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.
The strange dynamic between Napoleon, Marie Louise and the adored lady of honor the Duchess of Montebello starts to play out. The Duchess of Montebello achieves control over Marie Louise in return for showing little interest in her or her welfare. Indeed the Duchess of Montebello gets away from Marie Louise at the first opportunity after years of telling this Empress that she was very much looking forward to getting away from her.
How could Napoleon possibly forge a real marriage with someone of this nature? Hortense also explains how the Duchess of Montebello and Marie Louise start the process of alienating people around Napoleon.
Marie Louise was obsessed with and was making a fool of herself over her lady in waiting who openly disliked Napoleon. What does that indicate?
Hortense’s memoirs continues:
Since my return from Aix the Emperor had made a point of treating me with special favor. Sometimes he would say to me:
“Come and see my wife. Sketch with her. Play the piano and sing with her. She would be delighted to have you do so and does not dare to ask you herself." I was too familiar with social etiquette not to realize that it should have been the Empress who invited me.
Moreover, it was neither natural nor polite for me to attempt to become intimate with her. The result was that she and I always remained on good terms because I never tried to force myself on her.
Like everyone else I called in the evening, and she always paid more attention to me than she did to my sisters-in-law. Sometimes she even spoke to me about quite intimate matters. One day, for instance, she told me how, when her marriage had been decided on, Monsieur de Metternich in accordance with the instruction of the Emperor of Austria wished to tell her about the different persons with whom she was to live.
He said that the Princess Pauline was the most beautiful person in the world, the Queen of Naples the wittiest, but that Queen Hortense was the only one she could really make a friend of.
I was flattered to hear of this distinction in my favor and especially that she should tell me so herself. On all occasions I proved that I was devoted to her, and she always showed her interest in me, but her only close friend remained her lady in waiting [Marechale Lannes, Duchesse de Montebello].
For the latter the Empress had a sort of adoration, which seemed strange to many people, but which anyone who can read the secrets of human nature can easily enough understand.
A princess from her birth is surrounded by honors and attentions. Everyone seeks her company, studies her tastes, seeks to foresee and fulfil her desires. She is accustomed to treat everyone on the same footing, everyone is alike to her, pleases her or bores her equally, because everyone acts in the same manner toward her. But if a person with whom she is constantly in contact appears to be interested in other things, other pleasures than those in which she shares, then the princess like those coquettes who, always sure of pleasing, only notice the men who pay no attention to them will be surprised and hurt at this person's indifference.
A woman of a retiring nature is not likely to be either a flatterer or an intrigant. The wish to recapture this rebel, to subjugate her, occupies the mind of the princess as much as a serious affection might do and sometimes creates such an affection.
This was the situation between the Empress and the Duchesse de Montebello. The latter disliked life at court. Since the death of her husband, life at home, the education of her children, the company of a few friends were enough to make her happy.
Far from seeking to hide the regrets her prominent position caused her she seemed to take pride in exposing them. Consequently, the moment she was absent the Empress would send her little notes. She could not do without her.
The friends of the Duchess were the only French people the Empress really knew although she never saw them. She knew everything they did. At New Year's the Empress's great task was to choose attractive presents for the children of the Duchess.
Madame de Montesquiou, the governess of the King of Rome, was jealous on his account. But the most extraordinary part of the whole matter was the slanderous rumor that people repeated, and that never had the least foundation in fact, namely that the Emperor cared for the Duchess. On the contrary they disliked one another, and it needed all the Emperor's strong sense of justice not to resent the strong influence another person wielded over his wife's mind. I have several times heard him say to the Empress: "You are making a great mistake if you think that the Duchess cares for you. The only persons she cares about are herself and her children. You are silly to become so attached to her."
Nevertheless, he always put up with her, always was courteous, and did everything he could to have her treated with that respect to which she was entitled as a woman of high moral character and a friend to his wife.
In spite of all her qualities, it must be admitted that the Duchesse de Montebello was not the right person for her post as chief lady in waiting, perhaps because she did not take the trouble to be.
She never bothered to inquire as to the position and rank of the persons introduced to the Empress and what should be done or avoided in connection with them.
As a foreigner, entirely ignorant of the environment in which she found herself, the Empress frequently made mistakes, natural and excusable enough but such as society is not prepared to forgive in an Empress.
Often, for instance, she would inquire about a husband's health from a wife who had just lost him on the field of battle and who with tears in her eyes was obliged to relate the story of the misfortune for which she had hoped to be consoled.
The Emperor's family, not without surprise, found that the Empress was inclined to keep them at a distance. My mother had always been ready to receive them and always treated them cordially.
It was she who was constantly asked to say something or secure a favor which they did not venture to ask for themselves. How different things were now!
No more intimacy, far more ceremony. Madame Mere herself felt the change. The pretty face and winning ways of the Princess Pauline had made her the spoiled child of the family. She was allowed to do anything. Even the Emperor, who so frequently was severe toward others, let her do things for which anyone else would have been reprimanded. Everyone said,
"She is nothing but a child."
And what a pretty child she was! What she said never seemed to be worth paying attention to and I cannot understand why I should have felt so badly about the remarks she made when I came back to court. With great animation she reproached me for having been the cause of my children's losing the throne of Holland, of my husband's exile and all his misfortunes.
This indictment was a shock to me. My reason and conscience both proved to me that I was innocent, yet my feeble strength was not able to repulse this false accusation. The ills I still suffered from made more acute the memories of those I sought to recall in order to justify myself.
Princess Pauline, whose only interests in life were fashions and amusements, must have been surprised and perhaps pleased at having produced so marked an effect on anyone, when for the first time in her life she spoke about serious matters.
In fact the entire family was, I believe, sorry to see me return to court. I can understand being jealous when one's affections are involved, but not when it is merely a question of precedence, of more or less becoming dresses, of some more or less marked social success.
The joy the Emperor's family had felt on my departure for Holland was an indication of their regret at seeing me return. Especially as they could now no longer reproach me for being there, since the future of my children was once more associated with France.
The Emperor, although he did not mean to do so, had done everything possible to inflame the jealousy his family felt toward us. He had for a long time treated me with special favor, because as he desired to adopt the son, he wished the mother to be especially respected. How many times Caroline came and said to me : entertain the same way you do I always act as you do, because I come and ask in advance how you are going to act ; and yet the Emperor always holds you up to me as an example as though you were the only person who knows how to behave. Then too he is all the time saying to Murat and his brothers, 'Look at Eugene.' How can he expect harmony to reign among us?"
Since then people so often told the Emperor that he favored us at the expense of his own family that he was forced to adopt the opposite course.
The original French is available below:
