I keep purchasing books and don’t know when I’ll have time to properly read them. »L’impératrice Joséphine« by Bernard Chevallier and Christophe Pincemaille is one of them. But I’ve at least browsed it a little and came across a chapter detailling a moment in spring 1807 when Josephine, once more, tries to hide her horrendous debts to Napoleon, fearing it might cause hubby dearest to have yet another tantrum. Apparently, while there were rather frequent disputes between the imperial couple about the sums Josephine spent, Napoleon seems to have known only parts of the debts his empress really amassed.
According to this book, she in spring 1807 hoped to appease her creditors for the time being if she immediately repaid 600,000 francs. Nota bene, her debts were much higher, but she hoped to reduce them to this sum by immediate payment. Of course, she didn’t have the money, and she didn’t dare go to Napoleon. So she turned to treasurer Mollien. He in turn contacted Mareschalchi, the foreign minister of the Kingdom of Italy, who resided in Paris. And he in turn turned to - well, who do you think? - to the Viceroy of Italy, Eugène.
Of course, Josephine could have done that herself. But that would have been very tactless. And embarrassing. Above all embarrassing.
Eugène dutifully wrote back to Mareschalchi:
The Empress is in a difficult situation. She must be pulled out of it, she must be brought out of it by people who are close to her, but she must be brought out of it in a manner befitting her and befitting the emperor, that is to say, without fuss and without obfuscation.
Translation: Okay, I know it’s my mother and that I will have to pay for it but please make sure it’s done properly and once and for all, okay?
He then proposed that the 600,000 francs be borrowed from various banks, and that he and the Empress would pay off the sum in annual instalments of 50,000 francs each. Unfortunately, this debt rescheduling was out of reach because Josephine had already resorted to the same method several times and no bank in Paris was willing to advance her such a sum. So it probably boiled down to Eugène’s second proposal, which was to use his salary as Prince of France (which I think was 300,000 francs a year), accumulated over the last 15 months and not yet passed on to him, to pay off some of the debt, while Mollien and Mareschalchi borrowed 200,000 francs for Josephine, which Eugène then paid back to them in instalments of 25,000 francs each.
The authors suggest that most of the documents relating to Josephine’s finances were deliberately destroyed by Hortense and Eugène after Josephine’s death in order to hide the total of their mothers’ spending.
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