Chapter XI: Sisters

IF Napoleon’s brothers were all a generally hopeless lot, the same can by no means be said of his sisters. These stood out head and shoulders above the other women of the time; they were all distinguished by their force of character; whether they were married to nonentities or personalities they all did their best to wear the breeches—but they did not flinch from wearing nothing at all if the whim took them. They were all handsome women, and one of them, Pauline, was generally considered to be the most beautiful woman of the time.

Napoleon’s sisters resembled him much more closely than did his brothers. Xerxes, watching Artemisia fighting desperately at Salamis, exclaimed, “This woman plays the man while my men play the woman,” and a dispassionate observer of the conduct of the rulers of the countries of Europe in the Napoleonic era might well say the same. One has only to compare Joseph Bonaparte flying from Vittoria, or Murat flying from Tolentino, with Caroline rallying the Neapolitans, Louise of Prussia fighting desperately hard against fate at Tilsit, and Marie Caroline of Bourbon directing Sicily’s struggle with the great conqueror.

There are obvious differences, too, between Napoleon’s treatment of his brothers and his treatment of his sisters. Joseph and Jerome and Louis he bullied unmercifully, but it was far otherwise with Pauline, Caroline and Elise. He himself admitted that he always “formed into line of battle” in preparation for an interview with Caroline, and although authorities are at variance as to when he actually said to his family that anyone would think he was trying to rob them of the inheritance of the late King, their father, it is certain that the remark was addressed to his sisters and mother. They were all of them women with a very keen sense of what they wanted, and they fought like tiger-cats to obtain it.

The three girls all married before or during the Consulate, when Napoleon had not yet attained the heights he reached later, so that the marriages they made were by no means as brilliant as they might have been, and fell far short of the marriages which Napoleon arranged for much more distant relatives who became marriageable at a later period. Elise was old enough to experience acutely the trials of poverty which overtook the family before Napoleon was promoted to important commands. She was sent as a child to school at St. Cyr, a state-supported institution under the patronage of the Bourbons, and had to leave there at the same time as the Bonaparte family had to fly from Corsica to Marseilles. During the next few years she was rather a trial to her family, for she flirted with every man she met, eligible and ineligible. One of her admirers was Admiral Truguet, who was a thoroughly good sailor and quite a good match at that time, but Madame Bonaparte declined to allow the affair to develop. In the end it was a fellow Corsican, Félix Baciocchi, who gained her hand. Baciocchi was a distant connection of the Bonaparte family, and also, by a curious coincidence, he was a relation of Charles Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, another Corsican, who is believed to have been at feud with the Bonapartes, and who certainly distinguished himself, while in the service of various European monarchs, by his virulent hatred of Napoleon.

But Baciocchi did not distinguish himself at all. He was a complete nonentity, with neither the desire nor the capacity to achieve power. At the marriage Elise only brought him thirty thousand francs as dowry (her share of the Bonaparte property, now recovered from the Paolists), but after 1797 Napoleon was able to make Elise presents of considerably greater value. Baciocchi was then a major of infantry; but during the Consulate his wife endeavoured to obtain higher military command for him. So persistently did she scheme to this end that at last in self-defence Napoleon made him a senator in order to cut short his military career.

Pauline, the next sister, married Leclerc, a capable soldier, who rendered Napoleon valuable service during the _coup d’état_ of Brumaire. He, at least, was worthy of promotion, and Bonaparte gave it to him lavishly. But it was Caroline, the youngest, who looked after herself best. Most of the generals of the Consulate sought her hand, including Lannes, but both Napoleon and Caroline desired alliance with the greatest of them all, Moreau. However, Moreau declined the honour (thereby directly bringing about his own exile soon after), and Caroline chose for herself a husband of whose military talents she was sufficiently sure to be certain that high command would be given him, but who also was sufficiently weak-willed to be well under her thumb. Lannes was of too lofty a type to please her in this respect, and his personal devotion to Napoleon was undoubted; Caroline therefore selected a young cavalry officer, Murat.

