Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (9 page)

Was Betsy using the threat of a marriage to Oakley as a wedge in her negotiations with Napoleon? The thought might have occurred to Turreau, for a woman who diplomatically signed her letter to the emperor “Eliza nee Patterson” was clearly not naïve. But Betsy knew that the rumor of a possible marriage to Oakley was a double-edged sword: it might prompt Napoleon to act more quickly and to be more generous, but it might just as well provoke him to cut off all negotiations, abandon her son, and deny her the funds she needed to escape Baltimore. In the end, she decided to place her faith in the emperor rather than raise the stakes of the game with him. She made clear to a number of her correspondents in Washington and Paris that she had no intention of marrying Oakley—or any Englishman.

Hearing this news, Turreau breathed a sigh of relief. Although he had not yet learned the final terms of the arrangement made by Napoleon, he agreed to Betsy’s request that he advance her the first installment of her expected pension. He provided a credit of $20,000 for her and later arranged for her to receive 60,000 francs a year in monthly installments of $500. He then assigned Louis Tousard to double duty as Betsy’s assistant and
as his spy on her behavior. Because of the highly charged political atmosphere in 1810, Tousard was also expected to protect Bo from a possible kidnapping attempt by the British or by British sympathizers.

Betsy had played her cards well. But she had also established a pattern that she would not and perhaps could not break: men might court her, but she would not allow herself to be won. She intended, as she would later tell Turreau’s successor, “
to be governed by my own rules” rather than the rules of any man. Her friend Eliza Anderson observed with dismay the implications of Betsy’s vow of independence: “
I wonder how many more poor Knights are doomed to beat their hapless wings in thy fine spun web … after having led the poor Devils a dance of delirium, they cool off to friendship & commiserate you as a victim of fate.” Over the next few years, many men would do the “dance of delirium,” from the stolid John Willink of Holland to the grandson of Light Horse Harry Lee. But none would ever persuade Betsy Patterson Bonaparte to turn her fate over to a man again.

Napoleon had actually made no final decision about a settlement with Betsy—and in fact he never would. Yet each month she received 5,000 francs from Turreau. A younger Betsy might have spent this pension on clothes, on the hats she adored, and on many indulgences of the kind she had clearly enjoyed in the days when Jérôme had satisfied every whim that money—or credit—could buy.

But the twenty-four-year-old Betsy was no longer the self-indulgent girl she had once been. Although temptations abounded, she did not buy the “French gloves Fashions &&” that filled Baltimore shops despite the war in Europe. She was willing, however, to make such indulgences easier for friends like Dolley Madison, now the president’s wife.
Writing to Dolley in November 1813, Betsy offered to shop for her and deliver the requested items on the next trip to Washington. But for herself, she would be satisfied to update old clothing as best she could.

Betsy’s parsimony had purpose. Just as her father had done in his earliest years in America, she was scrimping and saving in order to invest. And she proved to have that same keen business sense that had made William a wealthy man. She invested part of each month’s pension payment in stocks, accepting small yields in exchange for the security of shares in banks, turnpikes,
and established companies. When she accumulated the necessary cash, she began the investment in real estate that would add to her wealth in the future, buying a small house and a lot in downtown Baltimore.

Where once her life had been flamboyant, Betsy now took care to avoid the gossip that came to those in the limelight. After the Oakley rumors, she was determined not to stir any new rumors about her love life. Writing to a friend in 1812, she was careful to declare, “
No novelties here, political or amatory.” This did not mean, of course, that men had ceased to flock around her. Poetry—most of it bad—poured in from lovesick suitors, and she seemed to have won the hearts of both Henry Lee Jr., the grandson of Light Horse Harry, and John Willink, scion of a prominent Dutch banking family. But Betsy, when she was in Washington, D.C., chose to attend social events on the arm of the seventy-six-year-old vice president, Elbridge Gerry, whose invalid wife, Ann, remained at home in Massachusetts. Gerry sang Betsy’s praises to his wife. “
The more I see of this lady,” he wrote, “the more I like her, and so would all our family. She is amiable, unaffected, unassuming, sensible, and altogether free from a disposition to censure.”

