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$Pretitle{}
$Title{Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Chapter III}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tarbell, Ida M.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{josephine
bonaparte
italy
napoleon
paris
never
every
love
little
milan}
$Date{1906}
$Log{}
Title:       Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Book:        Life Of Josephine
Author:      Tarbell, Ida M.
Date:        1906

Chapter III

Bonaparte Goes To Italy - Josephine At Milan - Triumphal Tour In Italy -
Bonaparte Leaves For Egypt

     Just a week before the marriage of Napoleon with Josephine he had been
appointed general-in-chief of the Army of Italy, and two days after the
marriage he left for his command.  Josephine remained in Paris, at her home in
the Rue Chantereine, a little relieved, probably, at the departure of her
tempestuous lover.  Certainly she was not sufficiently in love to be able to
keep pace with the ardent letters which he sent her from every post on his
route.  She read them, to be sure; even showed them to her friends,
pronouncing them drole; but her answers equalled them neither in number nor in
warmth.  Napoleon's suffering and reproaches and prayers disturbed her peace.
She could not love like this.  Soon he began to beg her to come to Italy.  The
campaign was well started; he was winning victories.  There was no reason why
she should not join him; or come at least to Nice - to Milan.  "You will
come," he begs, "and quick.  If you hesitate, if you delay, you will find me
ill.  Fatigue and your absence are too much for me. . . .  Take wings, come -
come!"

     But Josephine did not want to leave Paris.  Particularly now when she was
reaping the first fruits of her young husband's glory in an homage such as she
had never known, but of which there is no doubt she had dreamed from
childhood.  Napoleon's victories had driven the Parisians wild with joy, and
they asked nothing better than to adore the wife of the hero of the campaign.
Scarcely two months, in fact, had passed, after leaving Paris before Napoleon
sent back, by his brother Joseph and his aide Junot, twenty-one flags taken
from the enemy.  They were received at a public session of the Directory.
Josephine was present with Mme. Tallien, and when the two beautiful women,
accompanied by Junot, left the Luxembourg, where the presentation had taken
place, there was such a demonstration as Paris had not seen over a woman in
many a day.  "Look," they cried, "it is his wife!  Isn't she beautiful!  Long
live General Bonaparte!  Long live the Citizeness Bonaparte!  Long live Notre
Dame des Victoires!"

     New triumphs followed, and to celebrate them there was held a grand fete
on May 29.  There were balls at the Luxembourg, gala nights at the theaters.
And everywhere Josephine, the wife of the conquering general, was queen.  And
yet almost every night, when she returned from opera or ball, she found
awaiting her a passionate appeal from Bonaparte to come to Italy.  Several
weeks she put him off, she pleaded the hardship of the trip, the dangers and
discomforts she might have to undergo there, a hundred excuses; and Bonaparte,
in reply, only begged the more fiercely that she come.

     At last she could resist no longer, but she took no pains to conceal her
sorrow at going.  "Her chagrin was extreme, when she saw there was no longer
any way of escaping," Arnault says, "she thought more of what she was going to
leave than what she was going to find.  She would have given the palace at
Milan which had been prepared for her, she would have given all the palaces of
the world, for her house in the Rue Chantereine. . . . She started for Italy
from the Luxembourg, where she had supped with some friends.  Poor woman, she
burst into tears and sobbed as if she was going to punishment - she who was
going to reign."

     It was the end of June before Josephine arrived in Milan.  The palace
which awaited her was the princely home of the Duke de Serbelloni; - the
society the choicest of Italy.  She at once found herself literally living
like a princess.  Unhappily for her, however, there was no opportunity to
remain long quietly at Milan and enjoy the pleasures open to her. Bonaparte
was in active campaign - unable to stay but a couple of days after her
arrival, and he soon began to beg that she join him in the field.  At the end
of July, she did go to Brescia, where she experienced a series of exciting
adventures.  The Austrians were pressing close on the French - closer than
Napoleon realized; twice he and she narrowly escaped capture together; once
she was under fire.  Finally Bonaparte was obliged to send her, by way of
Bologne and Ferrara to Lucques, a journey that she made in safety, but in
tears.

