Back when I was in Paris in 1999 learning about Napoleon to make a play about his relationship with his stepdaughter and sister in law Hortense, it was this very letter that tore the veil and gave me a glimpse about why I was so extremely fixated on this story.
I was on the metro at the time and I could hardly read French but I knew that I had written this letter in a past life. The feeling was so strong that I continued my year in Paris letting myself believe this powerful feeling to be true. Since then, the story has filled in more and more each day. This project comes out of this reality that I have been trying to prove, first, to myself and then, if it’s possible, to you. Still, often just the thought of Napoleon and Hortense’s sons brings tears to my eyes.
Orléans, 25 May [1807] (1).
I want to write to you, my dear Eugène, in case you believe that I no longer love you, but if you only knew!
I no longer feel anything. He is dead, I saw it.
God didn't want me to go with him.
However, I must not leave with him; right now I can’t die with him, I’m only still alive because I have lost all feeling.
You don't know all that I have lost; he was a friend to me, no one will ever love me like he did.
When I kissed him, one
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(1) The eldest son of the Queen, Napoléon-Charles, prince royale of Holland, died of croup, in The Hague, on the night of May 4 to 5, 1807. The Queen fell into a state of disturbing prostration. After a few days spent at the Haagtliet castle near Woorbourg, she was taken to Laeken. She left Holland on May 13th and arrived there on the 15th in Laeken where Joséphine was standing by waiting for her. The Empress then took Hortense to Malmaison and Saint-Cloud, from where she left on May 24th to go to Bagnères de Bigorre and Cauterets. The first stop on his trip was Orléans, where she spent the night of August 24th and the 25th of May, 1807. It is from there that she writes to her brother. She left Orléans on the morning of the 25th to go to stay in Chenonceaux.
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hour before, when he already had closed eyes, he said to me: "Hello, mom"; he was breathing heavily. If you had heard his congestion! I can still hear him breathing!
Now, I am really far from that location, I'm going to take the waters, and he stayed there! I'm in Orléans.
You don't know anything. I was crying. Now I don’t cry any more.
I've got my mind, it's all that I have left but I no longer feel anything. I don't have anything any more. It all went with him and, I, I am still here tired of everyone. I’m no longer loved by anyone since I no longer feel anything;
You see what I would have done to go with him. I will tell you everything he told me, everything he promised to be, how he loved me.
I often looked at him saying, "He will be all my consolation.”
Go! Eugene, it is not necessary to put all one’s effort into doing good in this world; see how rewarded we are.
To motivate all your affections on such a pure object, and that's how it was taken from me.
We must not love anything in this world. So, I stay here. I may be happy yet, yes, but no one loves me anymore.
You, you will always love me, right?
Goodbye, I'm a tired, I'll tell you all about it another day.
HORTENSE.
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À l'époque où j'étais à Paris en 1999 pour apprendre à propos de Napoléon à faire une pièce sur sa relation avec sa belle-fille et sa belle-sœur Hortense, c'est cette même lettre qui a déchiré le voile et m'a donné un aperçu des raisons pour lesquelles j'étais si extrêmement attaché à ce sujet.
J'étais dans le métro à l'époque et je pouvais à peine lire le français mais je savais que j'avais écrit cette lettre dans une vie antérieure.
Le sentiment était si fort que j'ai continué mon année à Paris en me laissant croire que ce sentiment puissant était vrai. Depuis, l'histoire se remplit de plus en plus chaque jour. Ce projet découle de cette réalité que j’ai essayé de prouver d’abord à moi-même puis, si possible, à vous. Pourtant, souvent la pensée des ces fils et de Napoléon me fait pleurer.