Despite her best efforts, however, Betsy’s personal history continued to entangle her in politics at home and diplomacy abroad. For it was well known that she was receiving a pension from France, and there were continuing rumors that Napoleon planned to make her a duchess. This might have been acceptable in more stable political moments, but with France and Britain each trying to strangle the trade of the other, American neutrality in the European conflict seemed more fragile than
ever. Britain’s continued practice of boarding American ships and impressing American seamen into service in the Royal Navy was a blow to national pride, while Napoleon’s Berlin and Milan decrees of 1806 and 1807 increased the threat to American trade with Britain. When Napoleon put his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne in 1808, making the Spanish colonies in the Americas loyal to the emperor, members of both parties began to suspect that Napoleonic ambitions might be a threat to national security. As America reeled back and forth between pro- and anti-French and -British sentiments, a general animosity toward both sides in this European struggle seemed to emerge. With it came a sharp suspicion of anyone who appeared too eager to accept favors from Britain or France. No one fit the description better than Betsy Bonaparte—and she knew it.

It was only a matter of time before a politician took advantage of this new public sentiment. In 1810, during the second session of the Eleventh Congress, Senator Philip Reed of Betsy’s home state of Maryland proposed an amendment to Article 1, Section 9, of the Constitution. The original article forbade U.S. officeholders from receiving “any present, Emolument, Office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state” without the consent of Congress. Reed’s proposed amendment would extend this prohibition to “any citizen of the United States” and would add, as a penalty, the loss of American citizenship.

With surprising speed and consensus, Congress approved Reed’s amendment, the Senate voting 19–5 in favor and the House, 87–3. Federalists, who were always ready to criticize France and American Francophiles, had thrown their support
behind Reed, despite the fact that he was a Republican. Massachusetts senator Timothy Pickering, an ardent Federalist, insisted that the amendment was necessary to prevent a diabolical plan by Napoleon to establish on American soil “
a Court, which in splendor, [would] outshine, & in expences [
sic
] & attentions, surpass, the palace of the first magistrate of our nation.” Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte and her son, declared Pickering, were the core around which this decadence that would erode the republic would be formed. For his part, Pickering thought it would be wise to ban anyone with royal blood from living in the United States.

By the end of 1811, ten states had ratified the “titles of nobility” amendment, and two more ratified in 1812. Had it won the three remaining states, Betsy would have faced a difficult if not impossible decision: Should she renounce her French pension and abandon all hopes of obtaining French aid for her son, or should she continue to receive payments from a foreign state and risk losing her citizenship? Friends and lawyers suggested that she try to renegotiate the terms of her pension, either by asking for a lump-sum payment that would cover Bo’s educational expenses or by channeling all the pension payments into a trust for Bo. But Betsy saw the danger in asking for any change in the mode of payment. The amendment might hurt her, she conceded, but entering into new negotiations with the French might have equally dire consequences. Instead, she hastened to assure the French legation that she had not and would not seek any change in the arrangements they had made. Fortunately, the titles of nobility amendment fell short of adoption, and when the War of 1812 established Britain as the nation’s enemy,
public concern about Betsy Patterson Bonaparte’s French connections faded.

If the danger from the government at home was over for Betsy, she still faced problems from abroad.
For in the very year that the United States went to war with Britain, Jérôme Bonaparte decided to write once again to the woman whom he persisted in calling his American wife. It had been three years since Betsy had heard from the man who was now king of Westphalia, but the letter had a familiar ring to it. Jérôme insisted that he remained her true and loving friend and that he had her best interests at heart. He urged her to be patient, and he would provide for her. Two months after she received this letter, Betsy’s brother Joseph encountered Jérôme in Paris.
After being reassured that Betsy had not married an Englishman, Jérôme pledged to take immediate steps to see Napoleon bring Betsy and Bo safely to France. The next morning, however, Joseph learned that Jérôme had left town. He did not contact Joseph again. If her brother was surprised by this turn of events, Betsy surely was not. The “bill of a goose” might clack and quack, but it would never provide her shelter.

