commander to show outward deference to Venetian authority but keep
real control in his own hands. Once again he showed himself to be a
master of cynical propaganda: 'If the inhabitants should prove to be
inclined towards independence [i.e. freedom from Venetian rule], you are
to encourage that inclination, and in proclamations you will be issuing
you must not omit to speak of Greece, Sparta and Athens.' It was typical
of his independence and highhandedness that he did not bother to notify
the Directory of the occupation of the islands until the beginning of
August.
By June 1797 Napoleon was back in Milan. This time he moved his
court and family from the Palazzo Serbelloni to the baroque palace of
Mombello outside the city. Josephine, who had not been able to effect a
meeting with Hippolyte Charles since December, told Napoleon she
needed to return to Paris for her health. But the mysterious malady
cleared up miraculously once she heard that among the guard of honour
at Mombello that summer would be the bold chevalier Charles; there was
no longer any talk of returning to Paris.
Charles was aide-de-camp to General Victor Emmanuel Leclerc, son of
a rich Pontoise miller and one of the Toulon set whose mere presence at
the siege meant they were automatic favourites with Bonaparte. When
Napoleon returned to Milan, one of his first actions was to uncover a
potential family scandal. Roaming the Mom bello palace one day, he came
upon Leclerc making love to his sexually overcharged sister Pauline,
already a stunning beauty of fabled lubricious charms. Napoleon insisted
that the pair get married at once, and by chance was able to arrange a
double family wedding. The shrewish, sourfaced and mannish Maria
Anna Bonaparte, who had taken the name Elisa, was marrying the
extremely stupid Corsican aristocrat Pasquale Bacciochi, with all her
family present. Napoleon presided over a double ceremony on 14 June in
the Oratory of St Francis. He had, as he thought, solved the problem of
Pauline's voracious sexual appetite. With hindsight we can appreciate the
irony whereby Leclerc serviced one Bonaparte nymphomaniac while his
aide attended to another.
The double family wedding in Milan on 14 June saw the entire
Bonaparte clan face to face with Josephine for the first time. Predictably,
perhaps, there was no love lost. The Bonapartes could not understand
why Napoleon was so complaisant about his wife's love affairs and her
spendthrift ways - which meant spending 'their' money. There was
particular animus between Josephine and Pauline, who tried to mete out a
family revenge by setting her cap at Hippolyte Charles. The cynical
hussar made history by being the only man known to have resisted
marcin
(Marcin)
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