Pauline experienced an unfortunate beginning to the career she had planned for herself and her husband. Leclerc was appointed to the command of the expeditionary force which was sent to subdue Hayti, and Pauline was ordered to accompany him. In vain she pleaded ill-health; in vain she said that her complexion would be ruined by the West Indian sun; Napoleon was adamant. Pauline kept up the plea of ill-health sufficiently well to be carried on board ship at Brest in a litter, but the expedition started. As was only to be expected, it ended in disastrous failure. Toussaint l’Ouverture, the leader of the rebellion, was indeed captured and sent to France to perish in a freezing mountain prison, but yellow fever attacked the French troops, and they died in thousands. Leclerc was one of those who perished.

Napoleon himself was able to gain some satisfaction even from the failure, because the men he had sent had all been drawn from the Army of the Rhine, and they were all guilty of the crime of believing that Moreau was a great man, and that Hohenlinden was a greater victory than Marengo. But, as has been said, the French died in thousands; the negroes fought stoutly, and at last after fifteen thousand Frenchmen had perished only a miserable fragment of the expeditionary force survived to be withdrawn under Rochambeau. Pauline returned to France to deplore her ruined complexion.

However, with the establishment of the Empire the sisters found plenty to occupy their minds in acquiring as much spoil as possible. Money they sought greedily, and Napoleon gave them millions of francs. They shed tears of rage when they found that the Emperor expected them to remain content with being plain Mesdames Murat, Leclerc and Baciocchi, while the hated Josephine was Sa Majesté Impériale et Royale l’Impératrice et Reine, and while plain Julie Clary and Hortense Beauharnais (Joseph’s and Louis’s wives) were Imperial and Royal Highnesses. Napoleon gave way to their bitter pleadings and at one stroke created them Princesses of the Empire, making their husbands Princes at the same time.

These names, Elise, Pauline and Caroline, were not the baptismal names of the ladies concerned. At baptism they had been given Italian names, each of them attached to the ever popular name of Maria. Their mother was Maria Letizia; while Elise was really Maria Anna, Pauline, Maria Paoletta and Caroline, Maria Annunziata. It is by these names that they are described on their marriage certificates, but they dropped them soon afterwards to assume names which appealed to them more. Changing their names did not change their natures; they intrigued and schemed and plotted; they flirted; they sought favours; they quarrelled with their husbands, with their sisters-in-law, and with each other; in fact they exhibited all the fierce self-seeking which characterized the ladies of the old monarchy. There was this difference, however. Fifty years before the Court ladies had intrigued for places, and for thousands of francs. Now they intrigued for kingdoms and millions.

Caroline early took first place in the race for power. Her husband, Murat, distinguished himself in the Austerlitz campaign by capturing the great bridge over the Danube by a trick which savoured rather of treachery, and by bold heading of cavalry charges at Austerlitz itself. He was already a Prince and second senior Marshal of the Empire; the only possible promotion left for him was a sovereignty. Napoleon, carving out his Confederation of the Rhine, found him one. A tiny area on the Rhine was obtained by exchange from Prussia and Bavaria, and Murat and Caroline became Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Berg and Cleves. Caroline was in no way satisfied. She egged her husband on to demand increases of territory, privileges of toll on the Rhine, and so on, until the little state had set both France and Prussia in a ferment. The tension hardly relaxed until, a month or two later, war broke out between the two countries. Murat went away with the Grand Army to Jena, Eylau and Friedland; Caroline stayed behind in Paris to guard their interests. She did it well. She indulged in an outrageous flirtation with Junot, Governor of Paris, and hints have not been wanting that her purpose was to arrange a revolution rather on the same lines as Mallet tried to follow in 1812. At her palace of the Elysée (now the official residence of the President of the Third Republic) she gave the most brilliant fêtes imaginable. She worked like a slave to gain popularity, so that she could gain the throne in the event of her brother’s death. Then Tilsit followed Friedland, and the Emperor returned. The campaign had brought more glory to Murat than he had as yet gained. He had headed the marvellous pursuit after Jena, when he had captured fortresses with a few regiments of Hussars, and it was largely through him that practically the whole Prussian army had fallen into the hands of the French. At Eylau, when Augereau’s corps had come reeling back through the blizzard, shattered and almost annihilated, when it seemed as though the Grand Army was at last going to taste defeat, Napoleon had called on Murat to save the day. Murat replied by charging at the head of eighteen thousand cavalry. He broke up the first Russian line, captured thousands of prisoners, and beat back the Russians until Davout and Ney were in position.

