Let’s have another look at Hortense’s Memoirs. If you want to read the book it is available for free at the side bar in English and French. Use the widget on the sidebar to translate the text below into pretty much any language.
In this excerpt, we see how abuse is only augmented by compliance. The abuser is emboldened and becomes even more controlling. The abuse cycle only ends when the victim puts up strong boundaries which are non negotiable. We also see how suspected royalist infiltrator Flahaut perhaps continues his project of breaking through Hortense’s resistance.
Hortense’s memoirs continues:
He gave me another maid, who is still with me, and my mother took my former one, who was very sorry to leave. Sometime previously I had taken as my reader Mademoiselle Cochelet, one of my fellow pupils at Saint-Germain.
My interest in her had been aroused by the smallness of her fortune and the tender care with which had nursed her mother through an extremely long illness. I always liked to have with me someone whom I could eventually marry off with a dot. As I did this out of my own pocket-money my husband made no objections.
Courage isn’t the strength to go on, it’s going on when you don’t have strength.
My ladies in waiting, the under-governesses of my children were all young and everyone in my household was lively and gay. Some of my attendants to be sure had noticed my husband's sternness toward me; but what need one fear when one has nothing to conceal?
All were pleased to go to Saint-Leu. The number of persons familiar with my life at home had been small up to this time. What went on there was a secret, and my husband and I were considered to be quite a model couple. The only fault people found with us was that I was rather unkind in my attitude toward such a devoted husband.
This coldness was supposed to be the result of my poor health. After the birth of my son, Louis presented me with a set of diamonds. I was hurt rather than pleased.
A little more consideration would have pleased me better than this visible token of a harmony that did not exist. My ladies all were outspoken in their disapproval of my lack of appreciation for my husband's gift. I was the only one to suffer, because I did so in silence.
Nevertheless, at Saint-Leu my ladies became aware of how things actually stood. In the first place the service was as strict as though we had been living in a fortress. If any of my attendants took a stroll alone in the garden my husband would tease them and make unpleasant remarks about it. One day two of the ladies and I went beyond the confines of the grounds.
One of the gates was almost off, only held in place by four nails. My friends wanted to open it to see what the edge of the park looked like. This was certainly an innocent enough desire, and I did not forbid them doing as they wished. After having taken a few steps in the park we at once returned to the house. Already a search-party was being organized, and the next day the gate was walled up.
On another occasion a young man who called to leave a written petition of some kind asked to see one of the ladies in waiting. He was refused admission, his movements were watched and he was followed by spies. One of my husband's aides-de-camp by the name of Donnat, who was in charge of the château, made a tour of inspection every night through the entire park. Every morning he would be reprimanded. "You are not doing your duty properly," my husband would exclaim. "A man entered the park last night. I know it. I heard him."
Poor Donnat swore that such a thing was impossible. He was unable to convince his master. My husband without another word or for any reason that I could discover moved into a room of his own and assumed his severest air whenever he addressed me. One day, apparently in great excitement, he sent for this aide-de-camp and said: "Donnat, get on your horse at once, ride as fast as you can, and you will overtake a young man who is just leaving the village. Ask him for the letter that was delivered to him here. Tell him you come from the person who sent it and who wants to add a postscript. Hurry off and come back immediately. Don't forget to take off your cross of the Legion so that you will not be recognized."
The aide-de-camp met no one on the road and went as far as the gates of Paris. He returned to report how unsuccessful his mission had been. My husband exclaimed, "Ah! those people always use by-paths." I only heard these details when we were in Holland where the aide-de-camp, having discovered my husband's true character, admitted to one of my ladies in waiting that he had for a long while believed I was carrying on illicit love-affairs, an idea which only was dispelled when he became thoroughly familiar with our domestic situation.
If any of my young ladies in waiting went to Paris, a retired soldier, Louis' chief spy, followed them everywhere and reported in writing everything they did. Sometimes their rooms would be ransacked, and their desks opened by force. They noticed this and sympathized with me in silence.
Even Madame Campan was not spared. She had been invited to spend a few days at Saint-Leu and to bring my cousins Stephanie de Beauharnais and Stephanie Tascher, the sister of Monsieur Tascher, and Mademoiselle Monroe, daughter of the President of the United States.
While she was away her chambermaid was offered fifty thousand francs in exchange for, the letter and portrait of mine that Madame Campan had, kept. The maid could not give anything. The police later learned these details. What woman would not be compromised and have her reputation stained by such outrageous proceedings? But the person whose character is such that it allows him to cherish suspicions of this kind, can only reap sorrow and torment.
Never able to find the proof he seeks, he becomes more and more unstrung, he persists and falls a victim to a monomania, an idée fixe, that of finding out something which never occurred. Because he has done wrong, he seeks to discover a crime and in a victim sees only a criminal. If he could really find a culprit his conscience would be satisfied, he would escape the accusation of having been unjust.
Louis Bonaparte.
