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.
To leave Napoleon bereft of support, the global spy system was going to have to play some very big games to wrest Hortense away from Napoleon. We see here how they launched their A game by using the Emperor of Russia as one of their players. This in person acting grift goes all of the way ALMOST to the top. Predictably the game starts with pressure and love bombing.
A sneaky campaign to leave me bereft of support has been thrown at me - I hope it’s plain to see - and the result is that I have every incentive to tell this story completely truthfully. I’ve even been sued TWICE for telling the truth. There is a group that is very scared of the genuine truth coming out. This work is to PROVE that this is the case.
What is happening and what has happened is fairly clear and we need to learn these lessons well should we care to succeed in breaking free of organized trickery. I fight for what’s right and I hope others will see that it is in their true best interests to do the same.
Hortense’s memoirs continues:
The Allies offered him the Italian crown if he would consent to go over to them. My brother very rightly refused. On remembering this incident, it seemed to me that if the person who came to see us was sent by Eugene's father-in-law it must be because some new decision favorable to him had been arrived at. Marshal de Wrede told me that the King of Bavaria had instructed him to find out from us what territory the Viceroy would prefer to rule over.
My brother at the time was at Mantua with his French and Italian troops. Although I had not the faintest knowledge regarding international affairs this inquiry, coming as it did after a treaty stipulating that the Viceroy was to continue to enjoy sovereign rights, might mean that certain powers wished him to remain in Italy.
As far as he was concerned, I was sure that having devoted the best years of his life to organizing the prosperity of that country he would prefer to spend the rest of his days there, and I mentioned to the Marshal the Duchy of Milan as suitable for him.
He replied that he was about to send the Viceroy a messenger and advised me to write him to proceed immediately to Paris, as this would be greatly to his advantage, both in his own opinion and in that of the Prince of Metternich.
In spite of my inexperience in politics I grasped the fact that Austria, which was more anxious than any other nation to assure her rights in Italy, would be the last country to surrender the smallest portion of that territory to anyone else.
Consequently, if the Austrian minister advised my brother to leave his army and come to Paris, the most advisable policy for Eugene to pursue was the opposite.
Always impulsive and eager to communicate to those I love ideas which may benefit them, I wrote to my brother that he had best keep up his army in order that he might negotiate to better advantage, since I had learned by what had happened in France that the man who places himself at the mercy of his enemies always has cause to regret that action.
Had it not been decided that all hostilities should cease at once? Had not the Emperor Napoleon given himself up? And what fate would have befallen the Emperor, would even his life have been spared, without the intervention of the Emperor of Russia? My letter, full of remarks of this character, ended as follows: "You have obeyed your generous impulses long enough. It is time you thought of your own interests. Do what you should, what you can, what you dare."
I handed this letter to Monsieur de Wrede. In those days I was very young. It never occurred to me that anyone would open a letter. I do not know how far honesty goes in diplomatic circles and whether Monsieur de Wrede had been told to trick me. All that I do know is that Monsieur de Metternich, who owed me a little gratitude and who on his arrival in Paris had talked about coming to see me, never appeared.
Nor did any other Austrian ever ask admittance to Malmaison. Probably people considered that my advice to my brother was rather too outspoken. But the future proved that it was not worthless.
Perhaps it was after this incident that people did me the honor to refer to my political influence and considered wrongly, I took an active interest in such matters. What they did not know was that in spite of the energetic advice I gave my brother I was more delighted with the unselfish way in which he behaved than if he had followed it, regardless of all the material benefits he would have obtained.
“The Emperor," my brother said to me afterwards as we were talking over the matter, "when he renounced the Italian crown stipulated that I was to have a principality. I did not doubt that the Allies would act in good faith, and although I could have continued to hold out for a long time in Mantua I would have reproached myself if I had exposed the life of a single man to serve my private interests. Too much blood had already been spilled, and the fatal incident at Milan proved to me that the Italians were not ready to fight for their independence.
Consequently, all my efforts would have been solely for my personal ends." It was a curious fact that in acting as he did on this occasion, Eugene followed the example of his father, who when commander-in-chief of the army of the Rhine pursued an equally generous but more disastrous course.
The Convention passed a decree excluding nobles from holding positions in the army. All the people who were with my father at the time advised him to engage in a battle which if successful would nullify the decree as far as he was concerned. He preferred to withdraw to his estate, for, as he put it, he did not wish to break any law no matter how unjust it might be and especially to spill any blood in his own behalf.
Certainly, both he and my brother enjoyed a feeling of satisfaction such as the ambitious man can never know. The Emperor Napoleon was about to leave for the island of Elba. I had written him. He had replied and seemed touched that I had been to see the Empress Marie Louise.
He had not for a moment lost his self-possession and he considered in a perfectly calm manner whether or not he should live on. I have been told, but I have never had any proof of the statement, that he made an attempt to end his days, but that finally he said, "One commits suicide to escape disgrace; one does not commit suicide to escape misfortune."
He smiled sometimes at the insults which were cast at him from every direction. In saying good-by to those who had remained by his side up to the last moment he ordered them to be faithful to the interests of France and not to forget him. But the most touching moment of all, when every eye filled with tears, was when he sent for his eagles, pressed them to his heart, and bade farewell to his battle-flags, grown tattered on the fields of glory.
His last thoughts were all for France's prosperity. Monsieur de Flahaut told me all the details of what happened at Fontainebleau and we both grieved over the misfortune of this great and noble man. The Duc de Vicence, having fulfilled his difficult task, called at Malmaison. As French Ambassador to Russia he had occasion to appreciate the character of Emperor Alexander and to become very fond of him.
The Duke reproached me for the coldness with which I had received the Emperor, who seemed to have been hurt by it. "Don't you know," the Duke said to me, "that he was the only one to defend the interests of the imperial family? If he had not been there, what might not have happened even to the life of Emperor Napoleon? You do not realize the hatred of the other monarchs, how they tried to humiliate him. Do you not know that if Emperor Napoleon has a refuge on the island of Elba it is thanks to the Russian Emperor?"
A few days later the Emperor Alexander came to Malmaison. He spent much of his time with me, playing with my children and taking them on his knees. I felt a moment's emotion when I thought, "It is an enemy on whom they are dependent nowadays."
The Emperor of Russia called again several times and seemed to enjoy being with us. I had opportunities to appreciate his tactful regard for others and the sensitiveness of his nature. His chief charm was his hunger for affection. He makes you trust him because he shows that he trusts you. He is so courtly in the way he seeks to make himself agreeable to you that you feel he wishes to be pardoned for making himself indispensable. I admit I regretted feeling this way about him. His character attracted me. I felt that I liked him, and it is annoying to have to accept constantly services from someone you like.
Consequently, I abandoned my former constraint and behaved more naturally, but as soon as he took up the question of my business matters my attitude changed. He also seemed embarrassed and the conversation went no further. One day he said to my mother that if he sought only to satisfy her personal tastes, he would place a palace in Russia at our disposal.
He added, however, that she would never find a spot like her beautiful Malmaison, nor could my delicate health support the rigors of that climate. Finally, he sent for my reader one morning and told her that as we ourselves would not express our wishes it was for our friends to decide what should be done, and that, as far as he was concerned, nothing gave him so much pleasure as to make himself useful to us.
The original French is available below:
