In EE&L #5, I mentioned that Napoleon never became the Emperor of the French women. That deserves some explanations. "It's Robespierre on horseback!" These are the words of the virulent and tenacious Madame de Stael (top left) when she saw the famous painting of Napoleon on horseback. Josephine (top tight) felt otherwise. After Thermidor we have seen that Paris was filled up with fashionable salons headed by eminent citizen like Mesdames [1] Tallien, Recamier, de Stael and the like, without forgetting Barras, [2] in which liberals, royalists, writers, artists and people of renown mixed indiscriminately. In early 1795, arriving in Paris, the young but shabby looking General Bonaparte noticed that women were everywhere. After putting down the Royalist uprising of the 13 Vendemiaire, Year III (October 5, 1795), Bonaparte became famous. Barras nominated him on October 26 as commander of the Army of the Interior and introduced him to the Parisian life. To start, Madame Tallien, somewhat touched by his worn out togs, had a brand new uniform made for Bonaparte. Then Josephine, vicomtesse de Beauharnais, gave him a "coat of Parisian varnish" by introducing him to all the fashionable salons beside that of Madame Tallien and Barras. He was the man of the moment and was invited everywhere. Then, shortly after, he married Josephine. But that first coat of varnish was not adhering too well. Bonaparte had a conservative and provincial concept of women typically Corsican that did not fit very well in the company of such liberal socialites. Quickly every one of these women became aware of his concept of women. To many of them Bonaparte became a challenge that lasted quite a long time. Quite a few ladies even tried to seduce Bonaparte to no avail. He was madly in love with Josephine! Madame de Stael, that fearful intellectual, the famous writer, part feminist and part aging coquette, a giant among these liberal and intellectual women, took the challenge and started to take him head on. She was also famous for her numerous love affairs. She tried to impress and overwhelm him with compliments at every opportunity, but Bonaparte always discontinued the conversation. She did not give up and one day she asked: "General, what kind of woman would you like the most? Mine. That is very simple, but which one is the one that you would like the most? "The one that knows best to take care of her home. "I certainly understand that clearly. But finally, which will be for you the first of all women? "The one that makes the most children, Madame." And the general, who thought or made believe he thought she had no children, simply turned his heels and walked away, leaving a furious Madame de Stael completely speechless with the anger of having been so impertinently rebuffed in front of one hundred witnesses. That is why Madame de Stael changed sides and joined the opposition to Napoleon and filled the world with her comical furor. [3] The above anecdote, told in a few different versions, is attributed to Gourgaud and apparently took place during the Consulate. Bonaparte was more at ease on the battlefield than with women in a salon. When Bonaparte became First Consul, he moved directly to the Tuileries. He wanted to show the always active Royalists that his government would continue. After he became Emperor, Napoleon had no choice but to fill up his court with women. That does not mean he treated them better than his grognards. During the receptions in the Tuileries, they marched in the salons as during a military parade. The receptions at the court lacked the charms of that of the salons and were more like a review in which there were women. And during these "reviews" Napoleon moved forward, his hands behind his back, waddling clumsily. The women shook with fear and the Emperor, in order to hide the bashfulness of a soldier in silk stockings, indiscriminately threw at them some terribly angry outbursts or remarks of poor taste like his comments to the Visconti, [4] a woman he despised: "Ah! Toujours belle! Toujours Belle!" (Ah! Still beautiful! Still Beautiful!) Most of the time they did not answer and went back home to cry. Sometimes they struck back, especially the ex-noblewomen rallied to the Empire. On one occasion Napoleon said to the Duchess of Fleury back from emigration whom he knew to be a woman of easy virtue: "Very well, Madame, do you still love men?" and the Duchess answered: "Of course, Sire, when they are polite." In certain circumstances, Napoleon made some genuine efforts to be courteous and friendly with women. At Tilsit, he behaved gallantly with the beautiful Queen Louise of Prussia [5] but she felt deeply disappointed for failing to get better terms for Prussia. If Louise failed to obtain anything from Napoleon it was not due to her incapacity but to the fact that Napoleon's will was inflexible and he could not let himself be influenced by a woman. Gertrude Aretz, the author of Queen Louise of Prussia, writing for a German audience, pp. 234-5, quotes Napoleon as saying: "States are ruined as soon as women take public affairs into their hands .... It would suite me, if a woman wanted anything, to do exactly the opposite," and the author continues with: "That was his principles from which he never retreated. Nevertheless it was not astute of him; perhaps it was a deciding error in his policy. If he had yielded to the prayers of the Queen at Tilsit and protected Prussia to some extent, he would have turned a foe into a friend, or at least he would have created a neutral state. Possibly then Prussia would not have risen against him in 1813, ready to renew the conflict ...... It's amazing how all the sources I have seen to date show Napoleon's ill dispositions about women. His inflexible attitude did him more bad than good like the opposition of Madame de Stael. [6] Was that one of the reasons for his final downfall as is suggested by Gertrude Aretz? As a final note, a little known episode is worth reporting. After the abdication during his trip to Elba, Napoleon had to go through the hostile royalist Provence. Frightened, to avoid being singled out, he rode ahead of his party in disguise. At Saint-Canat, near Aix-en-Provence, he stopped at an inn and introduced himself as Colonel Porter, a British officer of Napoleon's party and requested that a dinner be prepared for the ex-Emperor and his escort. The hostess answered "that she would be angry to prepare a meal for such a monster." And Napoleon said: "You hate him deeply that emperor, What did he do to you? "What he did to me? Ah! That monster! He is responsible for the death of my son, my nephew and so many other young men!" An hour later, the Allied commissaries arrive at the inn and found Napoleon with his head between his two hands. "I did not recognize him at first," said the Prussian commissary, "and I came toward him. He stood up in a start and let me see his face covered with tears." Once more disguised, he left the inn and two days later, on the bridge of the British frigate that took him to Elba, he said to the Austrian Marshal Koller: "The day before yesterday, I show myself with a bare a...! I am a man that one kills but does not outrage!" He who had not been scared on the bridge of Arcole, had shivered in that inn. Sources Aretz, Gertrude, Queen Louise of Prussia, New York, 1929. Blanc, Louis, Histoire de la Rivolution Francaise, Paris, date unknown. Chandler, David, Napoleon's Marshalls Connelly, Owen, The French Revolution and Napoleonic Era, 1991. Dargaud, Napoleon, Dargaud, Paris, 1965. Duche, Jean, L'Histoire de France racontee a Juliette, MacMillan, New York, 1987. Encyclopedia Britannica. Memeval, Baron Claude-Franqois de, Memoirs of the Baron of Mineval, New York, 1894. Misc. notes from many sources too numerous to mention. Footnotes [1]Mesdames is the plural of Madame. [2]Barras, Paul Franqois Jean Nicholas, vicomte de, (1755-1829), though of noble family joined the Jacobins in the Revolution. Having turned against Robespierre, his firmness saved the coup d'etat and he became a member of the Directory. He was notorious for his corruption, ostentation and immorality. [3] Madame de Stael (Baronne de Stael-Holstein) was the daughter of Necker, the Swiss finance minister of Louis the XVIth. She was a brilliant woman of letters, whose personality epitomized the European culture of her time. Her writings include novels, plays, moral and political essays, histories, poems, etc., but her chief literary importance was as a theorist of Romanticism. [4] See EE&L #4, pp.16-17, "Marshal Berthier and Napoleon, La Visconti and Elizabeth." [5] Napoleon always spoke respectfully of Queen Louise. Aretz, p. 234. [6] Madame de Stael was also important politically and was regarded as an enemy of Napoleon. With Constant and his friends, she formed the nucleus of a liberal resistance that so embarrassed Bonaparte that in 1803 he had her banished to a distance of 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Paris. This did not stop her anti-Napoleon activities. Napoleon and Women, Part II (EE&L#8) Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 2 No. 7 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Emperor's Headquarters This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com