He congratulates himself on the fact that he has only been cruel. As for me, deprived of amusement and health, my strength failed rapidly, and my greatest sorrow sprang from the fact that no one was aware of my position. My mother, my brother were far away. Only Adele realized the extent of my misfortune and sympathized with me.
I spent all my time taking care of my children and painting. I was just then copying the portrait that Gerard had made of me, but I was unable to keep on with this as the smell of the paints reacted too violently on my nerves.
My husband was irritated at seeing me always at work and apparently calm and resigned. "You seem to be killing time," he said to me, "waiting for the coming of happier days." This phrase was apparently intended as an allusion to his own poor health. What could I answer? I grew weaker, I made no effort to regain my strength and in a short time should have pined away had not a violent shock saved me. I received a letter from Eugene.
It announced his appointment as Viceroy of Italy and expressed his grief at being separated from his family and his native land. This letter gave me a terrible blow.
All my misfortunes had made my brother's love more necessary than ever to me. He alone really knew me, really admired me. With him gone, I should be utterly exposed to my husband's hostility without a person who understood me or who would protect me. It was true that Eugene had no idea of what I was enduring. I had considered it one of my duties to hide my sufferings even from his eyes, but if he were near me, I felt that I could at any moment draw upon the wealth of his sympathy if I felt the need.
News of his death would not have hurt me more than did this message that we were separated indefinitely. My tears, which for a long time had refused me their comfort, welled up and flowed abundantly. They saved my life for, from that day on, I began again to take a little nourishment.
Eugene de Beauharnais as Viceroy of Italy.
Far from sharing my grief Louis had burst out laughing at the sight of my tears, and his heartlessness on this occasion was the one of his actions that wounded me deeper than any of the others.
On the other hand, I received from Monsieur de Flahaut a letter full of sympathy and understanding. He realized how deeply I was affected by this separation from a brother I adored. He shared my grief the more as this separation meant for him the absence of a friend to whom he was deeply attached.
How easy it is to touch a heart bowed down with sorrow. I felt that I was finding in the person who understood me so well the brother I had lost. Filled with this consoling thought I saw no reason for not answering this letter. This was the first time I had written him.
The knowledge of his entire confidence in and friendship toward me won a favor which love would never have obtained. My husband was ordered to take the baths at Saint Amand. We went there, leaving our youngest son with Madame de Boubers and taking only the eldest boy with us accompanied by his undergoverness, Adele and Mademoiselle Cochelet.
We stopped at Mortefontaine to visit Prince Joseph. I had a letter written to Madame Campan to give her news of my health. My valet-de-chambre took the letter and handed it over to my husband, who was seen by my ladies in waiting reading it in the park. On our arrival at Saint Amand I saw this same man, who had married one of my maids, ransacking my private papers. Upon being discovered he threw himself at my feet, told me I had his life in my hands, but that he was acting under the orders of his master, who, he confessed, had promised him a hundred Louis if he could find proof of my guilt or anything against me.
I remained as astonished and ashamed at my husband as I did at myself for being the victim of such an all-devouring passion. I told the servant that, as he only obeyed the orders of his master, he might continue to do so. It made no difference to me. Indeed, how could I be expected to care about my husband's respect for me, that respect which I had valued so highly in the past, when I saw all his weaknesses?
Later, worldly experience, which revealed to me how passion can disfigure even the most noble characters, rendered me more indulgent. In those days I was only willing to forgive Louis because he was my husband and I felt it was my duty to do so.
Finally, I found an excuse for him in his bad health. Nevertheless, as I was satisfied with my own conduct, I became less and less anxious about his approval. Each day he did something which obliged me to consider it as having little value. Once I found one of his secretaries opening my private correspondence.
All my letters came from either my mother or my brother. Another day I was walking beside Adele, who was showing me a letter from a young Polish woman, Christine Kosowska, that had been brought up with us at Saint-Germain. My son, my other ladies in waiting, my carriage and my servants were close at hand.
My husband came up behind us, snatched away the letter eagerly and sought in it for some ground for his jealousy. Ashamed at having been mistaken he said to us "You ladies are clever, you wish to put me off the track, but I have just seen two men on horseback ride away from here."
Although afterwards he often referred to this story, we always thought he did so in fun. Not at all. While we were in Holland, he repeated his remark to Madame de Broc in front of his entire court and his ministers of state, adding: "They thought I was taking my bath. I surprised these two ladies making believe to read a letter from a young girl at boarding-school, and I saw two men dash off at a gallop through the wood. I spoke to them about it, they pretended to be astonished.
The next day I sent to Valenciennes and learned that, as a matter of fact, two young men arrived from Paris that day and left within twenty-four hours." I ask every unprejudiced person how anyone could believe that a husband would amuse himself by inventing such stories about his wife, stories for which, he knew himself, there was not the least basis of fact. Perhaps by repeating them often he finally came to think they were really true.
The original French is available below:
