"Well," said Napoleon,
somewhat
impatiently, "at least I am sure that
she is happy.
she is happy.
Orr - Famous Affinities of History, Romacen of Devotion
Naturally, also,
French writers, even those who are hostile to Napoleon, do not care
to dwell upon the story; since France itself was humiliated when its
greatest genius and most splendid soldier was deceived by his Austrian
wife. Therefore there are still many who know little beyond the bare
fact 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 to
crouch in a sort of murky byway, and those who pass over the highroad of
history ignore it with averted eyes.
In reality the story of Napoleon and Marie Louise and of the Count von
Neipperg is one which, when you search it to the very core, leads you
straight to a sex problem of a very curious nature. Nowhere else does
it occur in the relations of the great personages of history; but in
literature Balzac, that master of psychology, has touched upon the theme
in the early chapters of his famous novel called "A Woman of Thirty. "
As to the Napoleonic story, let us first recall the facts of the
case, giving them in such order that their full significance may be
understood.
In 1809 Napoleon, then at the plenitude of his power, shook himself free
from the clinging clasp of Josephine and procured the annulment of his
marriage to her. He really owed her nothing. Before he knew her she had
been the mistress of another. In the first years of their life together
she had been notoriously unfaithful to him. He had held to her from
habit which was in part a superstition; but the remembrance of the wrong
which she had done him made her faded charms at times almost repulsive.
And then Josephine had never borne him any children; and without a
son to perpetuate his dynasty, the gigantic achievements which he
had wrought seemed futile in his eyes, and likely to crumble into
nothingness when he should die.
No sooner had the marriage been annulled than his titanic ambition
leaped, as it always did, to a tremendous pinnacle. He would wed. He
would have children. But he would wed no petty princess. This man who in
his early youth had felt honored by a marriage with the almost declassee
widow of a creole planter now stretched out his hand that he might take
to himself a woman not merely royal but imperial.
At first he sought the sister of the Czar of Russia; but Alexander
entertained a profound distrust of the French emperor, and managed to
evade the tentative demand. There was, however, a reigning family far
more ancient than the Romanoffs--a family which had held the imperial
dignity for nearly six centuries--the oldest and the noblest blood in
Europe. This was the Austrian house of Hapsburg. Its head, the Emperor
Francis, had thirteen children, of whom the eldest, the Archduchess
Marie Louise, was then in her nineteenth year.
Napoleon had resented the rebuff which the Czar had given him. He
turned, therefore, the more eagerly to the other project. Yet there were
many reasons why an Austrian marriage might be dangerous, or, at any
rate, ill-omened. Only sixteen years before, an Austrian arch-duchess,
Marie Antionette, married to the ruler of France, had met her death
upon the scaffold, hated and cursed by the French people, who had always
blamed "the Austrian" for the evil days which had ended in the flames
of revolution. Again, the father of the girl to whom Napoleon's fancy
turned had been the bitter enemy of the new regime in France. His troops
had been beaten by the French in five wars and had been crushed at
Austerlitz and at Wagram. Bonaparte had twice entered Vienna at the head
of a conquering army, and thrice he had slept in the imperial palace
at Schonbrunn, while Francis was fleeing through the dark, a beaten
fugitive pursued by the swift squadrons of French cavalry.
The feeling of Francis of Austria was not merely that of the vanquished
toward 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 demolished
thrones and set an iron heel upon crowned heads, giving the sacred
titles of king and prince to soldiers who, even in palaces, still showed
the swaggering brutality of the camp and the stable whence they sprang.
Yet, just because an alliance with the Austrian house seemed in so many
ways impossible, the thought of it inflamed the ardor of Napoleon all
the more.
"Impossible? " he had once said, contemptuously. "The word 'impossible'
is not French. "
The Austrian alliance, unnatural though it seemed, was certainly quite
possible. In the year 1809 Napoleon had finished his fifth war with
Austria by the terrific battle of Wagram, which brought the empire of
the Hapsburgs to the very dust. The conqueror's rude hand had stripped
from Francis province after province. He had even let fall hints that
the Hapsburgs might be dethroned and that Austria might disappear from
the map of Europe, to be divided between himself and the Russian Czar,
who was still his ally. It was at this psychological moment that the
Czar wounded Napoleon's pride by refusing to give the hand of his sister
Anne.
The subtle diplomats of Vienna immediately saw their chance.
Prince Metternich, with the caution of one who enters the cage of a
man-eating-tiger, suggested that the Austrian archduchess would be a
fitting bride for the French conqueror. The notion soothed the wounded
vanity of Napoleon. From that moment events moved swiftly; and before
long it was understood that there was to be a new empress in France, and
that she was to be none other than the daughter of the man who had been
Napoleon's most persistent foe upon the Continent. The girl was to be
given--sacrificed, if you like--to appease an imperial adventurer. After
such a marriage, Austria would be safe from spoliation. The reigning
dynasty would remain firmly seated upon its historic throne.
But how about the girl herself? She had always heard Napoleon spoken of
as a sort of ogre--a man of low ancestry, a brutal and faithless enemy
of her people. She knew that this bold, rough-spoken soldier less than a
year before had added insult to the injury which he had inflicted on
her father. In public proclamations he had called the Emperor Francis a
coward and a liar. Up to the latter part of the year Napoleon was to
her imagination a blood-stained, sordid, and yet all-powerful monster,
outside the pale of human liking and respect. What must have been her
thoughts when her father first told her with averted face that she was
to become the bride of such a being?
Marie Louise had been brought up, as all German girls of rank were then
brought up, in quiet simplicity and utter innocence. In person she was
a tall blonde, with a wealth of light brown hair tumbling about a face
which might be called attractive because it was so youthful and so
gentle, but in which only poets and courtiers could see beauty. Her
complexion was rosy, with that peculiar tinge which means that in the
course of time it will become red and mottled. Her blue eyes were clear
and childish. Her figure was good, though already too full for a girl
who was younger than her years.
She had a large and generous mouth with full lips, the lower one
being the true "Hapsburg lip," slightly pendulous--a feature which has
remained for generation after generation as a sure sign of Hapsburg
blood. One sees it in the present emperor of Austria, in the late Queen
Regent of Spain, and in the present King of Spain, Alfonso. All the
artists who made miniatures or paintings of Marie Louise softened down
this 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 madchen
who knew nothing of the outside world except what she had heard from her
discreet and watchful governess, and what had been told her of Napoleon
by her uncles, the archdukes whom he had beaten down in battle.
When she learned that she was to be given to the French emperor her
girlish soul experienced a shudder; but her father told her how vital
was this union to her country and to him. With a sort of piteous dread
she questioned the archdukes who had called Napoleon an ogre.
"Oh, that was when Napoleon was an enemy," they replied. "Now he is our
friend. "
Marie Louise listened to all this, and, like the obedient German girl
she 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 was
already astir with preparations for the new empress who was to assure
the continuation of the Napoleonic glory by giving children to her
husband. 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 odd
letter, combining the formality of a negotiator with the veiled ardor of
a lover:
MY COUSIN: The brilliant qualities which adorn your person have inspired
in me a desire to serve you and to pay you homage. In making my request
to the emperor, your father, and praying him to intrust to me the
happiness of your imperial highness, may I hope that you will understand
the sentiments which lead me to this act? May I flatter myself that it
will not be decided solely by the duty of parental obedience? However
slightly the feelings of your imperial highness may incline to me, I
wish to cultivate them with so great care, and to endeavor so constantly
to please you in everything, that I flatter myself that some day I shall
prove 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 only
ornaments had been a few colored stones which she sometimes wore as a
necklace or a bracelet. Now the resources of all France were drawn upon.
Precious laces foamed about her. Cascades of diamonds flashed before her
eyes. The costliest and most exquisite creations of the Parisian shops
were spread around her to make up a trousseau fit for the princess who
was soon to become the bride of the man who had mastered continental
Europe.
The archives of Vienna were ransacked for musty documents which would
show exactly what had been done for other Austrian princesses who had
married rulers of France. Everything was duplicated down to the last
detail. Ladies-in-waiting thronged about the young archduchess; and
presently there came to her Queen Caroline of Naples, Napoleon's sister,
of whom Napoleon himself once said: "She is the only man among my
sisters, as Joseph is the only woman among my brothers. " Caroline, by
virtue of her rank as queen, could have free access to her husband's
future bride. Also, there came presently Napoleon's famous marshal,
Berthier, Prince of Neuchatel, the chief of the Old Guard, who had just
been created Prince of Wagram--a title which, very naturally, he did not
use in Austria. He was to act as proxy for Napoleon in the preliminary
marriage service at Vienna.
