This is part of a series where we’re translating a book by Hortense Bonaparte’s friend, Madame Cochelet called Napoleon and Queen Hortense. So far, Napoleon is only in the background ordering Hortense to be around him and his wife Marie Louise. When we last left off, they were all at the Trianon and Napoleon spooked everyone by getting thrown off his horse - always a bad omen in this saga.
Madame Cochelet.
Madame Cochelet writes:
[Napoleon’s fall] had saddened all of Trianon, but never did a palace seem so calm and dreary. I found the Queen alone with her lady on duty, busy reading. This is how she spent all her mornings, unless we went hunting; then she got into an open carriage with the Empress.
At six o'clock she went to Marie Louise's apartment, or sometimes she waited until eight o'clock for the Emperor to finish his work and come to dinner.
After dinner, we did nothing, exchanged a few words, and the tired Emperor took his wife with him to retire at nine o'clock.
The Queen returned home to do the same. Ah! these much-vaunted courtyards, for me who saw them so close, who could envy them! You are so little in control of yourself that when you are outside of them, you seem like a bird set free.
On March 30, 1813, the Queen was commissioned to be at the Elysee Palace, in court dress.
She did not know the reason. The grand master of ceremonies, M. de Ségur, only told her, as usual, that she was invited to visit the Empress, and she never knew in advance the purpose of the ceremony.
As for us, we made the most savage conjectures on this invitation, which the Queen of Westphalia, who had just arrived in Paris, had also received.
On her return, the Queen informed us that the Empress had just been appointed regent, and that she would govern during the Emperor's absence.
It was to attend this ceremony that she had been commissioned.
It had taken place in the Emperor’s presence and in that of the other princesses, ministers, great dignitaries, the ladies-in-waiting and the ladies who accompanied the princesses. The Empress had, at the behest of the Empereur, sworn to abide by the acts of the Constitutions of the Empire, and to follow in all the provisions which it pleased the Emperor to entrust to her during his absence.
CHAPTER II
The garden of the philanthropist.
“My sisters, you are big beasts!”
The Queen is surrounded by lovebirds.
Her Majesty's bathing suit.
The big notebook of the prisoner of Bicêtre.
On April 15, 1813, the Emperor left for the army. The first day of the year had happened to be a Friday, what a sinister omen!
Everyone said: “What will it be this year which bears the number 13 and begins on a Friday? The Empress went to settle in at Saint-Cloud and the Queen in Saint-Leu, with her children.
The Queen only brought with her to Saint-Leu her main ladies in waiting. She had a great need to rest quietly in the midst of her flowers and her garden which she liked so much to embellish.
To breathe the air without having to exert herself too much, she lay down in a chariot with benches, the seats comprised of two sofas back to back; she would put herself on one side with her children, and we would place ourselves on the other side: we would go for a walk in the park or in the forest of Montmorency, up to the little castle of Chasse, There, the Queen was still making beautification plans; she had created in the wood a road which led to the castle of Écouen [the school Hortense and Napoleon founded] but this road was long.
M. Cadet de Vaux, one of the philanthropists of that time, was a neighbor of the Queen’s; he lived in the Montmorency valley.
We had sometimes gone to see his garden. He showed there the means of doubling the output of a tree by training the branches into a garland; that of reviving a sick tree by putting compresses on it.
So you could see plasters on all the trees in his garden, and his garden looked like a hospital.
The Queen sometimes invited M. Cadet de Vaux to come to Saint-Leu for lunch; she then inquired about the means of how he seemed to improve all things.
I ignored the forty-eight glasses of hot water he said would cure gout about which he had seen such miraculous effects, he said.
Fortunately none of us had gout; and I, who thought I might be threatened with this malady, did not boast about it, lest he wouid want to administer this famous remedy to me!
He liked to perfect the means of helping the poor, and for that he got along very well with Her Majesty. He spoke to her of bone broths, otherwise called gelatin, which were, he said, more nutritious than the others, and which, in a moment of scarcity, could support a population more easily and at less fresh rate than all Rumfort soups, etc., etc.
The Queen took him one day with her to the sisters of charity of Saint-Leu (founded in 1806, by the King [Louis], her husband, and which she had considerably developed). They were to come to the kitchen of the castle -
To be continued.
…
Cela fait partie d'une série où nous traduisons un livre de l'amie d'Hortense Bonaparte, Madame Cochelet, intitulé Napoléon et la reine Hortense. Jusqu'à présent, Napoléon n'est que dans l'arrière plan ordonnant à Hortense d'être avec lui et son épouse Marie Louise.
La dernière fois que nous nous sommes arrêtés, ils étaient tous au Trianon et Napoléon a effrayé tout le monde en se faisant jeter de son cheval - toujours un mauvais présage dans cette saga.
Madame Cochelet écrit:
Let’s look at Napoleon’s chart when he made his wife Marie Louise - someone raised to intensely hate him and France - nominally in charge during his absence.
We see a potentially dark marker in a Mars (war) and Saturn (lack) conjunction in Saturn’s sign of Capricorn transiting Napoleon natal Pluto (death).
Upsetting Uranus is promising to shake up his identity in the 1st house. Jupiter (foreign high ideology) is transiting Napoleon’s natal Saturn in the 9th house associated with Jupiter. Pluto is also transiting Chiron - this could read as a dark transformation to a wounded warrior or spiritual figure as this transit occurs in misty Neptune.
Regardons la carte de Napoléon quand il a nommé son épouse Marie Louise - quelqu'un élevé pour le haïr intensément lui et la France - nominalement la regente pendant son absence.
Nous voyons un marqueur potentiellement sombre dans une conjonction Mars (guerre) et Saturne (manque) dans le signe de Saturne, Capricorne transitant par Napoléon natal Pluton (mort). Bouleverser Uranus promet de bousculer son identité dans la 1ère maison.
Jupiter (haute idéologie étrangère) transite par Saturne natal de Napoléon dans la 9ème maison associée à Jupiter.
Pluton transite également Chiron - cela pourrait se lire comme une transformation sombre en un guerrier blessé ou une figure spirituelle, car ce transit se produit dans Neptune brumeux.
