#munich 1805

[josefavomjaaga]

Le lion est malade…

In late November 1805, a short time before the battle of Austerlitz and after the Grande Armée had already marched into Moravia, Soult for some time suffered from ophtalmia that would still bother him on the day of the battle (he was wearing some sort of visor made from green taffetas in front of his eyes). But for his aides, their master’s ailment during their stay in the comfortable chateau at Austerlitz was not without advantages. As Petiet tells it:

Ever since Marshal Soult's ride across the plains of Pohrlitz and Unterwisterlitz, he had been complaining of ophthalmia, which progressively worsened and became so bad at Austerlitz that he had leeches applied to his temples and no longer left his room. The aide-de-camp on duty was to read to him all the dispatches and Lameth said to us with a laugh: "The lion is ill; that will give us some rest."

Just don't overdo the compassion, Lameth!

[josefavomjaaga]

The “Schwabinger Tor” (gate to Schwabing), to be demolished only a couple of years later, in order to allow for the building of Ludwigstraße. The towers on the very right belong to Theatinerkirche, where several Bavarian kings are buried, Maximilian I, our Max Joseph of this tale, among them.

Through this gate, people expected to see Napoleon arrive in Munich on December 30, 1805. The electoral (soon-to-be royal) family of Bavaria and the whole town had been waiting since early afternoon. Unfortunately, Napoleon only made it into town an hour after midnight, und by then, the welcome comitee had been reduced to a single unit of cavalry. The rest of town had gone to bed.

But who cares. The next morning, December 31, Napoleon had an important duty: inspect the merchandise the bride. According to what Napoleon would relate on Saint Helena, Max Joseph brought his daughter to him deeply veiled and then unveiled her like a statue. Because of this procedure, Napoleon felt somewhat flustered, which people then took for him being quite impressed with the young lady.

Or so he later said. However, in his correspondence at the time, he indeed referred to her looks with an unusual frequency:

Munich, December 31, 1805 To Prince Joseph My Brother, I have demanded Princess Auguste, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, who is a very pretty person, to be married to Prince Eugene.

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Munich, 31 December 1805 To Marshal Berthier [...] The marriage between Prince Eugene and Princess Auguste of Bavaria is arranged. The princess seemed to me very nice. This will be, I hope, a pretty couple.

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Munich, January 7, 1806 To M. Cambaceres [...] nothing is more agreeable to me than the union of a princess as perfect as the Princess Augusta with a child for whom everyone knows my tender feelings.

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Munich, January 7, 1806 Message to the senate [...] I could not resist the pleasure of personally uniting the young couple, who are both the model of their sex.

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Munich, January 7, 1806 To Marshal Berthier […] The princess is really very beautiful, and, better than that, extremely kind.

No. He was probably not impressed at all.

According to one writer, this actually may have given some people ideas. Hortense comments in her memoirs on the feelings of Caroline and Joachim Murat:

He had, because of this marriage, some family scenes to deal with. Murat and his wife did not want to attend. The one could not suffer a young man to precede him after the brilliant campaign which he had just made and he broke his sword on learning of the adoption of my brother; the viceroyalty of Italy had already given him a lot of temper. The other was revolted by the idea of an alliance which was advantageous to a family which she did not consider her own. On her return she spoke openly to me about it and confessed that in Munich she had advised her brother to divorce his wife and to marry the Princess Auguste himself, because this was, she said, the right woman for him.

It would have been an interesting twist in Napoleon’s story. Particularly, as Auguste’s first children were all daughters…

However, once Napoleon had talked with Auguste, had scolded her for wanting to marry her cousin Karl von Baden for love, which princesses are not born for, and had – I hope! - tried to reassure that 17-year-old a little about her unknown future husband, he had to talk to yet another lady: Auguste’s old governess, Madame de Wurmb, who in Auguste’s life almost held the place of a mother (Auguste’s real mother having died when the girl had not yet been 12 years old). This lady lived for nothing but etiquette and for this reason alone had been extremely opposed to any marriage with that so-called prince Beauharnais or whatever this revolutionary impostor called himself. In order to win her over, Napoleon resorted to the simplest of means: bribery. He offered the elderly lady a whole set of precious jewelery, and guess what? It worked. At least enough for Madame de Wurmb to give up her open opposition.

Which, according to a story Napoleon himself told to crown prince Ludwig during Ludwig’s stay in Paris a couple of months later, allowed Napoleon to ask a rather important question: As Princesse Auguste and Prince Karl von Baden had been engaged for quite some time, as both families were quite close, and as the couple apparently had been so much in love with each other, well, uh… oh, dammit, had the princess already slept with the prince? At which point Madame de Wurmb almost dropped to the floor unconscious, and Napoleon exclaimed: »Thank you, thank you, that’s all I wanted to know!« and shoved her out of the audience chamber.