     Henceforth Josephine had an excellent reason for not joining her husband
in the field.  And Napoleon did not ask her to do so.  All he asked now was
letters, letters, letters.  "Your health and your face are never out of my
mind.  I cannot be at peace until your letters are received.  I wait them
impatiently.  You cannot conceive my unrest." And again, "I do not love you at
all; on the contrary, I detest you.  You are a wretched, awkward, stupid
little thing.  You do not write me any more at all; you do not love your
husband.  You know the pleasure that your letters give me, and yet write me
not more than six lines and that by chance.  What are you doing all day long,
Madame?  But seriously, I am very much disturbed, my dear, at not hearing from
you.  Write me four pages quickly of those kind of things which fill my heart
with pleasure." A few days later he writes, "No letters from you.  Truly that
disturbs me. I am told you are well and that you have even been to Lake Como.
I look impatiently every day for the courier who will bring me news of you."
And again, "I write you very often, my dear, and you write me so rarely." And
so it went on through the entire summer and fall of 1796.  While she received
at Milan the honors due the wife of a conqueror who held the fate of states in
his hands, he in the field exhausted himself in a frenzied struggle for
victory - not victory for himself, so he told Josephine, and so for a time,
perhaps, he persuaded himself; but victory because it pleased her that he win
it; honor because she set store by it; otherwise, said he, "I should leave all
to throw myself at your feet."

     All this impetuous passion wearied Josephine more and more.  No response
was awakened in her heart.  That she was proud of his love, there is no doubt.
She told everybody of his devotion, as well she might: it was her passport to
power.  But she could not answer it in kind, and she found excuses for her
neglect in her health, which was not good at this time, and in the social
requirements of her brilliant and conspicuous position, and frequently, too,
in the fact that the life at Milan, gay as it was, did not please her.  She
was homesick for Paris.  "Monsieur de Serbelloni will tell you, my dear aunt,"
she wrote early in September, "how I have been received in Italy, feted
wherever I have gone, all the princes of Italy entertaining me, even the Grand
Duke of Tuscany.  Ah, well!  I would rather be a simple private individual in
France; I do not like the honors of this country, I am bored to death.  It is
true that my health does much to make me sad; I am not well at all.  If
happiness could bring health, I ought to be well.  I have the kindest husband
that one could possibly find; I have not time to want anything; my will is
his; he is on his knees before me all day long, as if I were a divinity.  One
could not have a better husband.  M. de Serbelloni will tell you how much I am
loved; he writes often to my children and is very fond of them."

     Not only did Josephine neglect to write to this "best husband in the
world", as she herself called Bonaparte, but she spent many hours at Milan in
conspicuous flirtations with young officers who were glad enough to pay her
court.  Vague rumors of these flirtations came to Napoleon's ears, no doubt,
though it is certain he thought little of them.  There are references in his
letters which might be attributed to jealousy, but it is clear that his
confidence in Josephine at this time was such that a denial from her, an
aggrieved look, a tear of reproach, made him sue for pardon and forget his
fears.

     Aside from her carelessness about writing to him, the gravest complaint
that he had against her was her willingness to receive valuable gifts.  The
treasures of Italy were open to the French, and Bonaparte was sending
quantities of rare art objects to Paris; but he declared it highly improper
that any of these things or any private gifts should go to him or his suite.
Josephine, however, had no scruples about gifts, and accepted gladly the
jewels, pictures, and bibelots which were sent her.  More than one scene
resulted from this indiscretion, but it always ended in her keeping the
treasure.  She learned before she had been long in Italy not to tell the
General what had been given her, or if he accused her of receiving gifts, to
deny it.

     But unhappy as Josephine made Bonaparte in his absence by her neglect and
her flirtations, she more than compensated for it by her amiability when he
returned.  He had reason soon, too, to see that by her tact she did much to
help his cause in Italy.  She was the embodiment of grace and cheerfulness,
she was familiar with the ways of good society, she had tact with the
republican element of the country, which prided itself on its ideals and
patriotism, and she appeased the nobles, who felt that she was one of them.
Napoleon had reason to say of Josephine's influence in Italy what he said
later of her influence in Paris - that without it, he could never have
accomplished what he did.  Her value in his plans was particularly evident in
the spring and summer of 1797, which they passed together, partly at the
palace of Serbelloni and partly at the chateau of Montebello.  Their life at
this time was rather that of two crowned heads than that of a general of an
army and his wife.  They lived in the greatest state, protected by strict
etiquette and surrounded by the officers of the army of Italy and
representatives from Austria and the Italian states.  Audiences with the
General were daily sought by the greatest men of Italy.  In all this pageant
of power Josephine moved as naturally and easily as if she had been born to
it.  On every side she won friends; no one came to the chateau who did not go
away to praise her good taste, her simplicity, her anxiety to please.  She
never interfered in politics either, they said, though she was ever willing to
help a friend in securing the General's favor; and all this praise was
deserved. Josephine's good-will was born of a kind heart.  It was not merely
the complacency of indolence; she had no malice, she felt kindly toward the
whole world, she had all her life been willing to exhaust every resource in
her power for her friends.  She was willing to do so now, and she remained of
this disposition to the end of her life.  Such a character makes a man or
woman loved in any age, in any society, whatever his faults.  It made
Josephine loved particularly in her age and her society, where genuine
kindness was rare and where her peculiar faults - vices, perhaps one should
say - were readily overlooked, particularly if they were handled discreetly.

