanting to Napoleon, there was something concealedwithin her thoughts to which he could not penetrate. He gaily said to amember of the court:
"Marry a German, my dear fellow. They are the best women in theworld--gentle, good, artless, and as fresh as roses."
Yet, at the same time, Napoleon felt a deep anxiety lest in her veryheart of hearts this German girl 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 theempress. 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 was closeted with the empress for a long while. When hereturned to the ante-room he found Napoleon fidgeting about, his eyes apair of interrogation-points.
"I am sure," he said, "that the empress told you that I was kind toher?"
Metternich bowed and made no answer.
"Well," said Napoleon, somewhat impatiently, "at least I am sure thatshe is happy. Tell me, did she not say so?"
The Austrian diplomat remained unsmiling.
"Your majesty himself has forbidden me to answer," he returned withanother bow.
We may fairly draw the inference that Marie Louise, though she adaptedherself to her surroundings, was never really happy. Napoleon becameinfatuated with her. He surrounded her with every possible mark ofhonor. He abandoned public business to walk or drive with her. But thememory of his own brutality must have vaguely haunted him throughout itall. He was jealous of her as he had never been jealous of the fickleJosephine. Constant has recorded that the greatest precautions weretaken to prevent any person whatsoever, and especially any man, fromapproaching the empress save in the presence of witnesses.
Napoleon himself underwent a complete change of habits and demeanor.Where he had been rough and coarse he became attentive and refined. Hisshabby uniforms were all discarded, and he spent hours in trying on newcostumes. He even attempted to learn to waltz, but this he gave up indespair. Whereas before he ate hastily and at irregular intervals,he now sat at dinner with unusual patience, and the court took on acharacter which it had never had. Never before had he sacrificed eitherhis public duty or his private pleasure for any woman. Even in the firstardor of his marriage with Josephine, when he used to pour out his heartto her in letters from Italian battle-fields, he did so only after hehad made the disposition of his troops and had planned his movementsfor the following day. Now, however, he was not merely devoted, butuxorious; and in 1811, after the birth of the little King of Rome, heceased to be the earlier Napoleon altogether. He had founded a dynasty.He was the head of a reigning house. He forgot the principles of theRevolution, and he ruled, as he thought, like other monarchs, by thegrace of God.
As for Marie Louise, she played her part extremely well. Somewhathaughty and unapproachable to others, she nevertheless studiedNapoleon's every wish. She seemed even to be loving; but one canscarcely doubt that her obedience sprang ultimately from fear andthat her devotion was the devotion of a dog which has been beaten intosubjection.
Her vanity was flattered in many ways, and most of all by herappointment as regent of the empire during Napoleon's absence in thedisastrous Russian campaign which began in 1812. It was in June of thatyear that the French emperor held court at Dresden, where he played,as was said, to "a parterre of kings." This was the climax of hismagnificence, for there were gath
ered all the sovereigns and princes whowere his allies and who furnished the levies that swelled his Grand Armyto six hundred thousand men. Here Marie Louise, like her husband, feltto the full the intoxication of supreme power. By a sinister coincidenceit was here that she first met the other man, then unnoticed and littleheeded, who was to cast upon her a fascination which in the end provedirresistible.
This man was Adam Albrecht, Count von Neipperg. There is somethingmysterious about his early years, and something baleful about his silentwarfare with Napoleon. As a very young soldier he had been an Austrianofficer in 1793. His command served in Belgium; and there, in askirmish, he was overpowered by the French in superior numbers, butresisted desperately. In the melee a saber slashed him across the rightside of his face, and he was made prisoner. The wound deprived him ofhis right eye, so that for the rest of his life he was compelled to weara black bandage to conceal the mutilation.
From that moment he conceived an undying hatred of the French, servingagainst them in the Tyrol and in Italy. He always claimed that had theArchduke Charles followed his advice, the Austrians would have forcedNapoleon's army to capitulate at Marengo, thus bringing early eclipseto the rising star of Bonaparte. However this may be, Napoleon's successenraged Neipperg and made his hatred almost the hatred of a fiend.
Hitherto he had detested the French as a nation. Afterward heconcentrated his malignity upon the person of Napoleon. In every way hetried to cross the path of that great soldier, and, though Neipperg wascomparatively an unknown man, his indomitable purpose and his continuedintrigues at last attracted the notice of the emperor; for in 1808Napoleon wrote this significant sentence:
The Count von Neipperg is openly known to have been the enemy of theFrench.
Little did the great conqueror dream how deadly was the blow which thisAustrian count was destined finally to deal him!
Neipperg, though his title was not a high one, belonged to the oldnobility of Austria. He had proved his bravery in war and as a duelist,and he was a diplomat as well as a soldier. Despite his mutilation, hewas a handsome and accomplished courtier, a man of wide experience, andone who bore himself in a manner which suggested the spirit of romance.According to Masson, he was an Austrian Don Juan, and had won the heartsof many women. At thirty he had formed a connection with an Italianwoman named Teresa Pola, whom he had carried away from her husband. Shehad borne him five children; and in 1813 he had married her in orderthat these children might be made legitimate.
