In all the fetes given by the First Consul in honor of their Majesties, the King and Queen of Etruria, Mademoiselle Hortense shone with that brilliancy and grace which made her the pride of her mother, and the most beautiful ornament of the growing court of the First Consul.
About this time she inspired a most violent passion in a gentleman of a very good family, who was, I think, a little deranged before this mad love affected his brain. This poor unfortunate roamed incessantly around Malmaison; and as soon as Mademoiselle Hortense left the house, ran by the side of her carriage with the liveliest demonstrations of tenderness, and threw through the window flowers, locks of his hair, and verses of his own composition. When he met Mademoiselle Hortense on foot, he threw himself on his knees before her with a thousand passionate gestures, addressing her in most endearing terms, and followed her, in spite of all opposition, even into the courtyard of the chateau, and abandoned himself to all kinds of folly. At first Mademoiselle Hortense, who was young and gay, was amused by the antics of her admirer, read the verses which he addressed to her, and showed them to the ladies who accompanied her. One such poetical effusion was enough to provoke laughter (and can you blame her?); but after the first burst of laughter, Mademoiselle Hortense, good and charming as her mother, never failed to say, with a sympathetic expression and tone, "The poor man, he is much to be pitied!" At last, however, the importunities of the poor madman increased to such an extent that they became insupportable. He placed himself at the door of the theaters in Paris at which Mademoiselle Hortense was expected, and threw himself at her feet, supplicating, weeping, laughing, and gesticulating all at once. This spectacle amused the crowd too much to long amuse Mademoiselle de Beauharnais; and Carrat was ordered to remove the poor fellow, who was placed, I think, in a private asylum for the insane.
Mademoiselle Hortense would have been too happy if she could have known love only from the absurd effects which it produced on this diseased brain, as she thus saw it only in its pleasant and comic aspect. But the time came when she was forced to feel all that is painful and bitter in the experience of that passion. In January, 1802, she was married to Louis Bonaparte, brother of the First Consul, which was a most suitable alliance as regards age, Louis being twenty-four years old, and Mademoiselle de Beauharnais not more than eighteen; and nevertheless it was to both parties the beginning of long and interminable sorrows.
Louis, however, was kind and sensible, full of good feeling and intelligence, studious and fond of letters, like all his brothers (except one alone); but he was in feeble health, suffered almost incessantly, and was of a melancholy disposition. All the brothers of the First Consul resembled him more or less in their personal appearance, and Louis still more than the others, especially at the time of the Consulate, and before the Emperor Napoleon had become so stout. But none of the brothers of the Emperor possessed that imposing and majestic air and that rapid and imperious manner which came to him at first by instinct, and afterwards from the habit of command. Louis had peaceful and modest tastes. It has been asserted that at the time of his marriage he was deeply attached to a person whose name could not be ascertained, and who, I think, is still a mystery.
Mademoiselle Hortense was extremely pretty, with an expressive and mobile countenance, and in addition to this was graceful, talented, and affable.
Kindhearted and amiable like her mother, she had not that excessive desire to oblige which sometimes detracted from Madame Bonaparte's character. This is, nevertheless, the woman whom evil reports, disseminated by miserable scandal-mongers, have so outrageously slandered! My heart is stirred with disgust and indignation when I hear such revolting absurdities repeated and scattered broadcast. According to these honest fabricators, the First Consul must have seduced his wife's daughter, before giving her in marriage to his own brother., Simply to announce such a charge is to comprehend all the falsity of it.
I knew better than any one the amours of the Emperor. In these clandestine liaisons he feared scandal, hated the ostentations of vice, and I can affirm on honor that the infamous desires attributed to him never entered his mind. Like every one else, who was near Mademoiselle de Beauharnais, and because he knew his step-daughter even more intimately, he felt for her the tenderest affection; but this sentiment was entirely paternal, and Mademoiselle Hortense reciprocated it by that reverence which a wellborn young girl feels towards her father. She could have obtained from her step-father anything that she wished, if her extreme timidity had not prevented her asking; but, instead of addressing herself directly to him, she first had recourse to the intercession of the secretary, and of those around the Emperor. Is it thus she would have acted if the evil reports spread by her enemies, and those of the Emperor, had had the least foundation?