     The fall of 1797, Napoleon passed in negotiations with Austria.  For a
time Josephine was with him.  Then restless and eager to see Italy, she left
him in October and went to Venice, where a splendid reception was given her.
From there she travelled as her fancy dictated in Northern Italy.  Everywhere
she went she was received royally, and loaded with gifts.  She did not reach
Paris until the first of January, 1798, nearly a month after Napoleon.

     She came back to find her husband the most talked of man in Europe. She
found, too, that her return was eagerly looked for because the General
absolutely refused to be lionized - even to appear at public functions,
without her.  Her coming was thus the signal for a round of gaieties, where,
it must be confessed, Bonaparte played rather the part of a bear. He would not
leave Josephine's side; he wanted to talk with her alone, and he openly
declared that he would rather stay at home with her than go to the most
brilliant reception Paris could offer.  "I love my wife," he said seriously to
those who chaffed him or remonstrated.  With all his dreams of ambition, it is
certain that she filled his life as completely now as she had nearly two years
before, when he married her.  As for Josephine herself, she seems to have been
completely satisfied now that she was in Paris.  She was the centre of an
admiring circle; she was loaded daily with presents, not only from cities and
statesmen, but from shop-keepers and manufacturers, eager to have her
approval, to use her name.  Not since her marriage had she been so contented.

     This satisfactory state of affairs was interrupted in May, when Bonaparte
sailed for Egypt.  Josephine went to Toulon to see him off, promising that she
would soon follow him, and then retired to the springs at Plombieres for a
season.  It was fall before she returned to Paris. When she did return, it was
to plunge into a round of frivolity and extravagance.  The most conspicuous of
her indiscretions was the attentions she accepted from a young man - Hippolyte
Charles - a former adjutant to one of Napoleon's generals.  She had known him
before she went to Italy; indeed he had been in her party when she left for
Milan in 1796. At Milan he had paid her so assiduous court and had been so
encouraged that the news came to Napoleon's ears, and Charles was suddenly
dismissed from the service.  He had found a place in Paris - through
Josephine's influence, the gossips said.  At all events, this young man
re-appeared now that Bonaparte was in Egypt, and became a constant visitor at
her house; and when, the summer following, she bought Malmaison and took
possession, Charles was her first guest.  "You had better get a divorce from
Bonaparte and marry Charles," some of her plain-speaking friends told her.

     When people as little scrupulous as Josephine herself reproved her, it
can be imagined what the effect would be on the Bonaparte family, most of whom
were now established in or near Paris.  They had never cared for Josephine,
and never had had much to do with her.  Lucien and Joseph were the only
members of the family who had seen her before her marriage to Napoleon, and to
all of them the marriage came as a shock, Bonaparte not having announced it
even to his mother.  They looked upon her as an interloper - one who might
deprive them of some of the rewards of Bonaparte's genius; these rewards the
entire family seem to have felt from the first belonged to them and to them
alone.  No one of them had had, until this winter, much opportunity to study
Josephine.  They were irritated to find her so evidently a woman of higher
rank than themselves; they were disgusted at her extravagance and
indiscretion.  Josephine, on her side, took little trouble to win them.  After
all, they were only Corsicans, and not amusing like Napoleon.  No doubt, she
felt a little towards them as Alexander de Beauharnais had felt towards her
when she first arrived in Paris - an untrained little islander, the province
speaking in every gesture.  To Josephine's credit, let it be said, she never
was guilty of trying to undermine the place of his family in her husband's
affections; she never opposed their advancement; she always, to the best of
her ability, aided Napoleon in any plans he had for them.  It is much more
than can be said of the Bonapartes' attitude towards the Beauharnais.

