software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: [email protected]

[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] [Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or software or any other related product without express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END*

This etext was produced by David Widger

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PRIVATE LIFE OF NAPOLEON, V3

By CONSTANT

PREMIER VALET DE CHAMBRE

TRANSLATED BY WALTER CLARK

1895

CHAPTER XIII.

The First Consul left Boulogne to return to Paris, in order to be present at the marriage of one of his sisters. Prince Camille Borghese, descendant of the noblest family of Rome, had already arrived at Paris to—marry Madame Pauline Bonaparte, widow of General Leclerc, who had died of yellow fever in San Domingo. I recollect having seen this unfortunate general at the residence of the First Consul some time before his departure on the ill-starred expedition which cost him his life, and France the loss of many brave soldiers and much treasure. General Leclerc, whose name is now almost forgotten, or held in light esteem, was a kind and good man. He was passionately in love with his wife, whose giddiness, to put it mildly, afflicted him sorely, and threw him into a deep and habitual melancholy painful to witness. Princess Pauline (who was then far from being a princess) had married him willingly, and of her own choice; but this did not prevent her tormenting her husband by her innumerable caprices, and repeating to him a hundred times a day that he was indeed a fortunate man to marry the sister of the First Consul. I am sure that with his simple tastes and quiet disposition General Leclerc would have preferred less distinction and more peace. The First Consul required his sister to accompany her husband to San Domingo. She was forced to obey, and to leave Paris, where she swayed the scepter of fashion, and eclipsed all other women by her elegance and coquetry, as well as by her incomparable beauty, to brave a dangerous climate, and the ferocious companions of Christophe and Dessalines. At the end of the year 1801 the admiral's ship, The Ocean, sailed from Brest, carrying to the Cape (San Domingo) General Leclerc, his wife, and their son. After her arrival at the Cape, the conduct of Madame Leclerc was beyond praise. On more than one occasion, but especially that which I shall now attempt to describe, she displayed a courage worthy of her name and the position of her husband. I obtained these details from an eye-witness whom I had known at Paris in the service of Princess Pauline.

The day of the great insurrection of the blacks in September, 1802, the bands of Christophe and Dessalines, composed of more than twelve thousand negroes, exasperated by their hatred against the whites, and the certainty that if they yielded no quarter would be given, made an assault on the town of the Cape, which was defended by only one thousand soldiers; for only this small number remained of the large army which had sailed from Brest a year before, in brilliant spirits and full of hope. This handful of brave men, the most of them weakened by fever, led by the general-in-chief of the expedition, who was even then suffering from the malady which caused his death, repulsed by unheard of efforts and heroic valor the repeated attacks of the blacks.

During this combat, in which the determination, if not the number and strength, was equal on both sides, Madame Leclerc, with her son, was under the guard of a devoted friend who had subject to his orders only a weak company of artillery, which still occupied the house where her husband had fixed his residence, at the foot of the low hills which bordered the coast. The general-in-chief, fearing lest this residence might be surprised by a party of the enemy, and being unable to foresee the issue of the struggle which he was maintaining on the heights of the Cape, and against which the blacks made their most furious assaults, sent an order to convey his wife and son on board the fleet. Pauline would not consent to this. Always faithful to the pride with which her name inspired her (but this time there was in her pride as much greatness as nobility), she spoke to the ladies of the city who had taken refuge with her, and begged them to go away, giving them a frightful picture of the horrible treatment to which they would be exposed should the negroes defeat the troops. "You can leave. You are not the sisters of Bonaparte."

However, as the danger became more pressing every moment, General Leclerc sent an aide-de-camp to his residence, and enjoined on him, in case Pauline still persisted in her refusal, to use force, and convey her on board against her will. The officer was obliged to execute this order to the letter. Consequently Madame Leclerc was forcibly placed in an arm- chair which was borne by four soldiers, while a grenadier marched by her side, carrying in his arms the general's son. During this scene of flight and terror the child, already worthy of its mother, played with the plume of the soldier who was carrying him. Followed by her cortege of trembling, tearful women, whose only source of strength during this perilous passage was in her courage, she was thus conveyed to the seashore. Just as they were going to place her in the sloop, however, another aide-de-camp of her husband brought news of the defeat of the blacks. "You see now," said she, returning to her residence, "I was right in not wishing to embark." She was not yet out of danger, however; for a troop of negroes, forming part of the army which had just been so miraculously repulsed, in trying to make good their retreat to the dikes, met the small escort of Madame Leclerc. As they appeared disposed to attack, it was necessary to scatter them by shots at short range. Throughout this skirmish Pauline preserved a perfect equanimity. All these circumstances, which reflected so much honor on Madame Leclerc, were reported to the First Consul.

His self-love was flattered by it; and I believe that it was to Prince Borghese that he said one day at his levee, "Pauline is predestined to marry a Roman, for from head to foot she is every inch a Roman."

Unfortunately this courage, which a man might have envied, was not united in the Princess Pauline with those virtues which are less brilliant and more modest, and also more suitable for a woman, and which we naturally expect to find in her, rather than boldness and contempt of danger.

I do not know if it is true, as has been written somewhere, that Madame Leclerc, when she was obliged to set out for San Domingo, had a fancy for an actor of the Theatre Francais. Nor am I able to say whether it is true that Mademoiselle Duchesnois had the naivete to exclaim before a hundred people in reference to this departure, "Lafon will never be consoled; it will kill him!" but what I myself know of the frailty of this princess leads me to believe that the anecdote is true.

All Paris knew the special favor with which she honored M. Jules de Canouville, a young and brilliant colonel who was handsome and brave, with a perfect figure, and an assurance which was the cause of his innumerable successes with certain women, although he used little discretion in respect to them. The liaison of Princess Pauline with this amiable officer was the most lasting that she ever formed; and as, unfortunately, neither of them was discreet, their mutual tenderness acquired in a short while a scandalous publicity. I shall take occasion later to relate in its