All was excitement. Vienna had never been so gay. Money was lavished
under the direction of Caroline and Berthier. There were illuminations
and balls. The young girl found herself the center of the world's
interest; and the excitement made her dizzy. She could not but be
flattered, and yet there were many hours when her heart misgave her.
More than once she was found in tears. Her father, an affectionate
though narrow soul, spent an entire day with her consoling and
reassuring her. One thought she always kept in mind--what she had said
to Metternich at the very first: "I want only what my duty bids me
want. " At last came the official marriage, by proxy, in the presence of
a splendid gathering. The various documents were signed, the dowry was
arranged for. Gifts were scattered right and left. At the opera
there were gala performances. Then Marie Louise bade her father a sad
farewell. Almost suffocated by sobs and with her eyes streaming with
tears, she was led between two hedges of bayonets to her carriage, while
cannon thundered and all the church-bells of Vienna rang a joyful peal.
She set out for France accompanied by a long train of carriages filled
with noblemen and noblewomen, with ladies-in-waiting and scores of
attendant menials. The young bride--the wife of a man whom she had never
seen--was almost dead with excitement and fatigue. At a station in the
outskirts of Vienna she scribbled a few lines to her father, which are a
commentary upon her state of mind:
I think of you always, and I always shall. God has given me power to
endure this final shock, and in Him alone I have put all my trust. He
will help me and give me courage, and I shall find support in doing my
duty toward you, since it is all for you that I have sacrificed myself.
There is something piteous in this little note of a frightened girl
going to encounter she knew not what, and clinging almost frantically
to the one thought--that whatever might befall her, she was doing as her
father wished.
One need not recount the long and tedious journey of many days over
wretched roads, in carriages that jolted and lurched and swayed. She was
surrounded by unfamiliar faces and was compelled to meet at every town
the chief men of the place, all of whom paid her honor, but stared at
her with irrepressible curiosity. Day after day she went on and on. Each
morning a courier on a foaming horse presented her with a great cluster
of fresh flowers and a few lines scrawled by the unknown husband who was
to meet her at her journey's end.
There lay the point upon which her wandering thoughts were focused--the
journey's end! The man whose strange, mysterious power had forced her
from her school-room, had driven her through a nightmare of strange
happenings, and who was waiting for her somewhere to take her to
himself, to master her as he had mastered generals and armies!
What was marriage? What did it mean? What experience still lay before
her! These were the questions which she must have asked herself
throughout that long, exhausting journey. When she thought of the past
she was homesick. When she thought of the immediate future she was
fearful with a shuddering fear.
At last she reached the frontier of France, and her carriage passed into
a 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--the
representatives of the Napoleonic court. They were not all plebeians and
children of the Revolution, ex-stable boys, ex-laundresses. By this time
Napoleon had gathered around himself some of the noblest families of
France, who had rallied to the empire. The assemblage was a brilliant
one. 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 thus
far were now turned back. Napoleon had been insistent on this point.
Even her governess, who had been with her since her childhood, was not
allowed to cross the French frontier. So fixed was Napoleon's purpose
to have nothing Austrian about her, that even her pet dog, to which
she clung as a girl would cling, was taken from her. Thereafter she was
surrounded only by French faces, by French guards, and was greeted only
by salvos of French artillery.
In the mean time what was Napoleon doing at Paris. Since the annulment
of his marriage with Josephine he had gone into a sort of retirement.
Matters of state, war, internal reforms, no longer interested him; but
that restless brain could not sink into repose. Inflamed with the ardor
of a new passion, that passion was all the greater because he had
never yet set eyes upon its object. Marriage with an imperial princess
flattered his ambition. The youth and innocence of the bride stirred his
whole being with a thrill of novelty. The painted charms of Josephine,
the mercenary favors of actresses, the calculated ecstasies of the women
of the court who gave themselves to him from vanity, had long since
palled upon him. Therefore the impatience with which he awaited the
coming of Marie Louise became every day more tense.
For a time he amused himself with planning down to the very last details
the demonstrations that were to be given in her honor. He organized
them as minutely as he had ever organized a conquering army. He showed
himself as wonderful in these petty things as he had in those great
strategic combinations which had baffled the ablest generals of
Europe. But after all had been arranged--even to the illuminations, the
cheering, the salutes, and the etiquette of the court--he fell into a
fever of impatience which gave him sleepless nights and frantic days. He
paced up and down the Tuileries, almost beside himself. He hurried off
courier after courier with orders that the postilions should lash their
horses to bring the hour of meeting nearer still. He scribbled love
letters. He gazed continually on the diamond-studded portrait of the
woman who was hurrying toward him.
At last as the time approached he entered a swift traveling-carriage and
hastened to Compiegne, about fifty miles from Paris, where it had been
arranged that he should meet his consort and whence he was to escort her
to the capital, so that they might be married in the great gallery
of the Louvre. At Compiegne the chancellerie had been set apart for
Napoleon's convenience, while the chateau had been assigned to Marie
Louise and her attendants. When Napoleon's carriage dashed into the
place, drawn by horses that had traveled at a gallop, the emperor could
not restrain himself. It was raining torrents and night was coming
on, yet, none the less, he shouted for fresh horses and pushed on to
Soissons, where the new empress was to stop and dine. When he reached
there and she had not arrived, new relays of horses were demanded, and
he hurried off once more into the dark.
At the little village of Courcelles he met the courier who was riding in
advance of the empress's cortege.
"She will be here in a few moments! " cried Napoleon; and he leaped from
his carriage into the highway.
The rain descended harder than ever, and he took refuge in the arched
doorway of the village church, his boots already bemired, his great coat
reeking with the downpour. As he crouched before the church he heard the
sound of carriages; and before long there came toiling through the
mud the one in which was seated the girl for whom he had so long been
waiting. 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 he
have restrained himself, could he have shown the delicate consideration
which was demanded of him, could he have remembered at least that he was
an emperor and that the girl--timid and shuddering--was a princess, her
future story might have been far different. But long ago he had ceased
to think of anything except his own desires.
He approached the carriage. An obsequious chamberlain drew aside the
leathern covering and opened the door, exclaiming as he did so, "The
emperor! " And then there leaped in the rain-soaked, mud-bespattered
being whose excesses had always been as unbridled as his genius. The
door was closed, the leathern curtain again drawn, and the horses set
out at a gallop for Soissons. Within, the shrinking bride was at the
mercy of pure animal passion, feeling upon her hot face a torrent of
rough kisses, and yielding herself in terror to the caresses of wanton
hands.
At Soissons Napoleon allowed no halt, but the carriage plunged on, still
in the rain, to Compiegne. There all the arrangements made with so much
care were thrust aside. Though the actual marriage had not yet taken
place, Napoleon claimed all the rights which afterward were given in the
ceremonial at Paris. He took the girl to the chancellerie, and not to
the chateau. In an anteroom dinner was served with haste to the imperial
pair and Queen Caroline. Then the latter was dismissed with little
ceremony, the lights were extinguished, and this daughter of a line of
emperors was left to the tender mercies of one who always had about him
something 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 bed
by the ladies of her household.
These facts, repellent as they are, must be remembered when we call
to mind what happened in the next five years. The horror of that night
could not be obliterated by splendid ceremonies, by studious attention,
or by all the pomp and gaiety of the court. Napoleon was then
forty-one--practically the same age as his new wife's father, the
Austrian emperor; Marie Louise was barely nineteen and younger than her
years. Her master must have seemed to be the brutal ogre whom her uncles
had described.
Installed in the Tuileries, she taught herself compliance. On their
marriage night Napoleon had asked her briefly: "What did your parents
tell you? " And she had answered, meekly: "To be yours altogether and to
obey you in everything. " But, though she gave compliance, and though her
freshness seemed enchanting to Napoleon, there was something concealed
within her thoughts to which he could not penetrate. He gaily said to a
member of the court:
"Marry a German, my dear fellow. They are the best women in the
world--gentle, good, artless, and as fresh as roses. "
Yet, at the same time, Napoleon felt a deep anxiety lest in her very
heart 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 the
empress. 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 he
returned to the ante-room he found Napoleon fidgeting about, his eyes a
pair of interrogation-points.
"I am sure," he said, "that the empress told you that I was kind to
her? "
Metternich bowed and made no answer.
