‘Mme Bonaparte is neither young nor pretty,’ wrote a cavalry officer who came across her at this time. ‘She has beautiful manners and is good-natured…She cries frequently, several times a day, for the most trivial of reasons.’
She took home with her not only the good wishes and congratulations of the people, but boxes packed with presents from Italians anxious to ingratiate themselves with the great French general, and with treasures she had herself purchased for her house in Paris, now being lavishly redecorated at great cost – pictures, statuary, Venetian glass, silks, bronzes and antique cameos. And, by her side in the rattling carriage, was a well-filled jewel box.
14 LIFE IN THE RUE DE LA VICTOIRE
‘I fear that one day we may have to implore him
to tear himself away from his studious retreat.’
UPON HIS RETURN TO THE HOUSE in the rue Chantereine, soon to be renamed the rue de la Victoire, Napoleon was shocked to find how much money had evidently been spent on his wife’s orders in their absence. The bills awaiting them were enormous: she had employed the cabinet-makers, Jacob Frères, sons of the celebrated menuisier, Georges Jacob, and had sent them one hundred and twenty thousand francs on account with instructions to make the place ‘supremely elegant’; and pieces of furniture continued to arrive almost daily.
Astounded as he was by the money that had been spent, Napoleon had little cause for concern. It has been estimated that he had extorted fifty million francs in Italy, scarcely ten million of which had been sent to the Directory; and while the sums spent on the house in the rue Chantereine were extravagant enough, he was one day to have as many as forty-four palaces, the furniture in one room of one of the palaces costing more than the one hundred and twenty thousand francs sent to the Jacob frères for the pieces they now supplied.
Napoleon’s first visitor at the house was Paul Barras who remained with him until long after midnight. Even so, Napoleon rose early the next morning and sent a message to Talleyrand to say that he would call to see him at eleven o’clock. Upon his arrival he was pleased to find that Admiral Bougainville, the celebrated navigator, whom he had long admired, was also there. So was Germaine de Staël, whom he most certainly did not admire and to whom he ostentatiously declined to speak. His conversation with Talleyrand, however, at this, their first meeting, was mutually agreeable; and it was Talleyrand who, a few days later, at the Luxembourg Palace, presented General Bonaparte to the toga-clad Directors and other dignitaries as ‘the son and hero of the Revolution’.
To those who saw him here for the first time he did not present a particularly heroic figure. Short and pale, wearing a long, plain grey civilian overcoat buttoned under his chin, he appeared to have none of the panache expected of so splendidly victorious a commander. At pains to emphasize apolitical credentials, he was careful not to present himself as a latter-day Alexander. He had arrived at the Palace by way of back streets in a simple carriage in order to avoid the immense crowds which had gathered in the main thoroughfares to welcome him. As though prompted by him to emphasize his modest demeanour and disinterested patriotism, Talleyrand ended his speech by remarking upon Bonaparte’s ‘contempt for pomp, luxury and display’. ‘Far from fearing his ambition,’ Talleyrand said, ‘I feel that one day we may have to implore him to tear himself away from the calm of his studious retreat.’
Paul Barras, that year’s President of the Directory, struck a different note. Referring to the forces assembling on the coast for an invasion of England, he urged General Bonaparte to march to the banks of the Thames to ‘purge the world of the monsters’ who oppressed and dishonoured it: ‘May St James’s Palace crumble into dust. Your country wishes it. Humanity requires it. Revenge demands it.’
This was the kind of language which appealed to Napoleon and which he himself had employed in addressing the Army of Italy. Modest as he had contrived to appear since his return to France, he was a great showman at heart and, as showmen will, he greatly resented those who endeavoured to steal his thunder. On this occasion, towards the conclusion of his brief speech in acknowledgement of the words which had been spoken in praise of him, Mme Récamier stood up in her white dress to obtain a better view of him. Her appearance was greeted by ‘a long murmur of admiration’. Napoleon turned around to see what had caused it. The look in his eyes induced her to sit down again.
This was on 10 December 1797, five days after Napoleon’s return to Paris. Josephine had still not arrived. Nor had she come a fortnight later when five hundred guests had been invited to attend a reception and ball to be held at the Hôtel Gallifet in her honour. Consequently, the ball had to be postponed, entailing what François-Joseph Bellanger, the architect employed to supervise the Hôtel’s decorations, described as ‘a very large additional expense’ which included the cost of rented items that had to be replaced, ‘such as 930 trees’. But by 28 December she had still not arrived; and it was not until 3 January 1798 that she came home at last. The ball took place the following evening.
It was a glittering occasion. The guests of honour were deferred to as though they were already the emperor and empress they were to become; but neither appeared to be entirely at ease. Once again, Germaine de Staël – to Talleyrand’s intense annoyance – pushed herself forward to ask Bonaparte a series of irritating questions, ending with, ‘General, which woman could you love the most?’
‘My wife,’ he replied.
‘Of course, but which woman, alive or dead, do you most admire?’
‘The one who gives birth to the most children.’
He then pushed past her, and went into the dining room where the ladies sat at table while the men stood behind their chairs, Talleyrand himself attending to Mme Bonaparte who was less gracious than usual. Her mind, so some observers thought, was unusually distracted.
As he himself wished, Bonaparte and his wife now led a more or less retired life in the house in the rue de la Victoire, in marked contrast to life at the Palazzo Serbelloni in Milan where the poet, Antoine Arnault, had compared Bonaparte’s drawing room to the foyer of the Opéra in Paris. ‘Never did a military headquarters look more like a court,’ Arnault said. ‘It was the forerunner of the Tuileries.’ Dinner parties were held in the rue de la Victoire; but, apart from Barras and Talleyrand, political and military figures were rarely invited. Guests were more likely to be members of the French Academy of Sciences, which General Bonaparte had been invited to join – men such as Gaspard Monge, the mathematician, Claude-Louis Berthollet, the chemist, François-Joseph Talma, the actor, and the painter, Jacques-Louis David. Women were less in evidence, though Mme de Staël was to be seen there from time to time, clearly irritating Napoleon by her effusive talk.
On more than one occasion, when it was time for their guests to withdraw from the table for coffee and perhaps to listen to Antoine Arnault read one of his latest poems or to Étienne Méhul, the composer, sing one of his recent compositions, Josephine would gently tap her husband on the shoulder. Making one of those rare attempts at humour that would raise false laughter, the General asked his guests to note that his wife was in the habit of beating him.
At these dinner parties Napoleon ate hastily, as though late for some appointment. He rarely commented on the food and often seemed not to notice what was on his plate unless it happened to be runner beans which he would examine closely, once having been disgusted by a stringy one, part of which he had supposed to be a human hair.
He preferred plain food to rich and complicated fare and was particularly fond of a dish invented in Italy by his chef, Dunand, after the battle of Marengo when Napoleon, who never ate until the fight was over, found himself hungry and far from his supply wagons. A scavenging party was sent out and returned with three eggs, four tomatoes, six crayfish, a small hen, some oil, a few cloves of garlic and a saucepan. Dunand then created what became known as chicken Marengo and Napoleon, having relished it, said to him, ‘You must feed me like this after every battle.’
He usually had lunch alone at the Tuileries; but Josephine joined