On the night of 2 April, in pelting rain, Napoleon set out to meet the
coach which was reported on the road not many miles from Compiegne.
After intercepting Marie-Louise and party, he jumped into the coach and
embraced her. There was to be no disappointment with a previously
unseen bride such as Henry VIII experienced with Anne of Cleves. Once
back in the chateau at Compiegne he brusquely dismissed the crowds of
well-wishers and, after an intimate dinner at which Caroline alone was
allowed to be present, he took Marie-Louise to bed. Some would say this
was no way to treat a nervous young virgin, and that this behaviour once
again underlined Napoleon's fundamental misogyny, but Marie-Louise
instantly proved to have a natural relish for sex. Napoleon's account of
his honeymoon, given on St Helena, is justly famous: 'She asked me to do
it again.' It was perhaps a choice irony for this misogynist to be
surrounded by highly-sexed women: not just his bevy of mistresses but
his sister Pauline and both his wives.
A week later, in a two-day ceremony on r-2 April, the civil and
religious marriages took place, the first at St Cloud, the second at the
Tuileries; tactlessly Napoleon had decided that his own marriage would
follow in exact detail the format of that between Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette. The principal impression given onlookers at the first
ceremony was that the bride was taller than the groom, but the glamour
and ostentation of the drive through Paris and the religious ceremony
swept aside cavils. Napoleon was dressed in white satin, Marie-Louise in
white tulle embroidered with silver. The Emperor had once again
dragooned his unwilling female connections into service. Walking in front
and holding lighted tapers and insignia on tasselled cushions came
Caroline Murat, Grand Duchess Stephanie-Napoleone of Baden and the
vicereine Augusta Amelia ofltaly. Holding Marie-Louise's train were the
Bonaparte Q.Ieens of Spain, Holland and Westphalia, plus Grand
Duchess Elisa of Tuscany and Pauline Borghese who, as at the coronation
six years earlier, complained that the task was beneath her dignity and
tried to get out of it on grounds of 'illness'.
Throughout Paris splendid fetes were given to celebrate the imperial
wedding, including one hosted in the garden of his house by Prince
Schwarzenberg, the Austrian ambassador. Intent on making a social hit,
he had a vast ballroom erected in the garden but during the ball some
gauze draperies caught fire, the flames spread and soon the entire house
had gone up in an inferno. Napoleon and Marie-Louise escaped easily
enough, but several people perished in the blaze, including the
ambassador's brother's wife. The superstitious Napoleon regarded this as
a very bad omen and recalled the fete in r77o, at the marriage of Louis
marcin
(Marcin)
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