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.
PR machinations and handler trickery followed Napoleon and Hortense wherever they went. Every effort was made to keep them apart and on bad terms.
Hortense’s memoirs continues:
He liked to have them around him and was ready to receive visitors. I secured an appointment one day for Tallien, who had come to ask me to do this as a favor. The republicans were well aware of the fact that the Emperor was their only hope of safety and that their cause and his were really the same.
There was no chance of a reconciliation between them and the Bourbons. Consequently, Tallien wished to attach himself openly to the Emperor, with whom he had been on bad terms since the expedition to Egypt.
The Emperor had never been able to forgive certain men, one of whom was Tallien, because after having asked permission to accompany him to Egypt they had suddenly become discouraged and returned to France.
He considered them deserters and felt that he was acting indulgently toward them by ignoring their existence. Tallien, who had helped my mother in the days of the Reign of Terror, received an allowance from my brother. That was why he applied to me.
The Emperor immediately granted his demand for an audience. Tallien came to see me as soon as he left the Emperor. He was deeply touched by the manner in which he had been received and told me that on arriving he had said to the Emperor, "Sire, I have given you cause to be dissatisfied with me."
“Perhaps I have been unfair toward you also," replied the Emperor. "For a long time, I have treated you severely. But we all make mistakes. Let us forget the past and may the present need of serving our country once more unite us."
When we were with him the Emperor enjoyed having us describe what had been done and said during his absence.
One day the Duchesse de Rovigo informed him that violets had become one of the emblems of his adherents. "That explains," he said, "something I could not understand when I caught sight of all the bunches of violets which the women waved at me from a distance. What started the idea?"
I then told him that after he had gone the soldiers always said he would come back when the violets bloomed again and that I had heard they always referred to him as Père la Violette.
This amused him greatly. one day he inquired why I did not bring my children oftener to see him. The next day I brought them while he was having lunch.
The architect Fontaine was present. The question of the debts left by the Bourbon princes was being discussed. Monsieur Fontaine said that their palace had been quickly and sumptuously fitted up, especially the Palais-Royal, but they had not paid for anything.
The Emperor replied that he would settle all these debts himself, that none of the tradespeople would lose anything, and Fontaine was to tell them so. He also spoke of the temporary fortifications he was going to have built around Paris to defend the city against a surprise attack.
“It will doubtless frighten the Parisians; they will think the enemy is at the gate; but the past has taught us it is best to take precautions."
After dinner he received an Englishwoman called Lady Hamilton, I believe, who presented him with a bust of Fox she had carved, herself." He examined it, thought it was a good likeness, and said: "This present pleases me very much. I admired Fox a great deal. If he had lived and if his advice had been followed, there would not have been so much bloodshed, and your finances would have been in a better condition."
The Emperor afterwards went into the garden (for he was still at the Elysée). I followed him and he informed me that my husband wished a divorce and that otherwise he would not return to France.
He added laughingly that his brother doubtless had some love-affair on his mind, that the whole thing was perfectly ridiculous and he had thought it best not to reply to him. I then asked him to decide what was to be done with my children. He told me to select a good tutor for them, but said he could not prevent a father, no matter how silly he might be, from using his authority in regard to his children.
In reply to my fears that, owing to their extreme youth, they might not enjoy a proper education—which had always been the reason I had resisted my husband's demands—the Emperor replied "What can you do about it? If your son had been born lame or with only one eye you would be helpless. These are things that cannot be helped, to which one must resign oneself."
Thereupon he changed the subject and asked me if it were true as people said that Marshal Ney had declared he would bring him back in an iron cage? I replied that the Marshal's wife, after the story had got about, had told me it was not true.
The Emperor did not seem convinced and added: "Ney firmly intended to attack me, but when he saw that his troops were against this plan, he found himself obliged to go with the current. Since then he has tried to make much out of what he was unable to prevent.
You may be sure of this, but do not say so. My only supporters are the common people and all the army up to the rank of captain. The rest fear me, but I cannot count on them."
Finding him in a talkative mood I took advantage of the occasion to tell him that women generally were against him because he did not take the trouble to make himself agreeable to them, and that they exercised a greater influence on men's opinions than he was prepared to admit.
He began to laugh and said: "Shall we have to have the Empire ruled by the distaff? After I have paid them the compliment of saying that they are well or badly dressed what else is there for me to talk to them about? I have other things on my mind. I don't know what's happened to the women since I left. Nowadays they all talk politics. In my day they were interested in chiffons. Do you know that you too have become an important personage, someone in whom the public is interested? People speak of you with much respect. In Paris they go so far as to say you are the head of a political party, a conspirator."
I replied that this public interest in me did not suit either my personal tastes or my attitude toward public affairs. "I am not astonished at the remarks made about me. Your enemies help spread them in order to lessen the impression your miraculous return created on public opinion.
They pretend it was due to a conspiracy and since I was the only member of your family to have remained in France it is natural that I am assigned the leading role in the affair."
He then spoke of the Emperor of Russia. I was greatly pleased to tell the Emperor how admirably the Emperor of Russia had behaved toward my mother and me and how favorably he had spoken about him.
In short, I expressed all those feelings which my gratitude and a genuine friendship prompted. I added that his keen desire for universal peace convinced me he would not seek to renew hostilities.
The Emperor listened to me without saying a word and when I repeated what the Emperor of Russia had said about his reluctance to place the Bourbons on the throne and how it was England and Austria who had had the most to do with this, he stopped, looked at me hard and said, "That was what the Emperor of Russia told you? Then he is indeed a deceitful man."
The original French is available below:
