Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (6 page)

Jérôme’s “tender father” was far from ready to forgive him, however. In a letter to their mother, Letizia, the emperor had made it clear that Jérôme must be
“disposed to wash away the dishonor with which he has soiled my name in abandoning his colors and his ship for a miserable woman.” If the younger Bonaparte failed to make amends, Napoleon intended to “give him up forever” and, more ominously, make an example of him. Napoleon’s ire was immediately evident to Jérôme, who was left to cool his heels outside Napoleon’s headquarters. When Napoleon at last agreed to an audience, he was said to greet Jérôme coldly:
“So, sir, you are the first of your family who shamefully abandoned his post. It will require many splendid actions to wipe that stain from your reputation. As to your love affair with your little girl, I do not regard it.”

Napoleon’s threats had not worked on Lucien, who stood by his wife despite exile and accusations that he had betrayed the emperor. But Jérôme lacked his older brother’s strength of character. As Napoleon heaped threats upon him—no more funds, no place in the line of succession, no honors, no glory, no royal
title, and the possibility of court-martial—Jérôme’s resolve, if it had ever truly existed, evaporated. On May 6, as the
Erin
tossed on rough seas toward Amsterdam, Betsy’s husband capitulated completely to Napoleon.

The
Erin
reached Dover on May 19. Betsy discovered when she disembarked that her plight had made her a celebrity in England, just as her marriage had made her a celebrity at home only a few years earlier. Crowds gathered at the dock to catch a glimpse of the young, pregnant woman whom Napoleon had driven from the shores of Europe. But here, as in Washington City, her critics were as numerous as her supporters. British popular opinion was divided: Was she a sympathetic victim of a cruel tyrant, or was she a collaborator with that tyrant who had been cast aside? The newspaper reports captured this ambiguity. In its account of Madame Bonaparte’s arrival, the London
Times
quipped,
“She appears far advanced in a situation to increase the number of Imperial relatives.” The sarcasm was aimed as much at Betsy as at Napoleon.

If the press was willing to criticize Betsy as readily as it was to romanticize her plight, the British government was far more careful to present itself as a reliable friend. Betsy was, after all, a valuable asset in the propaganda war to win support from the United States. Thus Prime Minister William Pitt sent a company of soldiers to escort and protect her from any unpleasant jostling by the gawking crowd. The minister hoped that English kindness and consideration would provide a stark contrast to the insulting behavior of Napoleon. Patriotic newspapers were quick to point out this contrast, declaring that Betsy, who had
suffered humiliation at the hands of “the Imperial Swindler” and his contemptible brother Jérôme, was now safely
“under the protection of a great and generous people.”

Betsy surely appreciated Pitt’s assistance. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and more than seven months pregnant. She was also far more politically savvy than she had been in the earlier days of her marriage. She knew that the British government’s readiness to use her situation for diplomatic ends would raise Napoleon’s ire. Any public attention, especially if it was friendly, had to be avoided. With crowds gathering daily for a glimpse of her in London, Betsy sought refuge in the quieter surroundings of Camberwell, England. There, on the morning of July 7, 1805, she gave birth to a son. She had the presence of mind to ensure that there were witnesses present and that the infant’s birth certificate was notarized. In naming her child, she linked together the two Frenchmen who held her fate in their hands. He was called Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte.

Betsy had found a safe haven in England, but her future remained clouded. She had received no word from Jérôme since they parted in Lisbon, for the letters he had written had missed her, both in Portugal and in the Netherlands. Even if he had known where she was, it would have been risky for him to try to communicate with her, or to try to send word to her through trusted friends. Napoleon was quick, in fact, to punish anyone who helped Betsy or the Pattersons. The emperor had jailed Paul Bentalou for his role as an interpreter when Robert Patterson spoke with Lucien Bonaparte. Jérôme feared that Napoleon’s spies were watching him and that any sign of a breach
in his capitulation to the emperor’s wishes would carry serious consequences. Sometime in mid-May Jérôme risked sending a letter to Betsy, but it did not reach her for several years. Then Jérôme attempted to send word to Betsy through the Dowager Marchioness of Donegal, but it took this go-between six weeks to discover where Madame Bonaparte was residing.

For her part, Betsy had no idea how to contact her husband. English newspapers reported that he had been reinstated in the French navy and was already at sea. A letter she wrote to Bentalou went unanswered. Another, to the daughter of the U.S. ambassador to France, Elisa Monroe—asking,
“Would it be asking too much to request you would sometimes write me to communicate what occurs”—received no reply. A note to Lucien Bonaparte, pleading that he convey a simple message to Jérôme—
“Please let me know your intentions concerning myself and your child”—was met with silence. She did receive a letter dated July 15 from Jérôme’s physician and her former shipmate, Dr. Garnier.
According to the doctor, Jérôme was deeply distressed about her suffering but was even more distressed that she had sought refuge in the land of France’s enemy. Her husband, Garnier continued, instructed her to return to America as soon as possible. But, as Betsy later wrote to her father, she did not trust anything the doctor said; his letter “bears all the marks of being a deception.”

Betsy had no reason to mistrust the Marchioness of Donegal when, at long last, the dowager located her. It was possible, Betsy thought, that the marchioness could serve as her much-needed line of communication with Jérôme. Writing to
the noblewoman on August 14, 1805, Betsy took pains to stress her willingness to comply with any instructions Jérôme might give.
“Will you then have the goodness to inform Mr B—thro’ the same channel, that I will act with implicit obedience to his wishes as to the place of my residence & with respect to every thing else he desires.” Aware that Dr. Garnier’s report that Jérôme was angered by her decision to take asylum in England might be true, Betsy added an explanation: “I sought refuse [
sic
] in England not from any particular predilection for it but on my being refused admittance at Amsterdam my situation (being at that time far advanced in pregnancy) obliged me to seek an asylum in any country where I could be received.” Since her arrival, she added, she had taken care to live “in the most secluded retirement 3 miles from Town. I avoid every thing that can excite observation or comment … & … I will never act otherwise than with the propriety that my own dignity & that of his wife require.” She closed the letter with the hope that the marchioness would convey to Jérôme her “firm conviction of his sincerity & honor.” She would learn soon enough that Jérôme’s “honor” had failed her. He had already renounced her, as part of his reconciliation with his older brother.

Despite Jérôme’s abandonment of his wife, his friends took pains to assure the Pattersons that he was suffering greatly from their separation. Alexandre Le Camus conceded to William that Jérôme must, for the time being, bow to his brother’s wishes. But, he added, there was still hope that Napoleon would relent if Jérôme proved himself in an upcoming naval mission.
“Your daughter,” he declared, “has only to yield to the present, and
expect a better time.” William must have been unconvinced, for he did not bother to convey Le Camus’s advice to his daughter.

About three weeks after Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte was born, his father risked a second letter to Betsy. It was filled with declarations of love, justifications for his actions, and calls for patience and understanding.
“You know with what regret I left you at Lisbon,” he wrote, “and God, who sees into my heart, knows that I live and breathe only for my wife.” He urged her not to believe any accounts of what had transpired in his talks with Napoleon. He alone could—and would—tell her the truth. Meanwhile she should not judge Napoleon harshly, and above all she should be patient. “My brother is as good and as generous as he is great, and if political reasons force him at present to this conduct, the day will come when that will change.” He closed with assurances of his own devotion: “Have confidence in your husband, be convinced that he breathes, dreams, works, only for you, yes, for you alone and our child.… I kiss you a thousand times, I love you more than ever.”

As he penned this letter to Betsy, it is likely that Jérôme believed every word was true. Acquaintances who saw him at the time were touched by his melancholy and noted that he spoke often of “my dear little wife.” But it is difficult to know if the air of dejection he wore stemmed from his failure to get his way with his brother or from a genuine and mature commitment to his wife and child. That he filled a letter with emphatic exclamations of devotion and pledges of undying love tells little; for a young man of Jérôme’s accommodating nature in dealing with women, this was the only possible way to speak to his
beautiful wife. The circumstances called for romantic declarations and firm reassurances, and Jérôme delivered both with the sincerity of a callow youth. The truth was, he had already recognized that he had more to lose if he disappointed his French emperor than his American wife.

