I have deeply enjoyed sharing my passion for the Napoleon saga with the public. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone, friend and foe, who has taken this wild ride with me.
I started becoming entranced with the Napoleon story when I read a love letter by Napoleon in the 90s. The first time I read something about this man, I was blown away to see my very own personality in someone who on an obvious level was my total opposite.
The books kept bringing up that people just assumed he was having an affair with his stepdaughter Hortense back in their day. I had to know if this was true. This led to a year at the Sorbonne in Paris where I was just by myself in Napoleon museums most of the time that I wasn’t in school. I started having flashbacks which shocked me. Most of the memories were of the Bonaparte family. Having been told that I’m a weirdo since my earliest days, I just went with it. I had given up conforming long before that time.
The subject of Napoleon was too vast to comprehend, I felt, so I just got stuck on Hortense’s Memoirs. I knew she was honest and that I could believe that she was authentic. All these years later, nothing has shaken that. She is actually extremely harsh towards Napoleon. Now that we’re broadcasting the memoirs, I can tell the other memoirists are angry with her for going so hard on him.
Regarding Hortense and Napoleon, most of the memoirs say that they were not having affair but that Napoleon was showing her too much favor and that Napoleon’s brother Louis (her husband) had cause to be as upset as he was about the situation.
I also created a play based on Napoleon’s valet’s memoirs. I found him totally credible but I stayed stuck in Hortense and Marchandland because I felt I could trust them.
My art project was conceived, in part, as an effort to show what Napoleon (and Hortense) were really like. They were extremely giving and exceptionally focused on promoting culture. It really bothered me how the great work of these people had been turned into grotesque caricatures by the whoever it is that sets the tone on what the public gets to see and perceive.
Finally, through broadcasting the memoir series, I’m able to find out who all these people were that came up in Hortense’s memoirs. All the memoirs need to be taken in together to get the real story about Napoleon.
Hortense really didn’t like a lot of people. A lot of people didn’t like her either. She tries to be fair but her memoirs are overflowing with this reality. It has been so interesting to see the portraits fill in on the various personalities that Hortense was grumbly about.
Lets start looking at these people that Hortense dished about in her memoirs. Let’s start with the Duchess de Montebello.
In the memoirs of Hortense, the Duchess de Montebello is the wife of Marshall Lannes who kind of hates and resents Napoleon. She blames him for the death of her husband and the father of her many children.
Napoleon made a political marriage to Marie Louise of Austria and true to Napoleon fashion, he obsessed over every detail. He knew this princess was raised to hate him and she was being forced to marry him. He tried to get her to love him. When it came time to choose Marie Louise’s main lady in waiting (dame d’honneur), he chose the Duchess de Montebello.
The reasoning was that a royal type would poison Marie Louise against Napoleon and the regular people. He felt that it was an appropriate homage to Lannes to offer his widow this honor.
The Duchess de Montebello was over the “honor” before it even began. Since this woman was practically the only person who didn’t make a fuss over the super important new Empress Marie Louise, Marie Louise being at the level that she was at became fixated on getting this “nobody’s” approval.
The following is from Hortense’s memoirs.
This is from during the 100 days when Marie Louise refused to return to Napoleon with their son. Marie Louise’s servant was in Paris.
“The servant was asked what letters he had brought with him to deliver. There was only one for the Duchesse de Montebello, and he had not dared hand this over to the Emperor because he knew it contained this sentence "I am closely watched, but you who know my opinions know how unnecessary this is."”
So Marie Louise was married to the greatest man in the world and all she cared about was sucking up to this military man’s wife - because this woman couldn’t care less about her and didn’t hide it.
Strange but true.
The memoirs are here.
