concocted that Murat had raped her, but the truth was that she became
his lover willingly enough. The cynical Caroline was unmoved by this but
saw potential in Eleonore as a real threat to Josephine.
The Murats set about their stratagem with great ruthlessness. First the
husband, Jean-Fran�ois Honore Revel, serving a prison sentence for
forgery, had to be squared. The Murats told Revel he would be freed at
once if he agreed to divorce his wife, but the obstinate Revel dug in his
heels. He was then hauled before a tame judge, a creature of the Murats,
who told him he would be deported to Guyana if he did not agree.
Something about the demeanour of the Murats convinced Revel that they
were in earnest and would stop at nothing. He agreed to the divorce
(granted in April 18o6) but later got a kind of revenge by publishing the
story of the affair in a pamphlet.
Napoleon threw himself into the affair with Denuelle with avidity; she
used to visit the alcove every day. After each session she would return to
Murat for a bout of lovemaking and would pour out her alleged distaste
for the Emperor. Finding that Napoleon liked to spend exactly two hours
with her every day, she once moved the big hand of the clock in her room
on thirty minutes with her foot as the Emperor caressed her; a little later
Napoleon noticed the time, cut short his caresses, jumped up, dressed
hurriedly and departed. He never suspected her dupl.icity and was so
pleased with her that he took a house for her in the rue de la Victoire. In
December 18o6 she bore a son, whose paternity the Emperor at first
accepted, until wagging tongues and Fouche's spies put him in the
picture. While still accepting the theoretical possibility that he could have
been the father, he suspected that the true impregnator was Murat.
Caroline had been just a bit too clever. By this time not only did
Hortense and Josephine know of Denuelle's duplicity with Murat, but
the rest of the Bonaparte family did as well. Angry with Caroline's
barefaced scheming they combined to have Denuelle edged out of favour;
but for that, it is possible Josephine might have been replaced as consort.
Napoleon finally managed to dovetail his amorous pursuits and his
ambition fo r dynastic marriages when he was forced to sublimate his
passion for Josephine's niece, Stephanie de Beauharnais. The Emperor's
open lusting after her caused great embarrassment at court and infuriated
Caroline Murat; even Josephine began to grow alarmed when she found
her husband capering outside her niece's room and realized he had
allowed Stephanie the run of the palace. The Empress put it to Napoleon
that as he had formally adopted Stephanie as his daughter, to have
intercourse with her was a kind of incest and would certainly be
construed as such by his enemies. After a severe talking to from
marcin
(Marcin)
#1