This letter did not reach Betsy while she was in England. All through the fall and winter of 1805, she remained in the dark about both her husband’s intentions and his whereabouts. Jérôme had, in fact, written her several letters that fall, each filled with the same sentiments that he had expressed in the missing letter, but she received none of them. Believing now that she was abandoned, Betsy canceled plans to remain in England through the winter. She would return to Baltimore with her brother Robert and her infant son. Just as she was preparing to leave, several boxes arrived from France containing dresses, hats, jewels, a miniature of Jérôme—and gold pieces worth almost fifteen hundred dollars. These were the last extravagant signs of affection she would receive from her husband.

On November 14, 1805, after six weeks on stormy seas, Betsy Patterson Bonaparte arrived home. Her mother and her many siblings were eager to greet her and her young son. But the welcome she received from her father was far less warm. William could not measure the emotional cost of Betsy’s abandonment, but he knew to the last penny the financial cost of her romantic escapade. For William had saved every receipt for his expenditures, from the outfitting and provisioning of the
Erin,
to Robert’s Paris expenses, to the funds he had made available for her on the continent, and to those she had used in England. Time
as well as money had been wasted, for Robert and William had been absent from the family business for months. Even more infuriating, Betsy’s erstwhile husband had left Baltimore in debt to local shopkeepers, tailors, stable owners, and shoemakers and William felt honor-bound to pay these bills. In America as in France, Jérôme left it to others to pay for his extravagances.

William clearly felt all this could have been avoided if Betsy had obeyed him in the first place. He had opposed the marriage; he had tried his best to prevent it. In the end, he had surrendered to his daughter’s unshakable confidence in her own charm, and given way to her stubborn conviction that Napoleon would succumb to her beauty and wit as other men had so often done. He had, he believed, financed a fool’s errand and now bore the real burden, the dollars-and-cents burden, of her stubborn disregard for paternal authority. If he could not change the past, he was determined to recoup what he could from the present. When the boxes containing Jérôme’s last gesture of generosity arrived from London, William claimed half the gold that his former son-in-law provided. He was not content to stop there. As Betsy recorded, her father
“sold to his own profit horses, carriages, serving to furnish his house at Cold Stream with plate, china, glass, tables, carpets, chairs, beds, etc etc, all that had been left at Baltimore by his imperial son-in-law.”

Betsy was enthusiastically welcomed back into Baltimore society, but given William’s obvious anger, she remained uncomfortable in her father’s home. His certainty that Jérôme had played her for a fool weighed heavily on her already fragile morale. Through the early months of 1806, as Jérôme’s letters
of 1805 followed their circuitous path to Betsy’s doorstep, she struggled to maintain some hope that her husband would prove her father wrong. In April she received the notes of assurance that he had sent from Paris six months before. Then in May she received a letter written while he was on naval duty. In it, he expressed resentment that his sincerity had been doubted. If I intended to abandon you, he wrote with obvious indignation, I would already be sitting on a throne somewhere in Europe. Instead, I am aboard a ship, serving my emperor.

This letter made Betsy wonder if she had indeed misjudged Jérôme. Was he loyal to her after all? Perhaps as he had always insisted, Napoleon would relent if his young brother acquitted himself honorably in the naval battles being waged against Britain. Her optimism was intense, but it was short-lived. By June the tone in the letters coming from Jérôme had changed dramatically. Assurances had turned to accusations. He laid all blame for their situation at her feet.
“Your departure for England,” he declared, “was the only cause of our separation.” The signature on the last letter she received revealed his clear change of heart: the impersonal closing, “J. Bonaparte,” told Betsy that the marriage was indeed over.

Jérôme’s confidence that Napoleon would eventually forgive him proved correct. But Betsy would not reap the benefits of the emperor’s renewed affection. While she was wrestling with the meaning of her husband’s promises and then his rejection, a placated Napoleon was busily trying to arrange a suitable new marriage for his youngest brother. The emperor’s victories against a coalition of Britain, Austria, Russia, Sweden, and
several German states had expanded his empire across much of Prussia, Germany, Austria, and Italy, and he intended to place men he could trust in positions of power in the newly acquired areas. Marriage between his brothers—or sisters—and local leaders was thus a useful strategy. If Lucien had refused to cooperate, Jérôme’s resistance to Napoleon’s will now seemed broken. After two proposed matches failed in 1806, Napoleon finally hit upon a perfect arrangement: he would marry Jérôme to the daughter of the new king of Württemberg.