Hortense de Beauharnais was the step daughter of
Napoleon I, and an interesting figure in French society history. Her father was Alexandre De Beauharnais, a French
aristocrat who like many people supported the ideal of the Franc
Revolution. Her mother was Josephine
Tascher de la Pagerie, a Creole aristocrat from Martinique. Josephine came from
her island home, to France as a teenager, to marry Alexandre. She was not educated or sophisticated at the
time and he found his new bride gauche and uninteresting... and soon neglected
her for mistresses. The marriage proved
unhappy. They had one son Eugene, and
then in 1783, Hortense was born.
Josephine
then called by one of her other names, (Rose) did learn about society and
became more stylish and sophisticated. She was not a beauty, but she was an
elegant dresser and a pleasant and charming woman. She and Alexandre were soon living apart. He accused her, probably unfairly, of infidelity
and was generally unkind to her. He
never gave her credit for transforming herself from provincial schoolgirl to an
elegant Parisienne...
When they separated, he had custody of their son
Eugene and Josephine had the care of Hortense. During the Revolution, both of them adopted Revolutionary
principles but Alexandre was executed, during the Terror.
Rose was imprisoned but the Terror ended before she might have faced the guillotine...
afterwards, she became a well-known figure in the society
of the Directorate. She didn’t have much money and had her 2 children to
support, so she acted as hostess and mistress to Paul Barras one of the prominent
figures in the Directorate.
Hortense went to school at Mme Campan’s a famous
school for girls of the “new” upper class… and received a good education. She was clever and pretty... and enjoyed
writing music. Another pupil at the school was Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s
youngest sister. Hortense was not happy
when her mother met the young General Bonaparte, and became his mistress and
then agreed to marry him, but she grew to love ad admire her stepfather.
On leaving school, Napoleon wanted her to marry his
younger brother Louis... who was a hypochondriac and a neurotic depressive
difficult young man. Hortense was in love
with Duroc, one of her stepfather’s aides. However she was persuaded by her mother to
choose Louis. Josephine was worrying because
she had not been able to give her second husband a son, and feared that he
might abandon her, for a wife who could do so.
Selfishly, she put some pressure on her daughter and Hortense, loving her
mother, agreed. The marriage was far from happy….
Louis was arrogant and difficult. He was jealous of his wife. And he was also
at odds with his brother. He didn’t like the fact that he owed his career
advancement to his ambitious and clever brother. And when he was appointed King
of Holland, he wanted to be independent of Napoleon’s influence…His sons by
Hortense were heirs presumptive to Napoleon’s honours and titles, since the emperor had no
children and Joseph, his elder brother had only daughters.
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