Naturally, he reaped vast rewards. His Grand Duchy was doubled in size; millions of francs were bestowed upon him and upon Caroline; but they were hugely dissatisfied. Murat had hoped for the crown of Poland, or, failing that, for a whole kingdom in Germany. But Poland was given to the King of Saxony, and the creation of Jerome Bonaparte’s kingdom of Westphalia shut out all hopes of the further expansion of Berg. Caroline and Murat were furious. Murat showed his rage by hinting at rebellion; Caroline used her native Corsican guile and became as friendly to Napoleon as possible, helping him in his affairs with women, recounting to him the tittle-tattle of the drawing-rooms of Paris, and even at times giving him the shelter of her roof to conceal from Josephine some of his more flagrant unfaithfulnesses.

However, Murat was soon in employment again. He was appointed to the command in Spain, where Napoleon’s tortuous intrigues to dispossess the unspeakable Bourbons were beginning to take effect. Murat certainly achieved fair success. He gained possession of the Spanish fortresses, stamped out the little spurts of rebellion which occasionally flamed out, and by the time the outrageous treaty of Bayonne had been signed he was in a position to hand over to Napoleon the greater part of the country. Another disappointment awaited him. He had hoped that all this mysterious business would result in his being given the crown of Spain—but Joseph Bonaparte received it instead, and Murat and Caroline were forced to be content with Joseph’s former kingdom of Naples. Caroline was at last a Queen.

The royal pair began at once to treat their new kingdom much as Sancho Panza had determined to treat his island. Taxes were increased, the army was reorganized, and preparations were set on foot for the conquest of Sicily. To gain popularity with the Neapolitans they abrogated some of the more obnoxious decrees of Murat’s predecessor, and they further employed all their arts to blacken his memory, so that they would by contrast appear the better rulers.

But Napoleon nipped this scheme in the bud at once. Every day brought fresh thunders from Paris. The Emperor sent furious orders forbidding certain measures, enjoining others, until it became very evident that he was determined to rule Naples himself, although he was content to allow Murat to bear the title and honours of King. Poor Murat could do nothing right. Any well-advised action on his part was looked upon as potential treason, while any failure called forth tornadoes of wrath from Paris. When, by a well-planned raid, he captured Capri from Sir Hudson Lowe, he was actually censured for informing the Emperor through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs instead of through the Ministry for War! Murat and Caroline chafed against their bonds, but while the Empire stood firm they were powerless.

Meanwhile, Pauline and Elise, although not as successful as Caroline, had nevertheless attained to some measure of sovereignty. Elise contrived for the greater part of the time to have her dullard husband sent away on various duties, while she herself flirted gaily with every man she could. As a matter of fact, her flirting was never so serious as was her sisters’; she had another outlet for her ingenuity in that she was passionately devoted to the stage and to all connected with it. She visited the theatre as often as she could; she read plays in hundreds, and she indulged in amateur theatricals whenever possible. When Italy was being parcelled out into fiefs by Napoleon, she prevailed on her brother to allot to her the principality of Piombino in full sovereignty, and later she contrived to have Lucca added to her little state. Here she settled down for a time, with all the paraphernalia of sovereignty, equerries, chamberlains, ladies-in-waiting, and especially a Court troupe of actors. Baciocchi, her husband, had indeed been given the title of Prince of Piombino, but Elise alone had been given the principality. Baciocchi was merely his wife’s subject, and Elise made the most of it. He could never worry her again, for Elise allotted him apartments far distant from her own, and never saw him without a third person being present. Scandal said that other men were allowed greater privileges, but there is nothing very definite from which one may draw reliable conclusions.

Soon Elise received further promotion. Napoleon cast a covetous eye upon the kingdom of Etruria which had set up in 1802, and by treaty with Spain he arranged to give the widowed Queen of Etruria (a Spanish princess) a new kingdom of Northern Lusitania in exchange. That this new kingdom was to be carved out of Portugal troubled him not at all; he even promised to make Godoy (First Minister of Spain) Prince of the Algarve, another Portuguese district. He had very little intention of fulfilling either promise, but they enabled him to send Junot marching hotfoot on Lisbon, and to annex Tuscany to the Empire. Elise seized her opportunity. By cajolery and blandishment she persuaded Napoleon to erect Tuscany into a government-general, and to confer upon her the ruling power with the title of Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Poor Baciocchi was appointed general of division in command of the French garrison. Elise settled down in the Pitti palace at Florence, and proceeded to rule the cradle of the Renaissance, the erstwhile domain of the Medicis, as thoroughly as her brother would allow her.

Pauline’s widowhood ended in a much more splendid match than was made by any of the other Bonapartes. She took as her second husband Prince Camillo Borghese, the head of one of the most renowned houses of Italy. The marriage was not a success (no Bonaparte marriage was, at that time), but Borghese’s wealth and the presents Napoleon heaped upon her enabled Pauline to indulge every whim of which she was capable. Proud of her reputation as the most beautiful woman of the time, she did all she could to enhance and set off her beauty. Like Poppæa, she bathed every day in milk—a hot milk bath followed by a cold milk shower. She surrounded herself with negro servants and dwarfs, by way of contrast, and her extravagances and wanton waste of money were the talk of the whole Empire. Canova carved her statue, and despite his cold classicism we can still perceive in that recumbent, self-satisfied figure the fiery, tempestuous woman who was once Pauline. Her posing semi-nude, even to such a sculptor as Canova, called forth a storm of comment from a gossip-loving Empire. The tale was told that when Pauline was asked if she did not feel uncomfortable, posing half-dressed, she replied, “Oh no, there was a fire in the room.”

When Elise received Piombino, Pauline begged Guastalla from Napoleon, and as Duchess she, too, held sovereignty. Borghese was made Governor-General of the Piedmontese departments, and was sent to Turin with an enormous Civil List to play the part of a semi-royalty, and to reconcile the Piedmontese to the loss of their Sardinian king. Such a task was naturally agreeable to Pauline, and in Turin she and Borghese did their best to astonish the provincials with a series of fêtes of unheard-of opulence. Pauline was the most talked about of all Bonaparte’s sisters; the voice of adulation praised her beauty; the voice of vituperation hinted frightful things about her morals. She was accused of hideous vices, of too great an affection for her brothers, of a lunatic passion for various men. Pauline apparently did not mind. She went gaily on through life, quarrelling with Borghese, spending money like water, indulging in hectic episodes with artists and soldiers, and generally recalling to mind the old days of the Borgias and the Viscontis.

With the publication of the fate of Napoleon’s Russian expedition a shudder ran through the Empire. Murat, whom Napoleon had left in command of the wreck of the Grand Army, deserted his charge and rushed home so as to be at hand to preserve his own kingdom should the Empire fall. Prussia became Russia’s ally. Sweden, under Bernadotte, had already done the same. Napoleon made a gigantic effort; in three months he raised and equipped an army of three hundred thousand men; he beat back the Allies, winning victories at Lützen and Bautzen; for a space it seemed as if he would regain his old European domination. Consequently the pendulum of his allies’ attitude swung back once more towards faithfulness, and Murat left Naples once more to command the cavalry of the Grand Army. But already Caroline and he had negotiated a secret convention with Austria by which he would declare war on France if called upon to do so. Elise in Tuscany had decided to join him, although, unfortunately for her, she extracted no definite promise from Austria that she would retain her throne.

