The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0004/00046.txt

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$Title{Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Chapter XIII}
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$Author{Tarbell, Ida M.}
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$Subject{napoleon
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$Date{1906}
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Title:       Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Book:        Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte
Author:      Tarbell, Ida M.
Date:        1906

Chapter XIII

Extension Of Napoleon's Empire - Family Affairs

     Napoleon's influence in Europe was now at its zenith.  He was literally
"king of kings," as he was popularly called, and the Bonaparte family was
rapidly displacing the Bourbon.  Joseph had been made King of Naples in 1806.
Eliza was Princess of Lucques and Piombino.  Louis, married to Hortense, had
been King of Holland since 1806.  Pauline had been the Princess Borghese since
1803; Caroline, the wife of Murat, was Grand Duchess of Cleves and Berg;
Jerome was King of Westphalia; Eugene de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, was
married to a princess of Bavaria.

     The members of Napoleon's family were elevated only on condition that
they act strictly in accordance with his plans.  They must marry so as to
cement the ties necessary to his kingdom.  They must arrange their time, form
their friendships, spend their money, as it best served the interests of his
great scheme of conquest.  The interior affairs of their kingdoms were in
reality centralized in his hands as perfectly as those of France. He watched
the private and public conduct of his kings and nobles, and criticised them
with absolute frankness and extraordinary common sense. The ground on which he
protected them is well explained in the following letter, written in January,
1806, to Count Miot de Melito:

          "You are going to rejoin my brother.  You will tell him that I have
     made him King of Naples; that he will continue to be Grand Elector, and
     that nothing will be changed as regards his relations with France.  But
     impress upon him that the least hesitation, the slightest wavering, will
     ruin him entirely.  I have another person in my mind who will replace him
     should he refuse. . . .  At present all feelings of affection yield to
     state reasons.  I recognize only those who serve me as relations.  My
     fortune is not attached to the name of Bonaparte, but to that of Napoleon.
     It is with my fingers and with my pen that I make children.  To-day I can
     love only those whom I esteem.  Joseph must forget all our ties of
     childhood.  Let him make himself esteemed.  Let him acquire glory.  Let
     him have a leg broken in battle.  Then I shall esteem him.  Let him give
     up his old ideas.  Let him not dread fatigue.  Look at me: the campaign I
     have just terminated, the movement, the excitement, have made me stout.  I
     believe that if all the kings of Europe were to coalesce against me, I
     should have a ridiculous paunch."

     Joseph, bent on being a great king, boasted now and then to Napoleon of
his position in Naples.  His brother never failed to silence him with the
truth, if it was blunt and hard to digest.

          "When you talk about the fifty thousand enemies of the queen, you
     make me laugh. . . .  You exaggerate the degree of hatred which the queen
     has left behind at Naples: you do not know mankind.  There are not twenty
     persons who hate her as you suppose, and there are not twenty persons who
     would not surrender to one of her smiles.  The strongest feeling of hatred
     on the part of a nation is that inspired by another nation.  Your fifty
     thousand men are the enemies of the French."

     With Jerome, Napoleon had been particularly incensed because of his
marriage with Miss Patterson.  In 1804 he wrote of that affair:

          ". . . Jerome is wrong to think that he will be able to count upon
     any weakness on my part, for, not having the rights of a father, I cannot
     entertain for him the feeling of a father; a father allows himself to be
     blinded, and it pleases him to be blinded because he identifies his son
     with himself. . . .  But what am I to Jerome?  Sole instrument of my
     destiny, I owe nothing to my brothers.  They have made an abundant harvest
     out of what I have accomplished in the way of glory; but for all that,
     they must not abandon the field and deprive me of the aid I have a right
     to expect from them.  They will cease to be anything for me, directly they
     take a road opposed to mine.  If I exact so much from my brothers who have
     already rendered many services, if I have abandoned the one who, in mature
     age [Lucien], refused to follow my advice, what must not Jerome, who is
     still young, and who is known only for his neglect of duty, expect?  If he
     does nothing for me, I shall see in this the decree of destiny, which has
     decided that I shall do nothing for him. . . ."

     Jerome yielded later to his brother's wishes, and in 1807 was rewarded
with the new kingdom of Westphalia.  Napoleon kept close watch of him,
however, and his letters are full of admirable counsels.  The following is
particularly valuable, showing, as it does, that Napoleon believed a
government would be popular and enduring only in proportion to the liberty and
prosperity it gave the citizens.

          "What the German peoples desire with impatience [he told Jerome], is
     that persons who are not of noble birth, and who have talents, shall have
     an equal right to your consideration and to public employment (with those
     who are of noble birth); that every sort of servitude and of intermediate
     obligations between the sovereign and the lowest class of the people
     should be entirely abolished.  The benefits of the Code Napoleon, the
     publicity of legal procedure, the establishment of the jury system, will
     be the distinctive characteristics of your monarchy. . . .  I count more
     on the effect of these benefits for the extension and strengthening of
     your kingdom, than upon the result of the greatest victories.  Your people
     ought to enjoy a liberty, an equality, a well-being, unknown to the German
     peoples. . . .  What people would wish to return to the arbitrary
     government of Prussia, when it has tasted the benefits of a wise and
     liberal administration?  The peoples of Germany, France, Italy, Spain,
     desire equality, and demand that liberal ideas should prevail. . . .  Be a
     constitutional king."

     Louis in Holland was never a king to Napoleon's mind.  He especially
disliked his quarrels with his wife.  In 1807 Napoleon wrote Louis, apropos of
his domestic relations, a letter which is a good example of scores of others
he sent to one and another of his kings and princes about their private
affairs.

          "You govern that country too much like a Capuchin.  The goodness of a
     king should be full of majesty. . . .  A king orders, and asks nothing
     from any one. . . .  When people say of a king that he is good, his reign
     is a failure. . . .   Your quarrels with the queen are known to the
     public.  You should exhibit at home that paternal and effeminate character
     you show in your manner of governing. . . .  You treat a young wife as you
     would command a regiment.  Distrust the people by whom you are surrounded;
     they are nobles. . . .  You have the best and most virtuous of wives, and
     you render her miserable.  Allow her to dance as much as she likes; it is
     in keeping with her age.  I have a wife who is forty years of age; from
     the field of battle I write to her to go to balls, and you wish a young
     woman of twenty to live in a cloister, or, like a nurse, to be always
     washing her children. . . .  Render the mother of your children happy.
     You have only one way of doing so, by showing her esteem and confidence.
     Unfortunately you have a wife who is too virtuous: if you had a coquette,
     she would lead you by the n