Again, that’s the story that Napoleon told Ludwig. Who, after his stay in Paris, visited his sister and brother-in-law in Milan and there also met Madame de Wurmb. Who indignantly called this story a lie. »He lied, he never said that to me, he never would have dared to tell me that; the only thing he told me was that he considered it impossible that such a young person should already have such deep-rooted feelings for anyone.«

To make matters even more complicated, Ludwig had extremely bad hearing and may simply have misunderstood what Napoleon was telling him. But the story itself is just too nice to not be retold.

And as I quoted from a letter to Joseph Bonaparte above, this letter is also worthy to be cited in full:

Munich, 31 December 1805

To Prince Joseph

My brother, I have demanded the princess Auguste, daughter of the elector of Bavaria, who is a very pretty person, in marriage for prince Eugène. The marriage has been settled. I have demanded another princess for Jérôme. As you saw him last, let me know if I can count on this young man to do what I want. I have also arranged for your eldest daughter to marry a little prince who will one day become a great prince. As this latter marriage would only take place in a few months, I will have time to talk to you about it. I ask you to inform my mother on my behalf of the marriage of Prince Eugene to Princess Auguste. I do not wish anything to be said publicly about it.

I have demanded another princess for Jérôme: Shopping tour à la Bonaparte: »Do you happen to have another one in this size? Can be a different colour, no problem.«

Count on this young man to do what I want: Jérôme had just reluctantly given up his American wife Betsy Patterson. It would in fact take some more months until Napoleon could marry off the Bonaparte Benjamin.

Oh, and Joseph … you tell Mum!

Time to quote the last letter because, well, it’s about time to carefully and delicately inform the happy bridegroom, isn’t it:

Munich, 31 December 1805

To Prince Eugene

My Cousin, I have reached Munich. I have arranged your marriage to the Princess Auguste. It has been announced. This morning this princess paid me a visit, and I talked to her for a long time. She is very pretty. You will find her portrait enclosed on a mug, but she is much better.

I shall receive the deputation tomorrow, which is still in Munich.

So, Eugène would indeed see his future wife for the first time ... on a coffee mug. Well, if the marriage fell through you could at least always have some coffee, I guess.

[josefavomjaaga]

Caroline Murat and her daughter Letizia, who accompanied her mother on the trip to Munich in 1805.

***

@joachimnapoleon, because she's cool like that, has dug up the letters that Caroline Murat sent to her (at the time) BFF Hortense de Beauharnais in Paris. As the letters were published in a French paper, and as I'm very unsure about French copyright, I do not want to translate them in full. But I hope it will be okay to quote one passage from it, as I think this might illustrate quite nicely all the misunderstandings and misconceptions existing between the »startup« Imperial court of the Bonaparte family and the small German "ancient" courts.

Caroline describes a visit to Electress Karoline, in presence of Caroline’s two ladies-in-waiting Madame La Grange and Madame Lambert. She had arrived in Munich on December 20th after a rather desastrous 3-days-journey that included a road accident. She wished to be lodged not in the electoral residence but in her own palace, and as she had not brought many servants (apparently, she and Murat had some financial problems at the time), she was waited upon by servants of the electoral family.

I have already written a little about Electress Karoline's first impressions of Empress Josephine here. So, now for Caroline’s impressions of the electress:

Munich, December 24, 1805 [if this isn’t a mistake in the publication, then apparently she already uses the old calendar that Napoleon will only officially reintroduce on January 1st]

[…] The Court is extremely boring. The Elector is a very good man, in the style of the Elector Archchancellor [Dalberg, who had been in Paris for the Sacre], except that he is not so witty.

I received yesterday from noon till six o'clock the foreign ministers, their wives, Prince Hohenzollern, one hundred and fifty ladies of the town, the whole household of the Elector and all the gentlemen of the town, and at the end the Electress, who saw Letitia, whom she found charming. I have done so many reverences that I am in bed with a dreadful ache.

The day before yesterday I went to the theatre, where it was colder than at the coronation; I was afraid it would hurt me.

When we go to the Elector's, a table is brought in, and Princess Augusta sits down and makes tea for everyone. Don't fancy the Court too high; they are all like good bourgeois. Nothing is funnier than to see the Elector making conversation with the Empress's maitre d`hotel. […]

Madame Beauharnois makes little of an effect. Madame Lambert makes no effect at all; as she only knows how to be silly and as I do not allow her to be silly, she is nothing. Madame La Grange makes an extraordinary effect; the elector always talks about her, because he knew her father and her whole family very well. Monsieur Daligre, though a fool, also makes an impression, because of his name and his fortune; the elector has often dined at his father's house and knows all his family well. If you come to this country, bring people who have a name, because they do not see the others, I will give you an example.