Thus, while Murat was fighting for the Grand Army, leading charges made by fifty and seventy squadrons at a time, and capturing twelve thousand Austrian prisoners in a single battle, his wife in Naples was assuring Austria of his devotion to Austria; she was recruiting the Neapolitan army to the utmost, and, while not actually moving against France, she was refusing to allow a single Neapolitan battalion to go to Napoleon’s help. Then came the French defeats of 1813, culminating in the disaster of Leipzig. It was obvious that the Empire could not endure much longer. Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, all turned against Napoleon, and Murat realized that if he delayed further the Allies would not have so pressing a need for his aid, and he would be unable to secure his throne by his treachery. Without further hesitation he left the beaten Emperor, hurried across Europe through the first snows of autumn, and reached Naples early in November. The Neapolitan army was at last going to advance.

The advance was a very slow and cautious one. Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, was fighting fiercely in Venetia against the Austrians. Tempting offers were made to him by the Allies, but he refused them; his dignified replies are worthy of Bayard or Francis I. But Murat and his Neapolitans were moving steadily northward; even now he had made no public declaration as to which side he was on, and in private he and Caroline were assuring Eugène, Napoleon and the Austrians at one and the same time of their unfailing support. Nor was this all. They were further intriguing with the infant United Italy party in an endeavour to increase their dominion in that way; while in addition they had made some sort of agreement with Elise Bonaparte in Tuscany. It would be hard to discover anywhere in history an equally loathsome example of double-dealing.

Murat occupied the Papal States, Tuscany, and portions of the Kingdom of Italy, but he still refrained from making any open attack on either French or Austrians. Not until March 6th, 1814, when he received from Caroline definite news of the certainty of the fall of the Empire, did he attack Eugène’s forces. He achieved little, and after two fierce little skirmishes he subsided once more into inaction. At last official intimation of Napoleon’s fall came to hand, and, abandoning Elise to her fate, Murat returned to Naples. Further diplomacy confirmed him in his possession of Naples; the only person concerned who kept to his pledged word in all the intricacies of the negotiations was Francis of Austria.

Thus 1815 found Napoleon’s three sisters in very different situations. Caroline was still a Queen; Elise, turned out of Tuscany by the Austrians, was a pensioner on her bounty; while Pauline, who alone had remained faithful to her brother, was living with Napoleon at Elba. Suddenly there came another dramatic change, for Napoleon escaped from Elba, and within a few days was once more Emperor of the French. Italy was again plunged into a ferment. Murat and Caroline were naturally anxious, for they could not expect that Napoleon would forgive their black treachery of the year before, while it was only too obvious that not a single country in Europe retained any interest in their possession of the throne of Naples. In these circumstances Murat took the first heroic decision of his life, and decided to cut the Gordian knot by force of arms. He declared war against Austria, proclaimed a United Italy, and with fifty thousand men he marched northward to establish himself as King of Italy. It was a vain effort. The Neapolitan army was a wretched force, and Murat himself was worse than useless in independent command. The Austrian army hurriedly concentrated, defeated Murat in one or two minor actions, and finally utterly routed him at Tolentino. The Neapolitans deserted in thousands, and Murat re-entered his dominions with only five thousand men left. The Austrians followed him up remorselessly; the Sicilians were preparing an expedition against him; and all that was left for Murat to do was to abdicate and fly for his life.

Caroline was successful in obtaining the protection of Francis of Austria, and she soon went off to settle down in Austria with a pension and a residence. Murat had reached France, and for some weeks he was in hiding in Marseilles. After Waterloo he left by sea to join his wife, but on his way he changed his mind and took his second heroic decision. Napoleon had regained France simply by appearing in person before his army; why should not Murat regain Naples in the same way? Murat landed with a score of companions at Pizzo in Calabria, and marched into the market place with his escort shouting “Long live King Joachim!” For a moment there was an astonished silence, and then the townspeople fell on the little party. Not for nothing had Murat decorated every mile of every road in Calabria with a gallows from which hung captured bandits; every soul in Pizzo must have had a blood feud with their late King. Battered with sticks and stones, Murat was seized and flung into prison, and five days later he was tried and shot.