"Well," said Napoleon, somewhat impatiently, "at least I am sure that
she is happy. Tell me, did she not say so? "
The Austrian diplomat remained unsmiling.
"Your majesty himself has forbidden me to answer," he returned with
another bow.
We may fairly draw the inference that Marie Louise, though she adapted
herself to her surroundings, was never really happy. Napoleon became
infatuated with her. He surrounded her with every possible mark of
honor. He abandoned public business to walk or drive with her. But the
memory of his own brutality must have vaguely haunted him throughout it
all. He was jealous of her as he had never been jealous of the fickle
Josephine. Constant has recorded that the greatest precautions were
taken to prevent any person whatsoever, and especially any man, from
approaching 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. His
shabby uniforms were all discarded, and he spent hours in trying on new
costumes. He even attempted to learn to waltz, but this he gave up in
despair. Whereas before he ate hastily and at irregular intervals,
he now sat at dinner with unusual patience, and the court took on a
character which it had never had. Never before had he sacrificed either
his public duty or his private pleasure for any woman. Even in the first
ardor of his marriage with Josephine, when he used to pour out his heart
to her in letters from Italian battle-fields, he did so only after he
had made the disposition of his troops and had planned his movements
for the following day. Now, however, he was not merely devoted, but
uxorious; and in 1811, after the birth of the little King of Rome, he
ceased to be the earlier Napoleon altogether. He had founded a dynasty.
He was the head of a reigning house. He forgot the principles of the
Revolution, and he ruled, as he thought, like other monarchs, by the
grace of God.
As for Marie Louise, she played her part extremely well. Somewhat
haughty and unapproachable to others, she nevertheless studied
Napoleon's every wish. She seemed even to be loving; but one can
scarcely doubt that her obedience sprang ultimately from fear and
that her devotion was the devotion of a dog which has been beaten into
subjection.
Her vanity was flattered in many ways, and most of all by her
appointment as regent of the empire during Napoleon's absence in the
disastrous Russian campaign which began in 1812. It was in June of that
year that the French emperor held court at Dresden, where he played,
as was said, to "a parterre of kings. " This was the climax of his
magnificence, for there were gathered all the sovereigns and princes who
were his allies and who furnished the levies that swelled his Grand Army
to six hundred thousand men. Here Marie Louise, like her husband, felt
to the full the intoxication of supreme power. By a sinister coincidence
it was here that she first met the other man, then unnoticed and little
heeded, who was to cast upon her a fascination which in the end proved
irresistible.
This man was Adam Albrecht, Count von Neipperg. There is something
mysterious about his early years, and something baleful about his silent
warfare with Napoleon. As a very young soldier he had been an Austrian
officer in 1793. His command served in Belgium; and there, in a
skirmish, he was overpowered by the French in superior numbers, but
resisted desperately. In the melee a saber slashed him across the right
side of his face, and he was made prisoner. The wound deprived him of
his right eye, so that for the rest of his life he was compelled to wear
a black bandage to conceal the mutilation.
From that moment he conceived an undying hatred of the French, serving
against them in the Tyrol and in Italy. He always claimed that had the
Archduke Charles followed his advice, the Austrians would have forced
Napoleon's army to capitulate at Marengo, thus bringing early eclipse
to the rising star of Bonaparte. However this may be, Napoleon's success
enraged Neipperg and made his hatred almost the hatred of a fiend.
Hitherto he had detested the French as a nation. Afterward he
concentrated his malignity upon the person of Napoleon. In every way he
tried to cross the path of that great soldier, and, though Neipperg was
comparatively an unknown man, his indomitable purpose and his continued
intrigues at last attracted the notice of the emperor; for in 1808
Napoleon wrote this significant sentence:
The Count von Neipperg is openly known to have been the enemy of the
French.
Little did the great conqueror dream how deadly was the blow which this
Austrian count was destined finally to deal him!
Neipperg, though his title was not a high one, belonged to the old
nobility 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, he
was a handsome and accomplished courtier, a man of wide experience, and
one 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 hearts
of many women. At thirty he had formed a connection with an Italian
woman named Teresa Pola, whom he had carried away from her husband. She
had borne him five children; and in 1813 he had married her in order
that these children might be made legitimate.
In his own sphere the activity of Neipperg was almost as remarkable as
Napoleon's in a greater one. Apart from his exploits on the field of
battle he had been attached to the Austrian embassy in Paris, and,
strangely enough, had been decorated by Napoleon himself with, the
golden eagle of the Legion of Honor. Four months later we find him
minister of Austria at the court of Sweden, where he helped to lay the
train 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 short
time at Dresden, hovering about her, already forming schemes. Two years
after this he overthrew Murat at Naples; and then hurried on post-haste
to urge Prince Eugene to abandon Bonaparte.
When the great struggle of 1814 neared its close, and Napoleon, fighting
with his back to the wall, was about to succumb to the united armies of
Europe, it was evident that the Austrian emperor would soon be able to
separate his daughter from her husband. In fact, when Napoleon was sent
to Elba, Marie Louise returned to Vienna. The cynical Austrian diplomats
resolved that she should never again meet her imperial husband. She was
made Duchess of Parma in Italy, and set out for her new possessions; and
the man with the black band across his sightless eye was chosen to be
her 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, with
cynical 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 journeyed
slowly to Munich and Baden and Geneva, loitering on the way. Amid the
great events which were shaking Europe this couple attracted slight
attention. Napoleon, in Elba, longed for his wife and for his little
son, the King of Rome. He sent countless messages and many couriers; but
every message was intercepted, and no courier reached his destination.
Meanwhile Marie Louise was lingering agreeably in Switzerland. She was
happy to have escaped from the whirlpool of politics and war. Amid the
romantic scenery through which she passed Neipperg was always by her
side, attentive, devoted, trying in everything to please her. With him
she passed delightful evenings. He sang to her in his rich barytone
songs of love. He seemed romantic with a touch of mystery, a gallant
soldier whose soul was also touched by sentiment.
One would have said that Marie Louise, the daughter of an imperial
line, would have been proof against the fascinations of a person so far
inferior to herself in rank, and who, beside the great emperor, was less
than nothing. Even granting that she had never really loved Napoleon,
she might still have preferred to maintain her dignity, to share his
fate, and to go down in history as the empress of the greatest man whom
modern times have known.
But Marie Louise was, after all, a woman, and she followed the guidance
of her heart. To her Napoleon was still the man who had met her amid the
rain-storm at Courcelles, and had from the first moment when he touched
her violated all the instincts of a virgin. Later he had in his way
tried to make amends; but the horror of that first night had never
wholly left her memory. Napoleon had unrolled before her the drama of
sensuality, but her heart had not been given to him. She had been his
empress. In a sense it might be more true to say that she had been
his mistress. But she had never been duly wooed and won and made his
wife--an experience which is the right of every woman. And so this
Neipperg, with his deferential manners, his soothing voice, his magnetic
touch, his ardor, and his devotion, appeased that craving which the
master of a hundred legions could not satisfy.
In less than the six months of which Neipperg had spoken the
psychological moment had arrived. In the dim twilight she listened to
his words of love; and then, drawn by that irresistible power which
masters pride and woman's will, she sank into her lover's arms, yielding
to his caresses, and knowing that she would be parted from him no more
except by death.
From that moment he was bound to her by the closest ties and lived with
her at the petty court of Parma. His prediction came true to the very
letter. Teresa Pola died, and then Napoleon died, and after this Marie
Louise and Neipperg were united in a morganatic marriage. Three children
were born to them before his death in 1829.
It is interesting to note how much of an impression was made upon her by
the final exile of her imperial husband to St. Helena. When the news was
brought 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 when
no letters came to him from Marie Louise. She was constantly in his
thoughts during his exile at St. Helena. "When his faithful friend and
constant companion at St. Helena, the Count Las Casas, was ordered by
Sir Hudson Lowe to depart from St. Helena, Napoleon wrote to him:
"Should you see, some day, my wife and son, embrace them. For two years
I have, neither directly nor indirectly, heard from them. There has been
on this island for six months a German botanist, who has seen them
in the garden of Schoenbrunn a few months before his departure.
