: The Court of the Empress Josephine by Imbert De Saint Amand Perry Thomas Sergeant Translator - Josephine Empress consort of Napoleon I Emperor of the French 1763-1814

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CHAPTER

THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE.

The study of any court is sure to teach wisdom and indifference to human glories. In our France of the nineteenth century, fickle as it has been, inconstant, fertile in revolutions, recantations, and changes of every sort, this lesson is more impressive than it has been at any period of our history. Never has Providence shown more clearly the nothingness of this world's grandeur and magnificence. Never has the saying of Ecclesiastes been more exactly verified: "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" We have before us the task of describing one of the most sumptuous courts that has ever existed, and of reviewing splendors all the more brilliant for their brevity. To this court of Napoleon and Josephine, to this majestic court, resplendent with glory, wealth, and fame, may well be applied Corneille's lines:--

"All your happiness Subject to instability In a moment falls to the ground, And as it has the brilliancy of glass It also has its fragility."

The former general of the Revolution enjoyed his situation as absolute sovereign. He studied the laws of etiquette as closely as he studied the condition of his troops. He saw that the men of the old r?gime were more conversant in the art of flattery, more eager than the new men. As Madame de Sta?l says: "Whenever a gentleman of the old court recalled the ancient etiquette, suggested an additional bow, a certain way at knocking at the door of an ante-chamber, a ceremonious method of presenting a despatch, of folding a letter, of concluding it with this or that formula, he greeted as if he had helped on the happiness of the human race." Napoleon attached, or pretended to attach, great importance to the thousand nothings which up the life of courts. He established in the palace the same discipline as in the camps. Everything became a matter of rule. Courtiers studied formalities as officers studied the art of war. Regulations were as closely observed in the drawing-rooms as in the tents. At the end of a few months Napoleon was to have the most brilliant, the most rigid court of Europe. At times the whirl of vanities surrounded him filled with impatience the great central sun, without whom his satellites would have been nothing. At other times, however, his pride was gratified by the thought that it was his will, his fancy, which evoked from nothing all the grandees of the earth. He was not pained at seeing such eagerness in behalf of trifles that he had invented. He liked to fill his courtiers with raptures or with despair, by a smile or a frown. He thought his sisters' ambition childish, but it amused him; and if they had to cry a little at first, he finally granted them what they wanted.

The Empress's Maid of Honor was Madame de La Rochefoucauld; her Lady of the Bedchamber was Madame de Lavalette. Her Ladies of the Palace, whose number was soon raised to twelve, and later still more augmented, were at first only four: Madame de Talhou?t, Madame de Lu?ay, Madame de Lauriston, and Madame de R?musat. These ladies, too, aroused the hottest jealousies, and soon they gave rise to a sort of parody of the questions of vanity that agitated the Emperor's family. The women who were admitted to the Empress's intimacy could never console themselves for the privileges accorded to the Ladies of the Palace.

In essentials all courts are alike. On a greater or smaller scale they are rank with the same pettinesses, the same chattering gossip, the same trivial squabbles as the porter's lodge, ante-chambers, and servants' quarters. If we examine these things from the standpoint of a philosopher, we shall find but little difference between a steward and a chamberlain, between a chambermaid and a lady of the palace. We may go further and say that as soon as they have places and money at their disposal, republicans have courtesies, as much as monarchs, and everywhere and always there are to be found people ready to bow low if there is anything on the ground that they can pick up. Revolutions alter the forms of government, but not the human heart; afterwards, as before, there exist the same pretensions, the same prejudices, the same flatteries. The incense may be burned before a tribune, a dictator, or a Caesar, there are always the same flattering genuflections, the same cringing.

The new Empire began most brilliantly, but there was no lack of morose criticism. The Faubourg Saint Germain was for the most part hostile and scornful. It looked upon the high dignitaries of the Empire and on the Emperor himself as upstarts, and all the men of the old r?gime who went over to him they branded as renegades. The title of "Citizen" was suppressed and that of "Monsieur" restored, after having been abandoned in conversation and writing for twelve years. Miot de M?lito tells us in his Memoirs that at first public opinion was opposed to this change; even those who at the beginning had shown the greatest repugnance to being addressed as Citizen, disliked conferring the title of Monsieur upon Revolutionists and the rabble, and they pretended to address as Citizen those whom they saw fit to include in this class. Many turned the new state of affairs to ridicule. The Parisians, always of a malicious humor, made perpetual puns and epigrams in abundance.

The Faubourg Saint Germain, in spite of a few adhesions from personal motives, preserved an ironical attitude. General de S?gur, then a captain under the orders of the Grand Marshal of the Palace, observed that in 1804, with the exception of several obscure nobles, either poor or ruined, and others already attached to Napoleon's civil and military fortune, many negotiations and various temptations were required to persuade well-known persons to appear at the court as it was at first constituted. He goes on: "As a spectator and confidant of the means employed, I witnessed in those early days many refusals, and some I had to announce myself. I even heard many bitter complaints on this subject. I remember that in reply I mentioned to the Empress my own case, and told her what it had cost me to enlist under the tricolor, and then to enter the First Consul's military household. The Empress understood me so well that she made to me a similar confidence, confessing her own struggles, her almost invincible repugnance, at the end of 1795, in spite of her feeling for Bonaparte, before she could make up her mind to marry the man whom at that time she herself used to call General Vend?miaire."

Although Josephine had become Empress, she remained a Legitimist, and saw clearly the weak points in the Empire. At the Tuileries, in the chamber of Marie Antoinette, she felt out of place; she was surprised to have for Lady of Honor a duchess of an old family, and her sole ambition was to be pardoned by the Royalists for her elevation, to the highest rank. Napoleon, too, was much concerned about the Bourbons, in whom he foresaw his successors, "One of his keenest regrets," wrote Prince Metternich, "was his inability to invoke legitimacy as the foundation of his power. Few men have felt more deeply than he the precariousness and fragility of power when it lacks this foundation, its susceptibility to attack."

The trial of General Moreau made clear the germs of opposition which existed in a latent condition. It is difficult to form an idea of the enormous throng that blocked all the approaches to the Palace of Justice the day the trial opened, and continued to crowd them during the twelve days that the trial lasted, which was as interesting to Royalists as to Republicans. The most fashionable people of Paris made a point of being present. Sentence was pronounced June 10. Georges Cadoudal and nineteen of the accused, among whom were M. Armand de Polignac, and M. de Rivi?re, were condemned to death.

To the Emperor's great surprise, Moreau was sentenced to only two years of prison. This penalty was remitted, and he was allowed to betake himself to the United States. To facilitate his establishing himself there, the Emperor bought his house in the rue d'Anjou Saint Honor?, paying for it eight hundred thousand francs, much more than it was worth, and then he gave it to Bernadotte, who did not scruple to accept it. The sum was paid to Moreau out of the secret fund of the police before he left for Cadiz. Josephine's urgent solicitations saved the life of the Duke Armand de Polignac, whose death-sentence was commuted to four years' imprisonment before being transported. Madame Murat secured a modification of the sentence of the Marquis de Rivi?re; and these two acts of leniency, to which great publicity was given, were of great service in diminishing the irritation of the Royalists. After Moreau's trial, the opposition, having become discouraged, and conscious of its weakness, laid down its arms, at least for a time. Napoleon was everywhere master.

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