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Portrait of Madame de Rémusat and Napoleón Bonaparte

Madame de Rémusar wrote her memoirs and described the emperor as a whopping, cleaning maniac and misogynist

Who are they and how do the descendants of Napoleon live?

The memories of Madame de Rémusat , lady of company of Empress Josefina and Napoleon's favorite conversationalist, are an intimate portrait of the Bonaparte clan and its court, full of jealousy, family quarrels, threats of divorce, lovers ...

The book The private wars of the Bonaparte clan: Memories of a palace lady in the court of Josefina and Napoleón Bonaparte (Ed. Arpa) offers a selection of the best passages of Madame de Rémusat's unfinished memoirs , written after the fall of the Emperor, and who understand the period between 1802, when the author is named at the 22-year-old lady of Madame Bonaparte's palace , and 1808, with the threat of divorce between the emperor and the empress planning on the court. His memoirs were not published until 1880 , when all those who appear in them had already died.

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Claire de Vergennes (1780-1821), whose father and grandfather were guillotined during the Revolution, was 16 years old when he married the future Count Laurent de Rémusat . The young couple fell in favor of Josefina. So much so that Claire was named lady of company and her husband, prefect of the palace, until in 1808 she received the title of the count of the Empire , both becoming part of the new aristocracy.

Of her four official ladies, Claire de Rémusat was Madame Bonaparte's favorite and soon became her friend and confidant. "It did not take me long to share in his secrets, which I kept with total discretion," he writes in his memoirs, in which he also discovers that Napoleon despised women , who, in his opinion, "only knew how to impress men with him. blush and tears. " "It is convenient that women do not paint anything in my court. They will not love me, but I will be much calmer," he repeated. Josefina, in turn, had a "tendency to jealousy" and not only because of her husband's numerous lovers, but because "she lived as a real nightmare the impossibility of giving children to her husband" and feared that, for that reason, her husband would divorce her, as it finally happened.

Painting 'Napoleon Bonaparte on the Island of Elba' by Paul Delaroche

Madame de Rémusat echoes in her memoirs of the slander of the English press, which portrayed Napoleon as a sexual predator , who would have seduced her sisters and daughter-in-law, Beauharnais hydrangea. He was also falsely credited with the paternity of Napoleon-Charles, the eldest son of Hortensia and his brother, Luis.

Napoleon, reveals Madame de Rémusat, was cold, was obsessed with cleaning , used up to "60 bottles of cologne a month" and paid attention to her nails. He had an irascible character and was prone to anger attacks with his subordinates, who feared him.

Madame Bonaparte , on the other hand, " never opened a book , took a pen or did any work and, however, did not seem bored. He also did not like shows." It was very wasteful , "in every store in Paris something was being made for her."

Josefina's company lady often acts as a mediator between the marriage and tries to calm Josefina's jealous attacks, which, with the help of her servants, tries to obtain evidence that her husband was unfaithful .

Among the conquests of Napoleon, the company lady highlights Mademoiselle George , an actress of the French Comedy; to the Italian Carlotta Gazzani , named reader of the Empress, and Madame Duchatel , a lady of the court of Josefina, from whom her stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais, was also in love. Claire herself was a victim of the gossip and envy of the court for spending "long tête-à-têtes" with Napoleon talking alone. She states that the conduct with her master was always "simple and innocent . "

The divorce of Napoleon and his wife in December 1809 held Josefina in Malmaison Castle, about 12 kilometers from Paris, with her company ladies , among whom was Madame de Rémusat.

Napoleon, who had not had children with Josefina, later married Princess Maria Luisa de Habsburg , who gave him a son: Napoleon II, who although he never reigned, received at birth the title of King of Rome . In 1820, Rémusat was introduced to the new empress and divided her loyalties between Josefina and María Luisa.

When the Neapolitan Empire went to waste and the Bourbons returned to the French throne in the person of Louis XVIII, younger brother of the beheaded Louis XVI, the Rémusat, who arrived poorly at the Neapolonic court, did not hesitate to change their jacket and, like many , they reinvented themselves and adapted to the new situation by criticizing the man who shortly before made so many obeisances.

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