|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 15
It was arranged that Josephine and the Emperor should meet in Belgium.
He proceeded thither from the camp of Boulogne, to the astonishment of
those who believed that the moment for the invasion of England had at
length arrived. He joined the Empress at the Palace of Lacken, which the
Emperor had ordered to be repaired and newly furnished with great
magnificence.
The Emperor continued his journey by the towns bordering on the Rhine.
He stopped first in the town of Charlemagne, passed through the three
bishoprics,
--[There are two or three little circumstances in connection with
this journey that seem worth inserting here:
Mademoiselle Avrillion was the 'femme de chambre' of Josephine, and
was constantly about her person from the time of the first
Consulship to the death of the Empress in 1814. In all such matters
as we shall quote from them, her memoirs seem worthy of credit.
According to Mademoiselle, the Empress during her stay at Aix-la-
Chapelle, drank the waters with much eagerness and some hope. As
the theatre there was only supplied with some German singers who
were not to Josephine's taste, she had part of a French operatic
company sent to her from Paris. The amiable creole had always a
most royal disregard of expense. When Bonaparte joined her, he
renewed his old custom of visiting his wife now and then at her
toilet, and according to Mademoiselle Avrillion, he took great
interest in the subject of her dressing. She says, "It was a most
extraordinary thing for us to see the man whose head was filled with
such vast affairs enter into the most minute details of the female
toilet and of what dresses, what robes, and what jewels the Empress
should wear on such and such an occasion. One day he daubed her
dress with ink because be did not like it, and wanted her to put on
another. Whenever he looked into her wardrobe he was sure to throw
everything topsy-turvy."
This characteristic anecdote perfectly agrees with what we have
heard from other persons. When the Neapolitan Princess di----- was
at the Tuileries as 'dame d'honneur' to Bonaparte's sister Caroline
Murat, then Queen of Naples, on the grand occasion of the marriage
with Maria Louisa, the, Princess, to her astonishment, saw the
Emperor go up to a lady of the Court and address her thus: "This is
the same gown you wore the day before yesterday! What's the meaning
of this, madame? This is not right, madame!"
Josephine never gave him a similar cause of complaint, but even when
he was Emperor she often made him murmur at the profusion of her
expenditure under this head. The next anecdote will give some idea
of the quantity of dresses which she wore for a day or so, and then
gave away to her attendants, who appear to have carried on a very
active trade in them.
"While we were at Mayence the Palace was literally besieged by Jews,
who continually brought manufactured and other goods to show to the
followers of the Court; and we had the greatest difficulty to avoid
buying them. At last they proposed that we should barter with them;
and when Her Majesty had given us dresses that were far too rich for
us to wear ourselves, we exchanged them with the Jews for
piecegoods. The robes we thus bartered did not long remain in the
hands of the Jews, and there must have been a great demand for them
among the belles of Mayence, for I remember a ball there at which
the Empress might have seen all the ladies of a quadrille party
dressed in her cast-off clothes.--I even saw German Princesses
wearing them" (Memoires de Mademoiselle Avrillion).
--on his way Cologne and Coblentz, which the emigration had rendered so
famous, and arrived at Mayence, where his sojourn was distinguished by the
first attempt at negotiation with the Holy See, in order to induce the
Pope to come to France to crown the new Emperor, and consolidate his
power by supporting it with the sanction of the Church. This journey of
Napoleon occupied three months, and he did not return to St. Cloud till
October. Amongst the flattering addresses which the Emperor received in
the course of his journey I cannot pass over unnoticed the speech of M.
de la Chaise, Prefect of Arras, who said, "God made Bonaparte, and then
rested." This occasioned Comte Louis de Narbonne, who was not yet
attached to the Imperial system, to remark "That it would have been well
had God rested a little sooner."
During the Emperor's absence a partial change took place in the Ministry.
M. de Champagny succeeded M. Chaptal as Minister of the Interior. At the
camp of Boulogne the pacific Joseph found himself, by his brother's
wish, transformed into a warrior, and placed in command of a regiment of
dragoons, which was a subject of laughter with a great number of
generals. I recollect that one day Lannes, speaking to me of the
circumstance in his usual downright and energetic way, said, "He had
better not place him under my orders, for upon the first fault I will put
the scamp under arrest."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|