Murat’s attempt was the last spurt of the Napoleonic feeling for a long period. Not until, with the passage of years, the Legend had been built up, do we hear of any surprising action or heroic deed. Europe sank into a slough of inaction, crushed down by the weight of the Holy Alliance and the burden of accumulated debts. The most typical action of a dull generation was the establishment on the throne of France of fat, pathetic, bourgeois Louis Philippe as King of the French. It was a safe thing to do, and Louis Philippe and his Amelia did their best to make it remain safe. No risks were taken until the movement of 1848. Happiness has no history, and there is precious little history about the period 1815-48. Had the Holy Alliance had its way, there would be even less. Somehow one cannot help feeling that the dullness of the period is the dullness of unhappiness. It was the time when “order reigned in Warsaw,” when little children died in droves in English factories, when in Naples the negation of God was erected into a system of government. Historians may sneer at the ineffectiveness of the Napoleonides; they may point to a pillaged, blood-drenched Europe writhing under the heel of a Corsican Emperor; they can draw horrible pictures of the sacks of Lübeck or Badajoz, but they are unconvincing when they attempt to prove that there was more unhappiness under the Empire than under the Holy Alliance. Peace has its defeats as well as war.

This digression may be unpardonable, but it was nevertheless inevitable. Let us minimize our error, even if we cannot repair it, by turning back to the consideration of three fair and frail women whom we left thrust back unwillingly into a private station of life. One of them did not long survive the calamities of 1814. This was Elise. The Allies refused her request to join Napoleon at St. Helena, and she lived quietly in Italy until her death in 1820. She was only forty-two when she died. Pauline had the advantage over her sisters of having a husband whose position was independent of the Empire. Prince Borghese was a very considerable person in Rome, and Pauline for some time was a leading figure in Italian society. It did not last long, however. She quarrelled with her husband; her beauty left her; Austrian, French and Papal surveillance worried her, and she died in 1825.

Caroline, the most capable and cold-hearted of all the Bonapartes, after Napoleon, bore her troubles with more dignity and for a much longer time. As the Countess of Lipona (an anagram of Napoli) she lived for some time in Austria; she travelled restlessly about; she seemed in fact to have completely recovered from the shock of the loss of her husband and her throne, when at last a whole series of deaths broke down her reserve and shortened her life. Pauline and Elise, as has been said, were already dead; in 1832 the Prince Imperial (Napoleon II.) died at Vienna; Prince Borghese died in the same year. Another brother-in-law, Baciocchi, died in 1834; Catherine of Westphalia, her best beloved sister-in-law, died in 1835, and then in 1836 Madame Mère, her stern but adored mother, also died. Caroline endured her loneliness for a little while longer, but she died in 1839. Even she, almost the last of her generation, was only fifty-six at her death.

None of the Bonaparte family was as long-lived as Napoleon’s mother. Maria Letizia Ramolino was certainly one of the greatest women of the period. Elise Bonaparte might be called the Semiramis of Italy; Caroline might intrigue for Empires; Pauline might be the most beautiful woman of France; but their mother combined all their good qualities with very few of their bad ones. To bring up a family of eight children thoroughly well on an income of less than one hundred pounds a year in a revolution-torn country like Corsica is in itself a remarkable feat, though hardly likely in unfavourable circumstances to gain mention in history, but to do it when handicapped by a husband like Carlo Bonaparte is more remarkable still. The strain of those dreadful years in Ajaccio would have broken down anyone of stuff less stern than Maria Letizia’s; pitched battles were fought in the streets outside the Bonapartes’ house; three-quarters of Corsica were at feud with the Bonapartes and the party they represented; death threatened them all at different times, while all the time a most bitter, grinding poverty harried them unmercifully.