Yesterday, everyone was wondering what Mrs Lambert was, who her father was, who her husband was... So the electress approached her and said that she was very happy to return to her what her parents had done for the elector in Paris and that her name was not unknown to her, because she had heard a lot about the La Grange family; I then saw Mme Lambert blush, very embarrassed; I stepped forward and told her that she had been mistaken and that this woman was called Lambert. Then she wanted to know what she was; the questions embarrassed me, and I answered that she was the wife of one of our principal inspectors of reviews and that she had a very considerable fortune. Then her glances fell more slowly on her, and she told her that she was well pleased to make her acquaintance. While chatting with another lady, I observed Mme Lambert, who was in conversation with the electress, and I was annoyed to see that she always had an air of embarrassment and of a little girl. I am telling you all this nonsense to make you aware of what is liked here.

Except that I don’t think she really understood »what was liked« at the Bavarian court at all. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I think her own expectations really got in the way. What she writes seems to me like an amazing mixture of condescension - "Don't imagine too much, they live like good citizens here, the princess personally makes tea for everyone!", disappointment at not making enough of an impression (why would she even try to achieve that?), and the tacit assumption of not being taken seriously by her hosts. She immediately assumes that the electoral family occupies themselves with some of her companions more than with others because those have »a name«. Whereas Max Joseph - remember, this is the guy who walked around his capital on foot and who, in his palace, strangers liked to mistake for one of his servants - just immediately pounced on anyone whose name reminded him of his youth in Paris.

As for the scene with Madame Lambert, it's actually the Bavarian Karoline who makes a mistake and confuses the two ladies-in-waiting. Which Caroline Murat seems to think is some kind of ruse so she has an excuse to inquire about Madame Lambert's family background? I think Karoline really did address the wrong lady by mistake; she is twenty years younger than her husband, to my knowledge has never been to Paris, and probably only knows the names from Max Josef's nostalgic descriptions. She is presumably at least as embarrassed as poor Madame Lambert. Especially as she apparently continues to talk to the lady she has mistakenly addressed for quite a while, observed by Caroline Murat, despite the fact that Caroline knew nothing more to tell about her lady-in-waiting than that her husband has a pile of money.

So, plenty of misunderstandings. Caroline Murat has come to Munich to see a »real« court - and what she gets is tea served by the elector’s daughter. At the same time, she expected to meet with rejection and secret contempt, and now saw these in incidents that in themselves may have been quite harmless.

The author of the article, Paul Le Brethon, juxtaposes these letters from 1805 with a few lines from another letter written from Munich by Caroline, on her way to pick up Napoleon's new Empress Marie Louise, in March 1810 to her husband Joachim Murat:

My friend, I always feel very comfortable with the King and Queen of Bavaria; they enjoy a calm and perfect happiness in their home; their young family is very interesting [they had five daughters at the time, among them twice twins]; these children remind me of my own, and my eyes are filled with tears every time they look at them.

I think by then, Caroline had understood the difference.

[josefavomjaaga]

The emperor, with his excellent heart, has a wicked head.

Josephine about Napoleon, as recorded by the queen of Bavaria

Some context: This is from a letter Queen Karoline of Bavaria wrote to her mother Margravine Amalie of Baden on January 14, 1806 (wedding day of Eugène and Auguste), quoted in Adalbert von Bayern, "Max I. Joseph von Bayern", page 506 f. Karoline had opposed the marriage to the Beauharnais because Auguste was to marry Karoline's brother Karl. Karoline did not like Napoleon, but she apparently liked Josephine, who had been in Munich since early December, even less.

The Empress watches over all my steps. She is jealous of me and Auguste. Of me - that will amaze you. They say it's because of her character: she's often jealous of men, too, when the Emperor talks to them for a longer time. I do not love this woman. She showed so much falsehood in the affair with Auguste. When she found me in tears the day after the announcement to Auguste, so that I could hardly speak, she assured me that she had known nothing about the whole project, that she had only read about it in the newspaper. Then she added: "Look, if you resist, your brother still won't get Auguste. The Emperor, with his excellent heart, has une mauvaise tête. Out of anger he will make the Hochbergs [rivals of the ruling dynasty in Baden] princes."

Karoline does poor Josephine a bit of an injustice here: Josephine may be lying when she claims not to have known anything, but Napoleon really did keep her in the dark about most things. When Duroc was sent to Munich with the marriage proposal, he had explicit instructions not to speak to the empress until everything was settled. Otherwise, affairs of state were not for women.