     Shocking to the Bonapartes as were Josephine's flirtations, they looked
on her extravagance with even more horror.  To Madame Bonaparte, especially,
it was an unforgivable sin; and, in fact, extravagance could scarcely have
gone farther.  Bonaparte was not rich.  Indeed he prided himself on having
returned from Italy poor.  But he had left a fair income in his brother
Joseph's hands - a part of which was to go to Josephine. She, in utter
disregard of the amount of this income, lived in luxury, entertaining royally,
and buying prodigally everything that pleased her fancy.  To meet her pressing
demands, she borrowed right and left. Finally, in the summer of 1799, she
purchased Malmaison, a country seat at which she and Napoleon had looked
before he left for Egypt.  The purchasing price was about $50,000, and she had
to borrow $3,000 for the advance payment.  She went immediately to the place,
running in debt for repairs and furnishings.

     Joseph Bonaparte was deeply disgusted by Josephine's reckless
expenditures, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that she was able
to get any money from him.  He was the more disobliging because he and other
members of the family believed that they now had proofs which surely would
convince Napoleon that Josephine was faithless and would cause him to secure a
divorce as soon as he returned from Italy.  And, indeed their cause had
already advanced in Egypt far beyond their knowledge.  Joseph had, before
Napoleon's sailing, put such suspicions of Josephine's infidelity into his
mind and referred him to such members of his own staff for proof, that the
General once at sea had investigated the matter and become convinced of the
truth of the charges.  The revelation caused him weeks of gloom.  There was
nothing left to live for, he wrote Joseph.  At twenty-nine he was
disillusioned.  Honors wearied him, glory was colorless, sentiment dead, men
without interest.  He should return to France and retire to the country.  But
he could not abandon his post at once, and as the weeks went on recklessness
succeeded to gloom.  If his wife was faithless, why should he be faithful?
From that time Josephine's exclusive sway was broken.  The man who had for her
sake spurned all women rode openly through the streets of Cairo with a pretty
little madame whose husband had been sent suddenly to France.  The glory of
love was gone forever for Bonaparte, and poor Josephine had lost the rarest
jewel of her life.  Perhaps the saddest of it all was that she had never
realized what she possessed, never knew her loss.

     How much Josephine knew of her husband's change of feeling towards her is
uncertain.  There is a letter in existence purporting to be hers, written at
this time in answer to accusations which Napoleon had made from Egypt, in
which she repels the charges with virtuous indignation and attributes them to
her enemies, presumably the Bonapartes: -

          It is impossible, General (she writes), that the letter I have just
     received comes from you?  I can scarcely credit it when I compare that
     letter with others now before me, to which your love imparts so many
     charms!  My eyes, indeed, would persuade me that your hand traced these
     lines; but my heart refuses to believe that a letter from you could ever
     have caused the mortal anguish I experience on perusing these expressions
     of your displeasure, which afflict me the more when I consider how much
     pain they must have cost you.

          I know not what I have done to provoke some malignant enemy to
     destroy my peace by disturbing yours; but certainly a powerful motive must
     influence some one in continually renewing calumnies against me, and
     giving them a sufficient appearance of probability to impose on the man
     who has hitherto judged me worthy of his affection and confidence.  These
     two sentiments are necessary to my happiness, and if they are to be so
     soon withdrawn from me, I can only regret that I was ever blest in
     possessing them or knowing you. . . .

          Instead of listening to traducers, who, for reasons which I cannot
     explain, seek to disturb our happiness, why do you not silence them by
     enumerating the benefits you have bestowed on a woman whose heart could
     never be reproached with ingratitude?  The knowledge of what you have done
     for my children would check the malignity of these calumniators, for they
     would then see that the strongest link of my attachment for you depends on
     my character as a mother.  Your subsequent conduct, which has claimed the
     admiration of all Europe, could have no other effect than to make me adore
     the husband who gave me his hand when I was poor and unfortunate.  Every
     step you take adds to the glory of the name I bear; yet this is the moment
     that has been selected for persuading you that I no longer love you!
     Surely nothing can be more wicked and absurd than the conduct of those who
     are about you, and are jealous of your marked superiority!

          Yes, I still love you, and no less tenderly than ever.  Those who
     allege the contrary know that they speak falsely.  To those very persons I
     have frequently written to enquire about you and to recommend them to
     console you by their friendship for the absence of her who is your best
     and truest friend.