The barbarians (meaning the English authorities at St. Helena) have
carefully prevented him from coming to give me any news respecting
them. "
At last the truth was told him, and he received it with that high
magnanimity, or it may be fatalism, which at times he was capable of
showing. 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 his
death he said to his physician, Antommarchi:
"After my death, I desire that you will take my heart, put it in the
spirits 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 ceased
to love her. You will relate to her all that you have seen, and every
particular respecting my situation and death. "
The story of Marie Louise is pathetic, almost tragic. There is the taint
of grossness about it; and yet, after all, there is a lesson in it--the
lesson that true love cannot be forced or summoned at command, that it
is destroyed before its birth by outrage, and that it goes out only when
evoked by sympathy, by tenderness, and by devotion.
END OF VOLUME TWO
THE WIVES OF GENERAL HOUSTON
Sixty or seventy years ago it was considered a great joke to chalk up
on any man's house-door, or on his trunk at a coaching-station, the
conspicuous letters "G. T. T. " The laugh went round, and every one
who saw the inscription chuckled and said: "They've got it on you, old
hoss! " The three letters meant "gone to Texas"; and for any man to go to
Texas in those days meant his moral, mental, and financial dilapidation.
Either he had plunged into bankruptcy and wished to begin life over
again in a new world, or the sheriff had a warrant for his arrest.
The very task of reaching Texas was a fearful one. Rivers that overran
their banks, fever-stricken lowlands where gaunt faces peered out from
moldering cabins, bottomless swamps where the mud oozed greasily and
where the alligator could be seen slowly moving his repulsive form--all
this stretched on for hundreds of miles to horrify and sicken the
emigrants who came toiling on foot or struggling upon emaciated horses.
Other daring pioneers came by boat, running all manner of risks upon the
swollen rivers. Still others descended from the mountains of Tennessee
and passed through a more open country and with a greater certainty of
self-protection, because they were trained from childhood to wield the
rifle and the long sheath-knife.
It is odd enough to read, in the chronicles of those days, that amid all
this suffering and squalor there was drawn a strict line between "the
quality" and those who had no claim to be patricians. "The quality" was
made up of such emigrants as came from the more civilized East, or
who had slaves, or who dragged with them some rickety vehicle with
carriage-horses--however gaunt the animals might be. All others--those
who had no slaves or horses, and no traditions of the older states--were
classed as "poor whites"; and they accepted their mediocrity without a
murmur.
Because he was born in Lexington, Virginia, and moved thence with his
family to Tennessee, young Sam Houston--a truly eponymous American
hero--was numbered with "the quality" when, after long wandering, he
reached his boyhood home. His further claim to distinction as a boy came
from the fact that he could read and write, and was even familiar with
some of the classics in translation.
When less than eighteen years of age he had reached a height of
more than six feet. He was skilful with the rifle, a remarkable
rough-and-tumble fighter, and as quick with his long knife as any
Indian. This made him a notable figure--the more so as he never abused
his strength and courage. He was never known as anything but "Sam. " In
his own sphere he passed for a gentleman and a scholar, thanks to his
Virginian birth and to the fact that he could repeat a great part of
Pope's translation of the "Iliad. "
His learning led him to teach school a few months in the year to the
children of the white settlers. Indeed, Houston was so much taken with
the pursuit of scholarship that he made up his mind to learn Greek and
Latin. Naturally, this seemed mere foolishness to his mother, his six
strapping brothers, and his three stalwart sisters, who cared little
for study. So sharp was the difference between Sam and the rest of the
family that he gave up his yearning after the classics and went to the
other extreme by leaving home and plunging into the heart of the forest
beyond sight of any white man or woman or any thought of Hellas and
ancient Rome.
Here in the dimly lighted glades he was most happy. The Indians admired
him for his woodcraft and for the skill with which he chased the wild
game amid the forests. From his copy of the "Iliad" he would read to
them the thoughts of the world's greatest poet.
It is told that nearly forty years after, when Houston had long led a
different life and had made his home in Washington, a deputation of more
than forty untamed Indians from Texas arrived there under the charge of
several army officers. They chanced to meet Sam Houston.
One and all ran to him, clasped him in their brawny arms, hugged him
like bears to their naked breasts, and called him "father. " Beneath the
copper skin and thick paint the blood rushed, and their faces changed,
and the lips of many a warrior trembled, although the Indian may not
weep.
In the gigantic form of Houston, on whose ample brow the beneficent
love of a father was struggling with the sternness of the patriarch and
warrior, we saw civilization awing the savage at his feet. We needed no
interpreter to tell us that this impressive supremacy was gained in the
forest.
His family had been at first alarmed by his stay among the Indians;
but when after a time he returned for a new outfit they saw that he was
entirely safe and left him to wander among the red men. Later he came
forth and resumed the pursuits of civilization. He took up his studies;
he learned the rudiments of law and entered upon its active practice.
When barely thirty-six he had won every office that was open to him,
ending with his election to the Governorship of Tennessee in 1827.
Then came a strange episode which changed the whole course of his life.
Until then the love of woman had never stirred his veins. His physical
activities in the forests, his unique intimacy with Indian life, had
kept him away from the social intercourse of towns and cities. In
Nashville Houston came to know for the first time the fascination of
feminine society. As a lawyer, a politician, and the holder of important
offices he could not keep aloof from that gentler and more winning
influence which had hitherto been unknown to him.
In 1828 Governor Houston was obliged to visit different portions of
the state, stopping, as was the custom, to visit at the homes of "the
quality," and to be introduced to wives and daughters as well as to
their sportsman sons. On one of his official journeys he met Miss Eliza
Allen, a daughter of one of the "influential families" of Sumner County,
on the northern border of Tennessee. He found her responsive, charming,
and greatly to be admired. She was a slender type of Southern beauty,
well calculated to gain the affection of a lover, and especially of
one whose associations had been chiefly with the women of frontier
communities.
To meet a girl who had refined tastes and wide reading, and who was at
the same time graceful and full of humor, must have come as a pleasant
experience to Houston. He and Miss Allen saw much of each other, and few
of their friends were surprised when the word went forth that they were
engaged to be married.
The marriage occurred in January, 1829. They were surrounded with
friends of all classes and ranks, for Houston was the associate of
Jackson and was immensely popular in his own state. He seemed to have
before him a brilliant career. He had won a lovely bride to make a home
for him; so that no man seemed to have more attractive prospects. What
was there which at this time interposed in some malignant way to blight
his future?
It was a little more than a month after his marriage when he met a
friend, and, taking him out into a strip of quiet woodland, said to him:
"I have something to tell you, but you must not ask me anything about
it. My wife and I will separate before long. She will return to her
father's, while I must make my way alone. "
Houston's friend seized him by the arm and gazed at him with horror.
"Governor," said he, "you're going to ruin your whole life! What reason
have you for treating this young lady in such a way? What has she done
that you should leave her? Or what have you done that she should leave
you? Every one will fall away from you. "
Houston grimly replied:
"I have no explanation to give you. My wife has none to give you. She
will not complain of me, nor shall I complain of her. It is no
one's business in the world except our own. Any interference will be
impertinent, and I shall punish it with my own hand. "
"But," said his friend, "think of it. The people at large will not allow
such action. They will believe that you, who have been their idol, have
descended to insult a woman. Your political career is ended. It will not
be safe for you to walk the streets! "
"What difference does it make to me? " said Houston, gloomily. "What must
be, must be. I tell you, as a friend, in advance, so that you may be
prepared; but the parting will take place very soon. "
Little was heard for another month or two, and then came the
announcement that the Governor's wife had left him and had returned to
her parents' home. The news flew like wildfire, and was the theme
of every tongue. Friends of Mrs. Houston begged her to tell them the
meaning of the whole affair. Adherents of Houston, on the other hand,
set afloat stories of his wife's coldness and of her peevishness. The
state was divided into factions; and what really concerned a very few
was, as usual, made everybody's business.
There were times when, if Houston had appeared near the dwelling of his
former wife, he would have been lynched or riddled with bullets. Again,
there were enemies and slanderers of his who, had they shown themselves
in Nashville, would have been torn to pieces by men who hailed Houston
as a hero and who believed that he could not possibly have done wrong.
However his friends might rage, and however her people might wonder and
seek to pry into the secret, no satisfaction was given on either side.
The abandoned wife never uttered a word of explanation. Houston was
equally reticent and self-controlled. In later years he sometimes drank
deeply and was loose-tongued; but never, even in his cups, could he be
persuaded to say a single word about his wife.
The whole thing is a mystery and cannot be solved by any evidence that
we have. Almost every one who has written of it seems to have indulged
in mere guesswork. One popular theory is that Miss Allen was in love
with some one else; that her parents forced her into a brilliant
marriage with Houston, which, however, she could not afterward endure;
and that Houston, learning the facts, left her because he knew that her
heart was not really his.
