or power and fortune, chose the latter. On a promise of a kingdom, he
agreed to have his marriage annulled by one of the complicated provisions
of the Concordat, allowing France to set up an 'Officiality of Paris'. The
luckless Betsy Patterson found sanctuary in England, where she gave
birth to a son and was feted as a propaganda trophy - an example of what
happened to those who trusted the Bonapartes.
Yet the most troublesome aspect of the Bonaparte family was their
hatred of Josephine and their constant meddling in matters that had
nothing to do with them. Instead of being stupefied with gratitude that
their brilliant brother had raised them from poverty and obscurity to
unimaginable heights of wealth and power, the Bonapartes seemed to take
the line that this was their due anyway, and that the natural order of
things, previously distorted by untoward circumstance, had now re
asserted itself. Their unrelenting hostility towards Josephine - who
requited it with a dangerous alliance with Fouche - was actually
counterproductive, for it nudged Napoleon closer to an official declara
tion that Josephine would be Empress- something he had pondered long
and hard. Fury at the impudence of his family in presuming to dictate to
him about Josephine was one motive in making him decide to proclaim
her as an imperial consort. Another was simple human decency - not a
quality usually associated with Napoleon. He told Roederer: 'My wife is a
good woman ... happy to play the role of the Empress, with diamonds
and fine clothes. I've never loved her blindly. If I've made her Empress,
it's out of a sense of justice. I am above all a just man. If I'd been thrown
into prison instead of becoming Emperor, she would have shared my
misfortunes. It's only right she should share my greatness ... People are
jealous of Josephine, of Eugene and of Hortense.'
There was further dithering about whether Josephine would actually
be crowned. Here the problem was that the Empress had 'dared' to throw
jealous scenes about Napoleon's numerous amours. By this time everyone
was thrusting wives, daughters and sweethearts at him. It was known that
he gave douceurs of zo,ooo francs a night to those he spent the night with.
Some women, hearing that he was highly sexed and with an insatiable
appetite, went in for orgies and sexual perversions with members of his
entourage, hoping he would hear about it and be lured by the lubricious
attractions on offer. They misread their man: Napoleon was not a sexual
extrovert and he disapproved of women acting in a 'loose' way unless he
personally had commanded it.
Nevertheless, there were mistresses a-plenty. In 1804, while on tour in
the Rhineland, he had a brief affair with one of Josephine's ladies-in
waiting named Elisabeth de Vaudey. Josephine was able to scotch that
marcin
(Marcin)
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