We arrived at Saint-Cloud on the 27th of July; and the Emperor passed the summer partly in this residence, and partly at Fontainebleau, returning to Paris only on special occasions, and never remaining longer than twenty-four hours. During his Majesty's absence, the chateau of Rambouillet was restored and furnished anew, and the Emperor spent a few days there. The first time he entered the bathroom, he stopped short at the door and glanced around with every appearance of surprise and dissatisfaction; and when I sought the cause of this, following the direction of his Majesty's eyes, I saw that they rested on various family portraits which the architect had painted on the walls of the room. They were those of madame his mother, his sisters, Queen Hortense, etc.; and the sight of such a gallery, in such a place, excited the extreme displeasure of the Emperor. "What nonsense!" he cried. "Constant, summon Marshal Duroc!" And when the grand marshal appeared, his Majesty inquired, "Who is the idiot that could have conceived such an idea?
Order the painter to come and efface all that. He must have little respect for women to be guilty of such an indecency."
When the court sojourned at Fontainebleau, the inhabitants indemnified themselves amply for his Majesty's long absences by the high price at which they sold all articles of food. Their extortions became scandalous impositions, and more than one foreigner ****** an excursion to Fontainebleau thought himself held for ransom by a troop of Bedouins.
During the stay of the court; a wretched sacking-bed in a miserable inn cost twelve francs for a single night; the smallest meal cost an incredible price, and was, notwithstanding, detestable; in fact, it amounted to a genuine pillage of travelers. Cardinal Caprara, --[Giovanni Battista Caprara, born of a noble family at Bologna, 1733; count and archbishop of Milan; cardinal, 1792; Negotiated the Concordat, 1801; died 1810]--
whose rigid economy was known to all Paris, went one day to Fontainebleau to pay his court to the Emperor, and at the hotel where he alighted took only a single cup of bouillon, and the six persons of his suite partook only of a very light repast, as the cardinal had arranged to return in three hours; but notwithstanding this, as he was entering his carriage, the landlord had the audacity to present him with a bill for six hundred francs! The prince of the church indignantly protested, flew into a rage, threatened, etc., but all in vain; and the bill was paid.
Such an outrageous imposition could not fail to reach the Emperor's ears, and excited his anger to such a degree that he at once ordered a fixed schedule of prices, which it was forbidden the innkeepers to exceed.
This put an end to the exactions of the bloodsuckers of Fontainebleau.
On the 21st of August, there arrived at Paris the Princess Catharine of Wurtemberg, future wife of Prince Jerome Napoleon, King of Westphalia.
This princess was about twenty-four years of age, and very beautiful, with a most noble and gracious bearing; and though policy alone had made this marriage, never could love or voluntary choice have made one that was happier.
The courageous conduct of her Majesty the Queen of Westphalia in 1814, her devotion to her dethroned husband, and her admirable letters to her father, who wished to tear her from the arms of King Jerome, are matters of history. I have seen it stated that this prince never ceased, even after this marriage, which was so flattering to his ambition, to correspond with his first wife, Mademoiselle Patterson, and that he often sent to America his valet de chambre, Rico, to inquire after this lady and their child. If this is true, it is no less so that these attentions to his first wife, which were not only very excusable, but even, according to my opinion, praiseworthy in Prince Jerome, and of which her Majesty the Queen of Westphalia was probably well aware, did not necessarily prevent her being happy with her husband.
No testimony more reliable than that of the queen her self can be given;
and she expresses herself as follows in her second letter to his Majesty, the King of Wurtemburg:--
"Forced by policy to marry the king, my husband, fate has willed that I should find myself the happiest woman in the universe. I
feel towards my husband the united sentiments of love, tenderness, and esteem. In this painful moment can the best of fathers wish to destroy my domestic happiness, the only kind which now remains to me? I dare to say that you, my dear father, you and all my family, do great injustice to the king, my husband; and I trust the time will come when you will be convinced that you have done him injustice, and then you will ever find in him, as well as in myself, the most respectful and affectionate of children."
Her Majesty then spoke of a terrible misfortune to which she had been exposed. This event, which was indeed terrible, was nothing less than violence and robbery committed on a fugitive woman defenseless and alone, by a band at the head of which was the famous Marquis de Maubreuil, --[A French political adventurer, born in Brittany, 1782; died 1855.]--
who had been equerry of the King of Westphalia. I will recur in treating of the events of 1814 to this disgraceful affair, and will give some particulars, which I think are not generally known, in regard to the principal authors and participants in this daring act of brigandage.
In the following month of September, a courier from the Russian cabinet arrived from St. Petersburg, bearing a letter to his Majesty from the Emperor Alexander; and among other magnificent gifts were two very handsome fur pelisses of black fox and sable martin.