But the evidence is all against this.
French writers, even those who are hostile to Napoleon, do not care
to dwell upon the story; since France itself was humiliated when its
greatest genius and most splendid soldier was deceived by his Austrian
wife. Therefore there are still many who know little beyond the bare
fact 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 to
crouch in a sort of murky byway, and those who pass over the highroad of
history ignore it with averted eyes.
In reality the story of Napoleon and Marie Louise and of the Count von
Neipperg is one which, when you search it to the very core, leads you
straight to a sex problem of a very curious nature. Nowhere else does
it occur in the relations of the great personages of history; but in
literature Balzac, that master of psychology, has touched upon the theme
in the early chapters of his famous novel called "A Woman of Thirty. "
As to the Napoleonic story, let us first recall the facts of the
case, giving them in such order that their full significance may be
understood.
In 1809 Napoleon, then at the plenitude of his power, shook himself free
from the clinging clasp of Josephine and procured the annulment of his
marriage to her. He really owed her nothing. Before he knew her she had
been the mistress of another. In the first years of their life together
she had been notoriously unfaithful to him. He had held to her from
habit which was in part a superstition; but the remembrance of the wrong
which she had done him made her faded charms at times almost repulsive.
And then Josephine had never borne him any children; and without a
son to perpetuate his dynasty, the gigantic achievements which he
had wrought seemed futile in his eyes, and likely to crumble into
nothingness when he should die.
No sooner had the marriage been annulled than his titanic ambition
leaped, as it always did, to a tremendous pinnacle. He would wed. He
would have children. But he would wed no petty princess. This man who in
his early youth had felt honored by a marriage with the almost declassee
widow of a creole planter now stretched out his hand that he might take
to himself a woman not merely royal but imperial.
At first he sought the sister of the Czar of Russia; but Alexander
entertained a profound distrust of the French emperor, and managed to
evade the tentative demand. There was, however, a reigning family far
more ancient than the Romanoffs--a family which had held the imperial
dignity for nearly six centuries--the oldest and the noblest blood in
Europe. This was the Austrian house of Hapsburg. Its head, the Emperor
Francis, had thirteen children, of whom the eldest, the Archduchess
Marie Louise, was then in her nineteenth year.
Napoleon had resented the rebuff which the Czar had given him. He
turned, therefore, the more eagerly to the other project. Yet there were
many reasons why an Austrian marriage might be dangerous, or, at any
rate, ill-omened. Only sixteen years before, an Austrian arch-duchess,
Marie Antionette, married to the ruler of France, had met her death
upon the scaffold, hated and cursed by the French people, who had always
blamed "the Austrian" for the evil days which had ended in the flames
of revolution. Again, the father of the girl to whom Napoleon's fancy
turned had been the bitter enemy of the new regime in France. His troops
had been beaten by the French in five wars and had been crushed at
Austerlitz and at Wagram. Bonaparte had twice entered Vienna at the head
of a conquering army, and thrice he had slept in the imperial palace
at Schonbrunn, while Francis was fleeing through the dark, a beaten
fugitive pursued by the swift squadrons of French cavalry.
The feeling of Francis of Austria was not merely that of the vanquished
toward 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 demolished
thrones and set an iron heel upon crowned heads, giving the sacred
titles of king and prince to soldiers who, even in palaces, still showed
the swaggering brutality of the camp and the stable whence they sprang.
Yet, just because an alliance with the Austrian house seemed in so many
ways impossible, the thought of it inflamed the ardor of Napoleon all
the more.
"Impossible? " he had once said, contemptuously. "The word 'impossible'
is not French. "
The Austrian alliance, unnatural though it seemed, was certainly quite
possible. In the year 1809 Napoleon had finished his fifth war with
Austria by the terrific battle of Wagram, which brought the empire of
the Hapsburgs to the very dust. The conqueror's rude hand had stripped
from Francis province after province. He had even let fall hints that
the Hapsburgs might be dethroned and that Austria might disappear from
the map of Europe, to be divided between himself and the Russian Czar,
who was still his ally. It was at this psychological moment that the
Czar wounded Napoleon's pride by refusing to give the hand of his sister
Anne.
The subtle diplomats of Vienna immediately saw their chance.
Prince Metternich, with the caution of one who enters the cage of a
man-eating-tiger, suggested that the Austrian archduchess would be a
fitting bride for the French conqueror. The notion soothed the wounded
vanity of Napoleon. From that moment events moved swiftly; and before
long it was understood that there was to be a new empress in France, and
that she was to be none other than the daughter of the man who had been
Napoleon's most persistent foe upon the Continent. The girl was to be
given--sacrificed, if you like--to appease an imperial adventurer. After
such a marriage, Austria would be safe from spoliation. The reigning
dynasty would remain firmly seated upon its historic throne.
But how about the girl herself? She had always heard Napoleon spoken of
as a sort of ogre--a man of low ancestry, a brutal and faithless enemy
of her people. She knew that this bold, rough-spoken soldier less than a
year before had added insult to the injury which he had inflicted on
her father. In public proclamations he had called the Emperor Francis a
coward and a liar. Up to the latter part of the year Napoleon was to
her imagination a blood-stained, sordid, and yet all-powerful monster,
outside the pale of human liking and respect. What must have been her
thoughts when her father first told her with averted face that she was
to become the bride of such a being?
Marie Louise had been brought up, as all German girls of rank were then
brought up, in quiet simplicity and utter innocence. In person she was
a tall blonde, with a wealth of light brown hair tumbling about a face
which might be called attractive because it was so youthful and so
gentle, but in which only poets and courtiers could see beauty. Her
complexion was rosy, with that peculiar tinge which means that in the
course of time it will become red and mottled. Her blue eyes were clear
and childish. Her figure was good, though already too full for a girl
who was younger than her years.
She had a large and generous mouth with full lips, the lower one
being the true "Hapsburg lip," slightly pendulous--a feature which has
remained for generation after generation as a sure sign of Hapsburg
blood. One sees it in the present emperor of Austria, in the late Queen
Regent of Spain, and in the present King of Spain, Alfonso. All the
artists who made miniatures or paintings of Marie Louise softened down
this 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 madchen
who knew nothing of the outside world except what she had heard from her
discreet and watchful governess, and what had been told her of Napoleon
by her uncles, the archdukes whom he had beaten down in battle.
When she learned that she was to be given to the French emperor her
girlish soul experienced a shudder; but her father told her how vital
was this union to her country and to him. With a sort of piteous dread
she questioned the archdukes who had called Napoleon an ogre.
"Oh, that was when Napoleon was an enemy," they replied. "Now he is our
friend. "
Marie Louise listened to all this, and, like the obedient German girl
she 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 was
already astir with preparations for the new empress who was to assure
the continuation of the Napoleonic glory by giving children to her
husband. 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 odd
letter, combining the formality of a negotiator with the veiled ardor of
a lover:
MY COUSIN: The brilliant qualities which adorn your person have inspired
in me a desire to serve you and to pay you homage. In making my request
to the emperor, your father, and praying him to intrust to me the
happiness of your imperial highness, may I hope that you will understand
the sentiments which lead me to this act? May I flatter myself that it
will not be decided solely by the duty of parental obedience? However
slightly the feelings of your imperial highness may incline to me, I
wish to cultivate them with so great care, and to endeavor so constantly
to please you in everything, that I flatter myself that some day I shall
prove 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 only
ornaments had been a few colored stones which she sometimes wore as a
necklace or a bracelet. Now the resources of all France were drawn upon.
Precious laces foamed about her. Cascades of diamonds flashed before her
eyes. The costliest and most exquisite creations of the Parisian shops
were spread around her to make up a trousseau fit for the princess who
was soon to become the bride of the man who had mastered continental
Europe.
The archives of Vienna were ransacked for musty documents which would
show exactly what had been done for other Austrian princesses who had
married rulers of France. Everything was duplicated down to the last
detail. Ladies-in-waiting thronged about the young archduchess; and
presently there came to her Queen Caroline of Naples, Napoleon's sister,
of whom Napoleon himself once said: "She is the only man among my
sisters, as Joseph is the only woman among my brothers. " Caroline, by
virtue of her rank as queen, could have free access to her husband's
future bride. Also, there came presently Napoleon's famous marshal,
Berthier, Prince of Neuchatel, the chief of the Old Guard, who had just
been created Prince of Wagram--a title which, very naturally, he did not
use in Austria. He was to act as proxy for Napoleon in the preliminary
marriage service at Vienna.