Maria Letizia came through the ordeal unbroken in body or spirit. Even Napoleon’s fierce pride humbled itself before her, and her other children were her slaves. But she had a woman’s weaknesses as well as a man’s strength. She was bitterly jealous of her daughter-in-law Josephine; she was bigoted in church matters; and she fought like a tigress in the cause of whichever of her children was experiencing misfortune. When Lucien left France in disgrace in consequence of his marriage to Madame Jouberthon, his mother strove desperately hard to re-establish him. She went to Italy to be near him, and endeavoured, by absenting herself at the time of the coronation, to force Napoleon to recall Lucien and herself together. However, her great son outwitted her on this occasion, for he dispensed with her presence, and yet arranged with David the artist for her portrait to appear along with the other French dignitaries in the celebrated picture of the coronation.

Letizia had a very good opinion of her own position. When Napoleon became Emperor, and made his brothers and sisters Imperial Highnesses, she demanded some greater title for herself. Napoleon was in a quandary, for on consulting precedents he found that no French king’s mother had ever been given any such honour if she had never been queen. Letizia insisted, and, almost at his wits’ end, Napoleon at last gave her a singular dignity. He awarded her the same position and precedence as used to be given under the Bourbons to the wife of the king’s second son. The king’s second son was Monsieur, and his wife was Madame. Letizia was named Madame, and as a subsidiary title she was called Mère de S.M. l’Empéreur et Roi. Almost at once the titles were merged together in common speech, and Letizia was called Madame Mère everywhere except at strict official gatherings.

By the time that the Empire was firmly founded, and all her children except Lucien were seated on thrones, Letizia was able to give free rein to the passion which came only second with her to her love for her children. It is said that shipwrecked sailors who have been starved for a long time cannot help, after being rescued, hoarding fragments of food for fear of another period of famine. With Madame Mère a similar state of affairs prevailed. She had felt the pinch of poverty for fifty years, and in no circumstances could she endure it again. She still lived as cheaply as she could, and she saved her money like a miser. She coaxed Napoleon into giving her an annual income of a million francs, and she did not spend a quarter of it. She did her best to obtain a sovereignty for herself, not that she wanted to rule, but because she could sell the fief back to the French and invest the proceeds. She made money by acute speculation. She clung like grim death to every sou which came within her reach.

Yet avarice pure and simple was not the sole motive of her actions. Just as a prophet has no honour in his own country, so the Emperor and the Kings and Princesses who were her children still seemed to be children to her, and all their talk of sovereignty was little better than childish prattling. She did not believe for one moment that the Empire could long endure, and in this her judgment was more acute than that of the majority of European statesmen. Wellington, as early as 1809, had seen through the shams and pretences of the glittering Empire, but few other men, not even Metternich, agreed with him at that time. But Madame Mère saw the end long before it came, and it was against that time of need that she saved so avariciously. Her judgment was proved accurate, and her savings proved useful in 1814.

In 1802 she had befriended Lucien; in 1805, Jerome; in 1810, Louis; now the greatest of her sons had met with adversity, and Letizia rushed to his assistance. She shared his exile in Elba, and from her own purse she provided the money which enabled him to maintain his Lilliputian court. She was by his side during the Hundred Days, and after he had been sent to St. Helena she returned to Italy and resumed the headship of the family. Her wealth as well as her marvellous personality assured her the respect of her sons and daughters. The death of the Prince Imperial in 1832 was a terrible shock to her; she had long been looking to him to restore the fame of the exiled house, and she had arranged to leave him all her money and papers. She did not long survive his death, but died in 1836, at the age of eighty-six.

She lies buried in Ajaccio, and the inscription over her tomb can still make the casual tourist catch his breath, and still makes the blood of Corsican youth run a little faster—

MARIA LETIZIA RAMOLINO BONAPARTE.
MATER REGUM.