          Yet what has been the conduct of the men in whom you repose
     confidence, and on whose testimony you form so unjust an opinion of me?
     They conceal from you every circumstance calculated to alleviate the
     anguish of our separation, and they seek to fill your mind with suspicion
     in order to drive you from a country with which they are dissatisfied.
     Their object is to make you unhappy.  I see this plainly, though you are
     blind to their perfidious intentions.  Being no longer their equal, you
     have become their enemy, and every one of your victories is a fresh ground
     of envy and hatred.

          I know their intrigues, and I disdain to avenge myself by naming the
     men whom I despise, but whose valor and talents may be useful to you in
     the great enterprise which you have so propitiously commenced.  When you
     return, I will unmask these enemies of your glory - but no; the happiness
     of seeing you again will banish from my recollection the misery they are
     endeavoring to inflict upon me, and I shall think only of what they have
     done to promote the success of your projects.

          I acknowledge that I see a great deal of company; for every one is
     eager to compliment me on your success, and I confess I have not
     resolution to close my door against those who speak of you.  I also
     confess that a great portion of my visitors are gentlemen.  Men understand
     your bold projects better than women, and they speak with enthusiasm of
     your glorious achievements, while my female friends only complain of you
     for having carried away their husbands, brothers or fathers.  I take no
     pleasure in their society if they do not praise you; yet there are some
     among them whose hearts and understandings claim my highest regard because
     they entertain sincere friendship for you.  In this number I may
     distinguish Mesdames d'Aiguillon, Tallien, and my aunt.  They are almost
     constantly with me, and they can tell you, ungrateful as you are, whether
     I have been coquetting with everybody.  These are your words, and they
     would be hateful to me were I not certain that you have disavowed them and
     are sorry for having written them. . . .

          I sometimes receive honors here which cause me no small degree of
     embarrassment.  I am not accustomed to this sort of homage, and I see it
     is displeasing to our authorities, who are always suspicious and fearful
     of losing their newly-gotten power.  Never mind them, you will say; and I
     should not, but that I know they will try to injure you, and I cannot
     endure the though of contributing in any way to those feelings of enmity
     which your triumphs sufficiently account for.  If they are envious now,
     what will they be when you return crowned with fresh laurels?  Heavens
     knows to what lengths their malignity will then carry them!  But you will
     be here, and then nothing can vex me. . . .

          For my part, my time is occupied in writing to you, hearing your
     praises, reading the journals, in which your name appears in every page,
     thinking of you, looking forward to the time when I may see you hourly,
     complaining of your absence, and longing for your return; and when my task
     is ended, I begin it over again.  Are all these proofs of indifference?
     You will never have any others from me, and if I receive no worse from
     you.  I shall have no great reason to complain, in spite of the ill-
     natured stories I hear about a certain lady in whom you are said to take a
     lively interest.  But why should I doubt you?  You assure me that you love
     me, and, judging of your heart by my own, I believe you.

     Josephine seems not to have doubted her power to propitiate Napoleon on
his return.  She did not count, however, on his brothers seeing him before she
did; but so it turned out.  Bonaparte, with an eye to effect, landed
unexpectedly in France on October 6, 1799.  The Bonaparte brothers, as soon as
they heard of his arrival, hurried southward without notifying Josephine,
whose first knowledge of his coming was while she was dining out on October
10.  She immediately started to meet him, but took the wrong route.  Returning
to Paris alone, she found that her husband had reached home twelve hours ahead
of her.

     Hastening to the little house in the rue de la Victoire, - a street that
had latterly changed its name in honor of him; and the house in which she had
first received him, which he had bought subsequently because of its
associations, and which he had declared, after his disillusion in Egypt, that
he should always keep, - Josephine found Napoleon locked in his room.  Joseph
and Lucien had improved their opportunity, and wrung from him a promise to see
his wife no more - to secure a divorce. Throwing herself on her knees before
the door, Josephine wept and begged for hours, until the door opened; and
then, aided by Hortense and Eugene, she sued for pardon.  The power she still
had over the man was too great for him to resist long.  The next morning, when
the Bonaparte brothers called, they found a reconciled household.

     How complete the reconciliation was they realized when they saw Napoleon
paying the $200,000 and more due at Malmaison and settling the debts to
servants, merchants, jewelers, caterers, florists, liverymen, everybody, in
fact, which Josephine had contracted right and left in his absence.  Not only
did he pay her obligations with little more than a grimace, but he entered
heartily into her plans for repairing and beautifying their new home.  The two
appeared constantly together in public, where their evident happiness coming
so close upon the rumors of a divorce, caused endless gossip.