All was excitement. Vienna had never been so gay. Money was lavished
under the direction of Caroline and Berthier. There were illuminations
and balls. The young girl found herself the center of the world's
interest; and the excitement made her dizzy. She could not but be
flattered, and yet there were many hours when her heart misgave her.
More than once she was found in tears. Her father, an affectionate
though narrow soul, spent an entire day with her consoling and
reassuring her. One thought she always kept in mind--what she had said
to Metternich at the very first: "I want only what my duty bids me
want. " At last came the official marriage, by proxy, in the presence of
a splendid gathering. The various documents were signed, the dowry was
arranged for. Gifts were scattered right and left. At the opera
there were gala performances. Then Marie Louise bade her father a sad
farewell. Almost suffocated by sobs and with her eyes streaming with
tears, she was led between two hedges of bayonets to her carriage, while
cannon thundered and all the church-bells of Vienna rang a joyful peal.
She set out for France accompanied by a long train of carriages filled
with noblemen and noblewomen, with ladies-in-waiting and scores of
attendant menials. The young bride--the wife of a man whom she had never
seen--was almost dead with excitement and fatigue. At a station in the
outskirts of Vienna she scribbled a few lines to her father, which are a
commentary upon her state of mind:
I think of you always, and I always shall. God has given me power to
endure this final shock, and in Him alone I have put all my trust. He
will help me and give me courage, and I shall find support in doing my
duty toward you, since it is all for you that I have sacrificed myself.
There is something piteous in this little note of a frightened girl
going to encounter she knew not what, and clinging almost frantically
to the one thought--that whatever might befall her, she was doing as her
father wished.
One need not recount the long and tedious journey of many days over
wretched roads, in carriages that jolted and lurched and swayed. She was
surrounded by unfamiliar faces and was compelled to meet at every town
the chief men of the place, all of whom paid her honor, but stared at
her with irrepressible curiosity. Day after day she went on and on. Each
morning a courier on a foaming horse presented her with a great cluster
of fresh flowers and a few lines scrawled by the unknown husband who was
to meet her at her journey's end.
There lay the point upon which her wandering thoughts were focused--the
journey's end! The man whose strange, mysterious power had forced her
from her school-room, had driven her through a nightmare of strange
happenings, and who was waiting for her somewhere to take her to
himself, to master her as he had mastered generals and armies!
What was marriage? What did it mean? What experience still lay before
her! These were the questions which she must have asked herself
throughout that long, exhausting journey. When she thought of the past
she was homesick. When she thought of the immediate future she was
fearful with a shuddering fear.
At last she reached the frontier of France, and her carriage passed into
a 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--the
representatives of the Napoleonic court. They were not all plebeians and
children of the Revolution, ex-stable boys, ex-laundresses. By this time
Napoleon had gathered around himself some of the noblest families of
France, who had rallied to the empire. The assemblage was a brilliant
one. 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 thus
far were now turned back. Napoleon had been insistent on this point.
Even her governess, who had been with her since her childhood, was not
allowed to cross the French frontier. So fixed was Napoleon's purpose
to have nothing Austrian about her, that even her pet dog, to which
she clung as a girl would cling, was taken from her. Thereafter she was
surrounded only by French faces, by French guards, and was greeted only
by salvos of French artillery.
In the mean time what was Napoleon doing at Paris. Since the annulment
of his marriage with Josephine he had gone into a sort of retirement.
Matters of state, war, internal reforms, no longer interested him; but
that restless brain could not sink into repose. Inflamed with the ardor
of a new passion, that passion was all the greater because he had
never yet set eyes upon its object. Marriage with an imperial princess
flattered his ambition. The youth and innocence of the bride stirred his
whole being with a thrill of novelty. The painted charms of Josephine,
the mercenary favors of actresses, the calculated ecstasies of the women
of the court who gave themselves to him from vanity, had long since
palled upon him. Therefore the impatience with which he awaited the
coming of Marie Louise became every day more tense.
For a time he amused himself with planning down to the very last details
the demonstrations that were to be given in her honor. He organized
them as minutely as he had ever organized a conquering army. He showed
himself as wonderful in these petty things as he had in those great
strategic combinations which had baffled the ablest generals of
Europe. But after all had been arranged--even to the illuminations, the
cheering, the salutes, and the etiquette of the court--he fell into a
fever of impatience which gave him sleepless nights and frantic days. He
paced up and down the Tuileries, almost beside himself. He hurried off
courier after courier with orders that the postilions should lash their
horses to bring the hour of meeting nearer still. He scribbled love
letters. He gazed continually on the diamond-studded portrait of the
woman who was hurrying toward him.
At last as the time approached he entered a swift traveling-carriage and
hastened to Compiegne, about fifty miles from Paris, where it had been
arranged that he should meet his consort and whence he was to escort her
to the capital, so that they might be married in the great gallery
of the Louvre. At Compiegne the chancellerie had been set apart for
Napoleon's convenience, while the chateau had been assigned to Marie
Louise and her attendants. When Napoleon's carriage dashed into the
place, drawn by horses that had traveled at a gallop, the emperor could
not restrain himself. It was raining torrents and night was coming
on, yet, none the less, he shouted for fresh horses and pushed on to
Soissons, where the new empress was to stop and dine. When he reached
there and she had not arrived, new relays of horses were demanded, and
he hurried off once more into the dark.
At the little village of Courcelles he met the courier who was riding in
advance of the empress's cortege.
"She will be here in a few moments! " cried Napoleon; and he leaped from
his carriage into the highway.
The rain descended harder than ever, and he took refuge in the arched
doorway of the village church, his boots already bemired, his great coat
reeking with the downpour. As he crouched before the church he heard the
sound of carriages; and before long there came toiling through the
mud the one in which was seated the girl for whom he had so long been
waiting. 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 he
have restrained himself, could he have shown the delicate consideration
which was demanded of him, could he have remembered at least that he was
an emperor and that the girl--timid and shuddering--was a princess, her
future story might have been far different. But long ago he had ceased
to think of anything except his own desires.
He approached the carriage. An obsequious chamberlain drew aside the
leathern covering and opened the door, exclaiming as he did so, "The
emperor! " And then there leaped in the rain-soaked, mud-bespattered
being whose excesses had always been as unbridled as his genius. The
door was closed, the leathern curtain again drawn, and the horses set
out at a gallop for Soissons. Within, the shrinking bride was at the
mercy of pure animal passion, feeling upon her hot face a torrent of
rough kisses, and yielding herself in terror to the caresses of wanton
hands.
At Soissons Napoleon allowed no halt, but the carriage plunged on, still
in the rain, to Compiegne. There all the arrangements made with so much
care were thrust aside. Though the actual marriage had not yet taken
place, Napoleon claimed all the rights which afterward were given in the
ceremonial at Paris. He took the girl to the chancellerie, and not to
the chateau. In an anteroom dinner was served with haste to the imperial
pair and Queen Caroline. Then the latter was dismissed with little
ceremony, the lights were extinguished, and this daughter of a line of
emperors was left to the tender mercies of one who always had about him
something 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 bed
by the ladies of her household.
These facts, repellent as they are, must be remembered when we call
to mind what happened in the next five years. The horror of that night
could not be obliterated by splendid ceremonies, by studious attention,
or by all the pomp and gaiety of the court. Napoleon was then
forty-one--practically the same age as his new wife's father, the
Austrian emperor; Marie Louise was barely nineteen and younger than her
years. Her master must have seemed to be the brutal ogre whom her uncles
had described.
Installed in the Tuileries, she taught herself compliance. On their
marriage night Napoleon had asked her briefly: "What did your parents
tell you? " And she had answered, meekly: "To be yours altogether and to
obey you in everything. " But, though she gave compliance, and though her
freshness seemed enchanting to Napoleon, there was something concealed
within her thoughts to which he could not penetrate. He gaily said to a
member of the court:
"Marry a German, my dear fellow. They are the best women in the
world--gentle, good, artless, and as fresh as roses. "
Yet, at the same time, Napoleon felt a deep anxiety lest in her very
heart 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 the
empress. 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 he
returned to the ante-room he found Napoleon fidgeting about, his eyes a
pair of interrogation-points.
"I am sure," he said, "that the empress told you that I was kind to
her? "
Metternich bowed and made no answer.
"Well," said Napoleon, somewhat impatiently, "at least I am sure that
she is happy. Tell me, did she not say so? "
The Austrian diplomat remained unsmiling.
