The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0006/00061.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00061}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Chapter V}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tarbell, Ida M.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{napoleon
josephine
hortense
emperor
time
louis
succession
bonaparte
crown
josephine's}
$Date{1906}
$Log{}
Title:       Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Book:        Life Of Josephine
Author:      Tarbell, Ida M.
Date:        1906

Chapter V

The Question Of Succession - Marriage Of Hortense - Josephine Empress Of The
French People - The Coronation

     The first real threat to Josephine's position came in a political
question.  In order to give an appearance of stability to the new government,
it was proposed to give the First Consul the right to appoint a successor.
But if Napoleon had this right, would he not wish for a son upon whom to
confer it, would he not desire to establish a hereditary office?  Josephine
had given him no children.  He was only thirty-one; might he not, in spite of
all his affection, divorce her for the sake of this succession, which, he
declared, was essential to the future of the Consulate.  Josephine turned all
her power of cajoling upon Napoleon.  "Do not make yourself king," she begged;
and when he laughed at her, and told her that securing to himself the right to
appoint a successor in the Consulate was nothing of that sort - only a device
to prevent the overthrow of the government in case of his absence at the head
of the army, or in case of his sudden death, she was not convinced.  She
began, indeed, to talk of the advisability of bringing back the Bourbons, and
called herself a royalist.

     Napoleon's decision was taken, however.  He must appoint a successor, and
it should be one of his own family.  But which one?  Joseph had no head for
affairs.  With Lucien he had quarreled.  But there was Louis, who had none of
his brothers' faults and all of their good qualities.  Louis it should be.
The knowledge that Napoleon undoubtedly favored Louis as his successor
determined Josephine to arrange a marriage between him and her daughter
Hortense.

     At this time, 1800, Hortense was seventeen years old, though the
exceptional experiences of her childhood had given her a thoughtfulness quite
superior to her years.  She had been but ten when her mother, lest a suspicion
of her patriotism might be roused because she brought up her children in
idleness, had apprenticed her to a dressmaker.  She was but eleven years old
when her parents were imprisoned, and when in the costumes of laborers'
children she and Eugene had made frequent visits to les Carmes and had gone
together more than once to beg of persons in authority for the lives of their
father and mother.  After the Revolution, Hortense had been placed in Mme.
Campan's school at St. Germain - a school established to give the young girls
of the better class whose parents had been scattered or guillotined in the
Revolution, an opportunity to learn the ways and the graces of that society
which for so long the patriots had been trying to uproot.  At Mme. Campan's,
Hortense had distinguished herself by her gentleness and her goodness, by the
quickness with which she learned everything taught, and by her enthusiasm and
ideals.  She had left the school a thoroughly charming and accomplished girl,
to join her mother, now the wife of the First Consul.  She had all of
Josephine's charms of person, her grace and suppleness, her beautiful form,
her interesting and mobile face; but she was more vivacious than Josephine and
more intelligent.  As for her accomplishments, they were many.  She played the
piano and the harp, and sang well.  Her drawing and embroidery were not bad,
as many specimens still preserved show.  She danced with exquisite grace; she,
even at this time, had literary aspirations, and she was the star of the
company which put on so many pieces at the little theatre at Malmaison.

     Hortense was a favorite of Napoleon.  He had loved her first because she
was Josephine's daughter.  After she left school and was constantly of the
household, he grew more and more attached to her, more and more anxious for
her happiness.  Hortense, though she never ceased to fear Napoleon, loved him
with the enthusiasm of a young girl for a conquering hero.  She seems never to
have questioned his will - never to have doubted his affection for her.

     Hortense's marriage was, of course, an important question with the
Bonapartes, and various suitors had been considered.  The girl herself was not
ambitious.  Neither wealth nor station obscured her judgment.  She wanted to
marry for love, she declared.  At one time she had a strong feeling for Duroc,
and Napoleon favored the marriage strongly.  Duroc was of good family and a
brave soldier, and Hortense loved him; what better? Josephine opposed it.  She
had set her heart on Louise Bonaparte, in spite of the fact that Hortense felt
something like an antipathy to the young man.  Louis himself did not take to
the marriage at first.  He had imbibed from his mother and brothers the idea
that the Beauharnais were the natural enemies of the Bonapartes, and a
marriage with Hortense they all declared, would be disloyal.  However, in
September, 1801, when Louis returned to Paris after several months absence and
saw Hortense at a ball, he was so impressed by her charm that he yielded at
once to Josephine's wishes, and asked for her hand.  Napoleon consented with a
little regret; Hortense obeyed as a matter of duty, urged to it as she was
both by her mother and Mme. Campan.  The marriage took place early in January,
1802. It was a victory for Josephine over the Bonapartes, so her friends said,
and so the Bonapartes felt bitterly.  But, alas, it was a victory for which
Hortense paid the price.  Before the end of the year, it was evident that Mme.
Louis Bonaparte was very unhappy; her husband was jealous and exacting, and
constantly tried to turn her against her mother in the family feud.  Not even
the birth of a son, in October, silenced his grievances for long, though to
Napoleon and to Josephine the coming of the little Napoleon-Charles, as he was
named, was an inexpressible joy.  To Josephine the child was a new support to
her position, a new reason why a succession could be established without
divorcing her and re-marrying.  It was a succession through her, too, since
this was her daughter's child.

     Napoleon himself soon became more devoted to the child than its father
ever was.  In a way, his own ardent desire for fatherhood was satisfied by the
presence of the baby, which he kept by him as much as he could, riding it on
his back, trotting it on his foot, rolling with it on the floor, lying beside
it at night until it slept - a touching proof of this extraordinary man's
passion to possess a love which was faithful and disinterested.  As time went
on and the question of the succession came into the senate, the struggle
between the brothers as to how the heredity should be regulated reached its
climax.  Napoleon determined to adopt Hortense's child and make him his heir.
Joseph, Lucien, and Louis himself refused to resign what they called their
rights, and each had important supporters in his position.  Lucien, in the
struggle, broke entirely with Napoleon.

     But if the succession was to be settled to Josephine's satisfaction,
there were other matters which worried her at the beginning of the life
Consulate.  Chief among these was that Napoleon insisted upon leaving
Malmaison for St. Cloud.  Josephine's interest in the former place was so
great, her life there had been so happy, that she was violently opposed to any
change.  St. Cloud was too large; it smacked too much of royalty, the idea of
which was awaking such vague alarms in her mind; its associations were too
sad.  But her opposition availed nothing whatever.  Bonaparte felt that a
larger residence was necessary.  Malmaison was a private home, St. Cloud
belonged to the State, and he, as the head of the State, wished to occupy its
palaces.  They had no sooner t