In his own sphere the activity of Neipperg was almost as remarkable asNapoleon's in a greater one. Apart from his exploits on the field ofbattle he had been attached to the Austrian embassy in Paris, and,strangely enough, had been decorated by Napoleon himself with, thegolden eagle of the Legion of Honor. Four months later we find himminister of Austria at the court of Sweden, where he helped to lay thetrain of intrigue which was to detach Bernadotte from Napoleon's cause.In 1812, as has just been said, he was with Marie Louise for a shorttime at Dresden, hovering about her, already forming schemes. Two yearsafter this he overthrew Murat at Naples; and then hurried on post-hasteto urge Prince Eugene to abandon Bonaparte.
When the great struggle of 1814 neared its close, and Napoleon, fightingwith his back to the wall, was about to succumb to the united armies ofEurope, it was evident that the Austrian emperor would soon be able toseparate his daughter from her husband. In fact, when Napoleon was sentto Elba, Marie Louise returned to Vienna. The cynical Austrian diplomatsresolved that she should never again meet her imperial husband. She wasmade Duchess of Parma in Italy, and set out for her new possessions; andthe man with the black band across his sightless eye was chosen to beher escort and companion.
When Neipperg received this commission he was with Teresa Pola at Milan.A strange smile flitted across his face; and presently he remarked, withcynical frankness:
"Before six months I shall be her lover, and, later on, her husband."
He took up his post as chief escort of Marie Louise, and they journeyedslowly to Munich and Baden and Geneva, loitering on the way. Amid thegreat events which were shaking Europe this couple attracted slightattention. Napoleon, in Elba, longed for his wife and for his littleson, the King of Rome. He sent countless messages and many couriers; butevery message was intercepted, and no courier reached his destination.Meanwhile Marie Louise was lingering agreeably in Switzerland. She washappy to have escaped from the whirlpool of politics and war. Amid theromantic scenery through which she passed Neipperg was always by herside, attentive, devoted, trying in everything to please her. With himshe passed delightful evenings. He sang to her in his rich barytonesongs of love. He seemed romantic with a touch of mystery, a gallantsoldier whose soul was also touched by sentiment.
One would have said that Marie Louise, the daughter of an imperialline, would have been proof against the fascinations of a person so farinferior to herself in rank, and who, beside the great emperor, was lessthan nothing. Even granting that she had never really loved Napoleon,she might still have preferred to maintain her dignity, to share hisfate, and to go down in history as the empress of the greatest man whommodern times have known.
But Marie Louise was, after all, a woman, and she followed the guidanceof her heart. To her Napoleon was still the man who had met her amid therain-storm at Courcelles, and had from the first moment when he touchedher violated all the instincts of a virgin. Later he had in his waytried to make amends; but the horror of that first night had neverwholly left her memory. Napoleon had unrolled before her the drama ofsensuality, but her heart had not been given to him. She had been hisempress. In a sense it might be more true to say that she had beenhis mistress. But she had never been duly wooed and won and made hiswife--an experience which is the right of every woman. And so thisNeipperg, with his deferential manners, his soothing voice, his magnetictouch, his ardor, and his devotion, appeased that craving which themaster of a hundred legions could not satisfy.
In less than the six months of which Neipperg had spoken thepsychological moment had arrived. In the dim twilight she listened tohis words of love; and then, drawn by that irresistible power whichmasters pride and woman's will, she sank into her lover's arms, yieldingto his caresses, and knowing that she would be parted from him no moreexcept by death.
From that moment he was bound to her by the closest ties and lived withher at the petty court of Parma. His prediction came true to the veryletter. Teresa Pola died, and then Napoleon died, and after this MarieLouise and Neipperg were united in a morganatic marriage. Three childrenwere born to them before his death in 1829.
It is interesting to note how much of an impression was made upon her bythe final exile of her imperial husband to St. Helena. When the news wasbrought 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, on his side, passed through agonies of doubt and longing whenno letters came to him from Marie Louise. She was constantly in histhoughts during his exile at St. Helena. "When his faithful friend andconstant companion at St. Helena, the Count Las Casas, was ordered bySir Hudson Lowe to depart from St. Helena, Napoleon wrote to him:
"Should you see, some day, my wife and son, embrace them. For two yearsI have, neither directly nor indirectly, heard from them. There has beenon this island for six months a German botanist, who has seen themin the garden of Schoenbrunn a few months before his departure.The barbarians (meaning the English authorities at St. Helena) havecarefully prevented him from coming to give me any news respectingthem."
At last the truth was told him, and he received it with that highmagnanimity, or it may be fatalism, which at times he was capable ofshowing. Never in all his days of exile did he say one word against her.Possibly in searching his own soul he found excuses such as we may find.In his will he spoke of her with great affection, and shortly before hisdeath he said to his physician, Antommarchi:
"After my death, I desire that you will take my
heart, put it in thespirits 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 ceasedto love her. You will relate to her all that you have seen, and everyparticular respecting my situation and death."
The story of Marie Louise is pathetic, almost tragic. There is the taintof grossness about it; and yet, after all, there is a lesson in it--thelesson that true love cannot be forced or summoned at command, that itis destroyed before its birth by outrage, and that it goes out only whenevoked by sympathy, by tenderness, and by devotion.
END OF VOLUME TWO