"Your majesty himself has forbidden me to answer," he returned with
another bow.
We may fairly draw the inference that Marie Louise, though she adapted
herself to her surroundings, was never really happy. Napoleon became
infatuated with her. He surrounded her with every possible mark of
honor. He abandoned public business to walk or drive with her. But the
memory of his own brutality must have vaguely haunted him throughout it
all. He was jealous of her as he had never been jealous of the fickle
Josephine. Constant has recorded that the greatest precautions were
taken to prevent any person whatsoever, and especially any man, from
approaching 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. His
shabby uniforms were all discarded, and he spent hours in trying on new
costumes. He even attempted to learn to waltz, but this he gave up in
despair. Whereas before he ate hastily and at irregular intervals,
he now sat at dinner with unusual patience, and the court took on a
character which it had never had. Never before had he sacrificed either
his public duty or his private pleasure for any woman. Even in the first
ardor of his marriage with Josephine, when he used to pour out his heart
to her in letters from Italian battle-fields, he did so only after he
had made the disposition of his troops and had planned his movements
for the following day. Now, however, he was not merely devoted, but
uxorious; and in 1811, after the birth of the little King of Rome, he
ceased to be the earlier Napoleon altogether. He had founded a dynasty.
He was the head of a reigning house. He forgot the principles of the
Revolution, and he ruled, as he thought, like other monarchs, by the
grace of God.
As for Marie Louise, she played her part extremely well. Somewhat
haughty and unapproachable to others, she nevertheless studied
Napoleon's every wish. She seemed even to be loving; but one can
scarcely doubt that her obedience sprang ultimately from fear and
that her devotion was the devotion of a dog which has been beaten into
subjection.
Her vanity was flattered in many ways, and most of all by her
appointment as regent of the empire during Napoleon's absence in the
disastrous Russian campaign which began in 1812. It was in June of that
year that the French emperor held court at Dresden, where he played,
as was said, to "a parterre of kings. " This was the climax of his
magnificence, for there were gathered all the sovereigns and princes who
were his allies and who furnished the levies that swelled his Grand Army
to six hundred thousand men. Here Marie Louise, like her husband, felt
to the full the intoxication of supreme power. By a sinister coincidence
it was here that she first met the other man, then unnoticed and little
heeded, who was to cast upon her a fascination which in the end proved
irresistible.
This man was Adam Albrecht, Count von Neipperg. There is something
mysterious about his early years, and something baleful about his silent
warfare with Napoleon. As a very young soldier he had been an Austrian
officer in 1793. His command served in Belgium; and there, in a
skirmish, he was overpowered by the French in superior numbers, but
resisted desperately. In the melee a saber slashed him across the right
side of his face, and he was made prisoner. The wound deprived him of
his right eye, so that for the rest of his life he was compelled to wear
a black bandage to conceal the mutilation.
From that moment he conceived an undying hatred of the French, serving
against them in the Tyrol and in Italy. He always claimed that had the
Archduke Charles followed his advice, the Austrians would have forced
Napoleon's army to capitulate at Marengo, thus bringing early eclipse
to the rising star of Bonaparte. However this may be, Napoleon's success
enraged Neipperg and made his hatred almost the hatred of a fiend.
Hitherto he had detested the French as a nation. Afterward he
concentrated his malignity upon the person of Napoleon. In every way he
tried to cross the path of that great soldier, and, though Neipperg was
comparatively an unknown man, his indomitable purpose and his continued
intrigues at last attracted the notice of the emperor; for in 1808
Napoleon wrote this significant sentence:
The Count von Neipperg is openly known to have been the enemy of the
French.
Little did the great conqueror dream how deadly was the blow which this
Austrian count was destined finally to deal him!
Neipperg, though his title was not a high one, belonged to the old
nobility 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, he
was a handsome and accomplished courtier, a man of wide experience, and
one 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 hearts
of many women. At thirty he had formed a connection with an Italian
woman named Teresa Pola, whom he had carried away from her husband. She
had borne him five children; and in 1813 he had married her in order
that these children might be made legitimate.
In his own sphere the activity of Neipperg was almost as remarkable as
Napoleon's in a greater one. Apart from his exploits on the field of
battle he had been attached to the Austrian embassy in Paris, and,
strangely enough, had been decorated by Napoleon himself with, the
golden eagle of the Legion of Honor. Four months later we find him
minister of Austria at the court of Sweden, where he helped to lay the
train 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 short
time at Dresden, hovering about her, already forming schemes. Two years
after this he overthrew Murat at Naples; and then hurried on post-haste
to urge Prince Eugene to abandon Bonaparte.
When the great struggle of 1814 neared its close, and Napoleon, fighting
with his back to the wall, was about to succumb to the united armies of
Europe, it was evident that the Austrian emperor would soon be able to
separate his daughter from her husband. In fact, when Napoleon was sent
to Elba, Marie Louise returned to Vienna. The cynical Austrian diplomats
resolved that she should never again meet her imperial husband. She was
made Duchess of Parma in Italy, and set out for her new possessions; and
the man with the black band across his sightless eye was chosen to be
her 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, with
cynical 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 journeyed
slowly to Munich and Baden and Geneva, loitering on the way. Amid the
great events which were shaking Europe this couple attracted slight
attention. Napoleon, in Elba, longed for his wife and for his little
son, the King of Rome. He sent countless messages and many couriers; but
every message was intercepted, and no courier reached his destination.
Meanwhile Marie Louise was lingering agreeably in Switzerland. She was
happy to have escaped from the whirlpool of politics and war. Amid the
romantic scenery through which she passed Neipperg was always by her
side, attentive, devoted, trying in everything to please her. With him
she passed delightful evenings. He sang to her in his rich barytone
songs of love. He seemed romantic with a touch of mystery, a gallant
soldier whose soul was also touched by sentiment.
One would have said that Marie Louise, the daughter of an imperial
line, would have been proof against the fascinations of a person so far
inferior to herself in rank, and who, beside the great emperor, was less
than nothing. Even granting that she had never really loved Napoleon,
she might still have preferred to maintain her dignity, to share his
fate, and to go down in history as the empress of the greatest man whom
modern times have known.
But Marie Louise was, after all, a woman, and she followed the guidance
of her heart. To her Napoleon was still the man who had met her amid the
rain-storm at Courcelles, and had from the first moment when he touched
her violated all the instincts of a virgin. Later he had in his way
tried to make amends; but the horror of that first night had never
wholly left her memory. Napoleon had unrolled before her the drama of
sensuality, but her heart had not been given to him. She had been his
empress. In a sense it might be more true to say that she had been
his mistress. But she had never been duly wooed and won and made his
wife--an experience which is the right of every woman. And so this
Neipperg, with his deferential manners, his soothing voice, his magnetic
touch, his ardor, and his devotion, appeased that craving which the
master of a hundred legions could not satisfy.
In less than the six months of which Neipperg had spoken the
psychological moment had arrived. In the dim twilight she listened to
his words of love; and then, drawn by that irresistible power which
masters pride and woman's will, she sank into her lover's arms, yielding
to his caresses, and knowing that she would be parted from him no more
except by death.
From that moment he was bound to her by the closest ties and lived with
her at the petty court of Parma. His prediction came true to the very
letter. Teresa Pola died, and then Napoleon died, and after this Marie
Louise and Neipperg were united in a morganatic marriage. Three children
were born to them before his death in 1829.
It is interesting to note how much of an impression was made upon her by
the final exile of her imperial husband to St. Helena. When the news was
brought 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 when
no letters came to him from Marie Louise. She was constantly in his
thoughts during his exile at St. Helena. "When his faithful friend and
constant companion at St. Helena, the Count Las Casas, was ordered by
Sir Hudson Lowe to depart from St. Helena, Napoleon wrote to him:
"Should you see, some day, my wife and son, embrace them. For two years
I have, neither directly nor indirectly, heard from them. There has been
on this island for six months a German botanist, who has seen them
in the garden of Schoenbrunn a few months before his departure.
The barbarians (meaning the English authorities at St. Helena) have
carefully prevented him from coming to give me any news respecting
them. "
At last the truth was told him, and he received it with that high
magnanimity, or it may be fatalism, which at times he was capable of
showing. 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 his
death he said to his physician, Antommarchi:
"After my death, I desire that you will take my heart, put it in the
spirits 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 ceased
to love her. You will relate to her all that you have seen, and every
particular respecting my situation and death. "
The story of Marie Louise is pathetic, almost tragic. There is the taint
of grossness about it; and yet, after all, there is a lesson in it--the
lesson that true love cannot be forced or summoned at command, that it
is destroyed before its birth by outrage, and that it goes out only when
evoked by sympathy, by tenderness, and by devotion.