Betsy found it easy to ignore Jérôme’s empty promises. But she could not ignore the precarious legal position she remained in as long as, under Maryland law, he was still her husband. For according to marital law here and in all American states, a husband was entitled to control the finances of his wife. A single woman, however, could control her own wealth, make her own investments, and devise her own will. This was reason enough for Betsy to file for divorce. In 1812 she did just that, and the
Maryland legislature granted her request. On December 15, 1812, “
an act annulling the marriage of Jérôme Bonaparte, and Elizabeth Bonaparte of the city of Baltimore” declared the marriage null and void. Nothing in the act, however, was to be construed to make Bo’s birth illegitimate. The assembly’s ruling, combined with the French legislation demanded by Napoleon in 1805, made Betsy legally free of Jérôme on both the European and the American continents. Her growing fortune was entirely her own.

Less than four months after Betsy’s divorce decree, Napoleon’s world collapsed. On April 6, 1813, the emperor of France was forced to abdicate his throne and was sent into exile on the island of Elba. Some in America rejoiced at this news, even if it meant Britain’s military and naval attention could now be turned to its American war. Perhaps Betsy should have been one of them. But she did not celebrate the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte. All her life she remained an admirer of the man who annulled her marriage, refused to allow her to set foot on the European continent, and “
hurled me back on what I hated most on earth, my Baltimore obscurity.” She spoke frankly of her admiration for the fallen emperor. She respected his ambition, his self-confidence, the power of his personality, and, above all, the fact that he had for so long been master of his own destiny. It was ironic that the only man in Betsy’s life who shared these character traits was William Patterson, the domineering, proud, self-made man with whom she could never make her peace.

Napoleon’s fall shook Europe, and it shook Betsy’s world as well. She realized with finality that she would not be made a
duchess; she would not be given a palace of her own. Bo would not, as rumor had so often insisted, be made a grand duke. And the pension she had received for almost six years would soon dry up. Fortunately for Betsy, the wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly in the nineteenth century, and she continued to receive her monthly payment for six more months while the French government adjusted to life without Napoleon Bonaparte.

In one important way, Napoleon’s downfall was cause for celebration for Betsy: the ban on her travel to Europe was lifted. As she told Dolley Madison on December 29, 1814, “
The obstacles which the Emperor Napoleon opposed to my continual desire of residing in Paris, have ceased with his Power.” She was now, she continued with obvious relief, convinced of her “unimportance with the actual French Government,” so much so that she believed it was unnecessary to even consult with them about her coming to their country. Her more “timid friends,” however, were less convinced that she could enter France without incident, and so she had asked Victor Louis Charles, the Duc de Caraman, to make inquiries for her. The result was reassuring. “I have ascertained beyond all doubt,” Betsy wrote, “what I before supposed, that I shall enjoy in Europe exactly the same privileges with any other American Lady who finds it agreeable to travel there.” To further ensure that she would be seen as just another American tourist, she would enter France not as Elizabeth Bonaparte but as Elizabeth Patterson. “On leaving this Country, I shall resume the name of my own Family & abandon one which produced me so much unhappiness.” Her only problem was finding respectable traveling companions, for as a single woman, it was unseemly for her to make the transatlantic
voyage alone. She asked Dolley to use her influence to persuade an American couple headed to Holland to allow her to accompany them.

Despite all her efforts, these plans fell through. The war with Britain was at her doorstep, and the Patterson family was in disarray. The British had set up a blockade of American ports, making any voyage dangerous. And after taking Washington in August 1814, a British army headed toward Baltimore that September. With Fort McHenry under attack, no passenger ship was likely to sail.

Even had the war not come to Betsy’s hometown, family pressures would have delayed her departure. In January 1814, Betsy’s younger sister, Caroline, wrote to her in Washington that their mother “
was very sick but better now.” Sometime over the next few months, however, Dorcas Spear Patterson’s condition worsened. On May 21, 1814, at the age of fifty-two, she died. Mother and daughter had always been close, and Betsy felt the loss deeply. Whether William Patterson mourned the loss of his wife is unknown; as Betsy would frequently bitterly note, he had enjoyed a fairly steady stream of mistresses while her mother was alive, fathering a daughter with one of these women. Even as his wife lay ill and dying, William had been callous enough to bring one of these women to live in the family home.