36. Malmaison

In the Tuileries the first consul, with his wife, resided in all the pomp and dignity of his new office. There he was the sovereign, the commander; there he ruled, and, like a king, all bowed to him; the people humbled themselves and recognized him as their master.

In the Tuileries etiquette and the stiff pomp of a princely court prevailed more and more. Bonaparte required of his wife that she should there represent the dignity and the grandeur of her new position; that she should appear as the first, the most exalted, and the most unapproachable of women. In the Tuileries there were no more evenings of pleasant social gatherings, of joyous conversation with friends whom affection made equals, and who, in love and admiration, recognizing Bonaparte's ascendency, brought him of their own free choice their esteem and high consideration. Now, it was all honor and duty; now, the friends of the past wore servants who, for duty's sake, had to be subservient to their master, and abide by the rules of etiquette, otherwise the frown on their lofty ruler's brow would bring them back within their bounds.

Josephine was pained at these limits set to her personal freedom--at these claims of etiquette, which did not permit her friends to remain at her side, but strove to exalt above them the wife of the first consul. Her sense of modesty ever accepted the pleasant, genial household affections as more agreeable and more precious than the burdensome representations, levees, and the tediousness of ceremonial receptions; her sense of modesty longed for the quiet and repose of retirement, and she was happy when, at the close of the court festivities, she could return to Malmaison, there to enjoy the coming of spring, the blossoming of summer, and the glorious beauty of autumn with its manifold colors.

In Malmaison were centered all her joys and pleasures. There she could satisfy all the inclinations of her heart, all the fancies of her imagination, all the wants of her mind; there she could be the tender wife and mother, and the faithful friend; there she could receive, without the annoyance of etiquette, men of learning and art; there she could cultivate the soil and devote herself to botany, her favorite study, and to her flowers, the dearest and most faithful friends of her whole life.

Josephine sought for and found in Malmaison her earthly paradise; there she was happy, and the care and the secret anguish which in Paris wove around her heart its network, and every now and then whispered the nefarious words of divorce and separation, followed her not in the beautiful and friendly Malmaison; she left all this in Paris with the stiff Madame Etiquette, who once in the Tuileries had poisoned the existence of the Queen Marie Antoinette, and now sought to intrude herself upon the consulate as an ill-tempered sovereign.

But in Malmaison there was no etiquette, none of the dignified coldness of court-life. There you were allowed to laugh, to jest, and to be happy. In Malmaison the first consul laid aside his gravity; there his gloomy brow brightened, and he became again General Bonaparte, the lover of his Josephine, the confidential companion of his friends, the harmless individual, who seemed to have nothing to require from Heaven but the happiness of the passing hour, and who could laugh at a joke with the same guilelessuess as any other child of the people who never deemed it necessary to cultivate a close intimacy with the grave and gloomy Madame Politique.

It is true Malmaison was not Bonaparte's sole country residence. The city of Paris had presented him with the pleasure-castle of St. Cloud, the same which Louis XVI. gave to his wife, and where, to the very great annoyance of the proud Parisians, she had for the first time engraven on the regulation-tablets, at the entrance of the park, the fatal words--"De par la Reine."

Now this royal mansion of pleasure belonged to the first consul of the republic; it was his summer residence, but there he was still the consul, the first magistrate, and the representative of France; and he had there to give receptions, hold levees, receive the ministers, councillors of state, and the foreign ambassadors, and appear in all the pomp and circumstance of his position.

But in Malmaison his countenance and his being were changed. Here he was the cheerful man, enjoying life; he was the joyous companion, the modest land-owner, who with genial delight surveyed the produce of his soil, and even calculated how much profit it could bring him.

"The first consul in Malmaison," said the English minister, Fox, "the first consul in St. Cloud, and the first consul in the Tuileries, are three different persons, who together form that great and wonderful idea; I should exceedingly like to be able to represent exactly after nature these three portraits; they must be very much alike, and yet very different."

It is certain, however, that of these three portraits that of the first consul in Malmaison was the most amiable, and that of the first consul of the Tuileries the most imposing.

In Malmaison Bonaparte's countenance was cheerful and free from care; in the Tuileries he was grave and dignified. On his clouded brow were enthroned great designs; from the deep, dark eyes shot lightnings ready to fire a world--to erect or destroy kingdoms. In Malmaison these eyes with cheerful brilliancy reposed on Josephine; his otherwise earnest lips welcomed there the beloved of his heart with merry pleasantry and spirited raillery; there he loved to see Josephine in simple, modest toilet; and if in the lofty halls of the Tuileries he exacted from the wife of the first consul a brilliant toilet, the bejewelled magnificence of the first lady of France, he was delighted when in Malmaison he saw coming through the green foliage the wife of General Bonaparte in simple white muslin, with a laughing countenance; and with her sweet voice, which he still considered as the finest music he ever heard, she bade welcome to her husband who here was changed into her tender lover.

In Malmaison, Bonaparte would even put off his general's uniform, and, in his plain gray coat of a soldier, walk through the park in the neighborhood, resting on the arm of his confidant, Duroc, and would begin a friendly conversation with the first farmer he met, perfectly satisfied when in the little man with the gray tightly- buttoned coat, no one suspected or imagined to see the first consul of the republic.

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