END OF VOLUME TWO
THE WIVES OF GENERAL HOUSTON
Sixty or seventy years ago it was considered a great joke to chalk up
on any man's house-door, or on his trunk at a coaching-station, the
conspicuous letters "G. T. T. " The laugh went round, and every one
who saw the inscription chuckled and said: "They've got it on you, old
hoss! " The three letters meant "gone to Texas"; and for any man to go to
Texas in those days meant his moral, mental, and financial dilapidation.
Either he had plunged into bankruptcy and wished to begin life over
again in a new world, or the sheriff had a warrant for his arrest.
The very task of reaching Texas was a fearful one. Rivers that overran
their banks, fever-stricken lowlands where gaunt faces peered out from
moldering cabins, bottomless swamps where the mud oozed greasily and
where the alligator could be seen slowly moving his repulsive form--all
this stretched on for hundreds of miles to horrify and sicken the
emigrants who came toiling on foot or struggling upon emaciated horses.
Other daring pioneers came by boat, running all manner of risks upon the
swollen rivers. Still others descended from the mountains of Tennessee
and passed through a more open country and with a greater certainty of
self-protection, because they were trained from childhood to wield the
rifle and the long sheath-knife.
It is odd enough to read, in the chronicles of those days, that amid all
this suffering and squalor there was drawn a strict line between "the
quality" and those who had no claim to be patricians. "The quality" was
made up of such emigrants as came from the more civilized East, or
who had slaves, or who dragged with them some rickety vehicle with
carriage-horses--however gaunt the animals might be. All others--those
who had no slaves or horses, and no traditions of the older states--were
classed as "poor whites"; and they accepted their mediocrity without a
murmur.
Because he was born in Lexington, Virginia, and moved thence with his
family to Tennessee, young Sam Houston--a truly eponymous American
hero--was numbered with "the quality" when, after long wandering, he
reached his boyhood home. His further claim to distinction as a boy came
from the fact that he could read and write, and was even familiar with
some of the classics in translation.
When less than eighteen years of age he had reached a height of
more than six feet. He was skilful with the rifle, a remarkable
rough-and-tumble fighter, and as quick with his long knife as any
Indian. This made him a notable figure--the more so as he never abused
his strength and courage. He was never known as anything but "Sam. " In
his own sphere he passed for a gentleman and a scholar, thanks to his
Virginian birth and to the fact that he could repeat a great part of
Pope's translation of the "Iliad. "
His learning led him to teach school a few months in the year to the
children of the white settlers. Indeed, Houston was so much taken with
the pursuit of scholarship that he made up his mind to learn Greek and
Latin. Naturally, this seemed mere foolishness to his mother, his six
strapping brothers, and his three stalwart sisters, who cared little
for study. So sharp was the difference between Sam and the rest of the
family that he gave up his yearning after the classics and went to the
other extreme by leaving home and plunging into the heart of the forest
beyond sight of any white man or woman or any thought of Hellas and
ancient Rome.
Here in the dimly lighted glades he was most happy. The Indians admired
him for his woodcraft and for the skill with which he chased the wild
game amid the forests. From his copy of the "Iliad" he would read to
them the thoughts of the world's greatest poet.
It is told that nearly forty years after, when Houston had long led a
different life and had made his home in Washington, a deputation of more
than forty untamed Indians from Texas arrived there under the charge of
several army officers. They chanced to meet Sam Houston.
One and all ran to him, clasped him in their brawny arms, hugged him
like bears to their naked breasts, and called him "father. " Beneath the
copper skin and thick paint the blood rushed, and their faces changed,
and the lips of many a warrior trembled, although the Indian may not
weep.
In the gigantic form of Houston, on whose ample brow the beneficent
love of a father was struggling with the sternness of the patriarch and
warrior, we saw civilization awing the savage at his feet. We needed no
interpreter to tell us that this impressive supremacy was gained in the
forest.
His family had been at first alarmed by his stay among the Indians;
but when after a time he returned for a new outfit they saw that he was
entirely safe and left him to wander among the red men. Later he came
forth and resumed the pursuits of civilization. He took up his studies;
he learned the rudiments of law and entered upon its active practice.
When barely thirty-six he had won every office that was open to him,
ending with his election to the Governorship of Tennessee in 1827.
Then came a strange episode which changed the whole course of his life.
Until then the love of woman had never stirred his veins. His physical
activities in the forests, his unique intimacy with Indian life, had
kept him away from the social intercourse of towns and cities. In
Nashville Houston came to know for the first time the fascination of
feminine society. As a lawyer, a politician, and the holder of important
offices he could not keep aloof from that gentler and more winning
influence which had hitherto been unknown to him.
In 1828 Governor Houston was obliged to visit different portions of
the state, stopping, as was the custom, to visit at the homes of "the
quality," and to be introduced to wives and daughters as well as to
their sportsman sons. On one of his official journeys he met Miss Eliza
Allen, a daughter of one of the "influential families" of Sumner County,
on the northern border of Tennessee. He found her responsive, charming,
and greatly to be admired. She was a slender type of Southern beauty,
well calculated to gain the affection of a lover, and especially of
one whose associations had been chiefly with the women of frontier
communities.
To meet a girl who had refined tastes and wide reading, and who was at
the same time graceful and full of humor, must have come as a pleasant
experience to Houston. He and Miss Allen saw much of each other, and few
of their friends were surprised when the word went forth that they were
engaged to be married.
The marriage occurred in January, 1829. They were surrounded with
friends of all classes and ranks, for Houston was the associate of
Jackson and was immensely popular in his own state. He seemed to have
before him a brilliant career. He had won a lovely bride to make a home
for him; so that no man seemed to have more attractive prospects. What
was there which at this time interposed in some malignant way to blight
his future?
It was a little more than a month after his marriage when he met a
friend, and, taking him out into a strip of quiet woodland, said to him:
"I have something to tell you, but you must not ask me anything about
it. My wife and I will separate before long. She will return to her
father's, while I must make my way alone. "
Houston's friend seized him by the arm and gazed at him with horror.
"Governor," said he, "you're going to ruin your whole life! What reason
have you for treating this young lady in such a way? What has she done
that you should leave her? Or what have you done that she should leave
you? Every one will fall away from you. "
Houston grimly replied:
"I have no explanation to give you. My wife has none to give you. She
will not complain of me, nor shall I complain of her. It is no
one's business in the world except our own. Any interference will be
impertinent, and I shall punish it with my own hand. "
"But," said his friend, "think of it. The people at large will not allow
such action. They will believe that you, who have been their idol, have
descended to insult a woman. Your political career is ended. It will not
be safe for you to walk the streets! "
"What difference does it make to me? " said Houston, gloomily. "What must
be, must be. I tell you, as a friend, in advance, so that you may be
prepared; but the parting will take place very soon. "
Little was heard for another month or two, and then came the
announcement that the Governor's wife had left him and had returned to
her parents' home. The news flew like wildfire, and was the theme
of every tongue. Friends of Mrs. Houston begged her to tell them the
meaning of the whole affair. Adherents of Houston, on the other hand,
set afloat stories of his wife's coldness and of her peevishness. The
state was divided into factions; and what really concerned a very few
was, as usual, made everybody's business.
There were times when, if Houston had appeared near the dwelling of his
former wife, he would have been lynched or riddled with bullets. Again,
there were enemies and slanderers of his who, had they shown themselves
in Nashville, would have been torn to pieces by men who hailed Houston
as a hero and who believed that he could not possibly have done wrong.
However his friends might rage, and however her people might wonder and
seek to pry into the secret, no satisfaction was given on either side.
The abandoned wife never uttered a word of explanation. Houston was
equally reticent and self-controlled. In later years he sometimes drank
deeply and was loose-tongued; but never, even in his cups, could he be
persuaded to say a single word about his wife.
The whole thing is a mystery and cannot be solved by any evidence that
we have. Almost every one who has written of it seems to have indulged
in mere guesswork. One popular theory is that Miss Allen was in love
with some one else; that her parents forced her into a brilliant
marriage with Houston, which, however, she could not afterward endure;
and that Houston, learning the facts, left her because he knew that her
heart was not really his.
But the evidence is all against this.
