Let’s go straight to the top of the list. Hortense was thrown together with Caroline when Napoleon sent his sister to Hortense’s boarding school. Caroline quickly went to Napoleon and lied to him about Hortense.
Hortense writes in her memoirs:
“I took a great deal of trouble to make her [Caroline] first moments at school as pleasant as possible. I blamed the fact of her being backward in her studies on her having traveled a great deal. I made much of what knowledge she possessed and retouched her drawings so that she might win a prize. But I failed in my efforts to make her like me. Indeed she went so far as to bring unjust accusations against me.
“She told the General I was always showing off at her expense, that it was I who was responsible for the petty humiliations her fellow pupils inflicted on her. Wounded by these undeserved attacks, I demanded that she explain her attitude. She did so with a frankness that disarmed me.
“She admitted her injustice, confessed she was in love with Colonel Murat, and vowed she was prepared to employ every means in her power to be taken out of school and brought back to Paris.”
As a teenager Caroline was like that. I have been throwing around my pet theory that the “love of Hortense’s life” Charles de Flahaut was some kind of plant. The fact that de Flahaut was the son of the biggest snake in the Napoleon saga (Talleyrand) certainly points us in that direction. Hindsight really is 20/20. If de Flahaut really loved Hortense as he had so ardently professed for so many years, he wouldn’t have been found cheating and he wouldn’t have taken off as soon as Hortense was really free to pursue their relationship.
AND he wouldn’t have had an affair with Caroline. This guy was knocking on all the doors around Napoleon.
Hortense writes:
This pertains to Caroline trying to get de Flahaut to do her bidding.
“”I [Caroline] wish you would try and see if you can't persuade him." I called Monsieur de Flahaut over to me. He informed me how, that morning at lunch, in front of the servants, Caroline had teased him about his assiduous presence wherever I happened to be. He had answered sharply, but the thought that such remarks might hurt my reputation and expose me to malicious gossip was profoundly disagreeable to him.
“I was touched by his concern. I told him to go and dance, and he obeyed me. Caroline, who wished to see whether I had more influence than she over a young man attached to her household—Monsieur de Flahaut was at that time one of General Murat's aides-de-camp—was convinced by his actions that a single word from me carried more weight with him than all her entreaties during an entire evening. From then on, she neglected no means for regaining an influence she should never have lost.
“She appeared to sympathize with him, sought to cure him of an attachment which could only result in making him unhappy. She described me as a person who was kind and gentle but too aloof ever to be moved by any tender sentiment. She told him I was sufficiently vain to wish to have numerous admirers in attendance whom I soon tired of and, moreover, that I was tortured to such an extent by my husband's jealousy it was a sin for anyone to think of adding to my troubles.”
This was where Hortense caught de Flahaut and Caroline:
“One day I felt I was on the road to recovery. I had not been at Neuilly for a long time. I went there. Caroline was on the island. I waited in the moonlight for her to come back. She returned with her arm in that of Monsieur de Flahaut. This sight caused all my blood to rush to my heart.
“She too appeared so confused at seeing me that I was astonished at her emotion. As for Monsieur de Flahaut, the more anxious he seemed to speak to me the more I avoided him. But the difficulty I felt in doing so, the intensity of my emotion was so great as to make me realize the truth. I was in love.”
…….
In the person of Charles de Flahaut, we see a great performer whose actions are not congruent with his words. He knew how to wrap a long series of wealthy women around his finger.
When Hortense complained he was cheating on her, he turned it around on her and said it was her fault for being such a perfectionist. He took off to greener pastures after the fall of Napoleon and he worked with the English government afterwards. What else do we need to see to believe this was a subversion and infiltration situation? His having an illegitimate child with Hortense greatly compromised her and made her look like less than what she really was. I’m sure this must have totally infuriated Napoleon.
To find out more, including the mountain of reasons why Hortense didn’t like Caroline - To see her shocking (even to the bad guys) betrayal of Napoleon, click here.
