Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte

by Berkin, Carol

  Betsy’s attention was no longer focused on her former husband, the king of Westphalia. She dismissed him, and his excuses for abandoning her, with contempt. In November 1807, when an American visitor to Jérôme’s court wrote to Betsy that the king “speaks of you as the only woman he ever loved or ever shall love tho’ united to another much against his Inclination which the Emperor his Brother cruelly imposed on him,” Betsy was unimpressed. On the margin of the letter, she later wrote her own commentary: “The Kindness of my ExHusband the King was ever of the unremitting kind as no money accompanied it.”

  It was Napoleon, not Jérôme, who she believed could provide Bo with the recognition she desired so intensely for him. And there were many who believed the emperor would do just that. Eliza Anderson, who had accompanied Betsy on the Erin, wrote to her at the end of May 1808 with news she had received from France. The emperor, Eliza declared, intended to make Betsy duchess regent of someplace or another. The news was little more than rumor, Eliza admitted, but she was convinced it reflected Napoleon’s softened attitude toward the woman he had once dismissed as “that little girl.” “It is a sign that you are thought of,” Eliza noted, “which gives some hope.” A few days later Eliza sent a second letter from her home in Trenton, New Jersey. After telling Betsy that everyone admires the “dignity which I tell them characterizes you in your present Situation,” she assured her friend that “a brilliant destiny awaits you and the dear little Bo.” On June 8 she wrote once more, promising Betsy that Bo would be “splendidly provided for” and that his mother would surely receive generous support from Napoleon.

  Betsy had no intention of sitting back and waiting for the good fortune that Eliza was confident would come her way. On July 9 she wrote to the current French minister to the United States asking for his assistance in communicating to Napoleon about his nephew. She was careful to place no blame on the emperor; she saw herself, she told General Louis-Marie Turreau, simply as a victim of circumstances outside her control. But if political necessities trumped individual needs or desires, and if the rights of a society superseded the rights of an individual, as they did in her case, surely Napoleon must see Bo in a different light. Bo was no ordinary individual like herself; Bonaparte blood ran in his veins, and thus he was “worthy of interest.” As Bo’s mother, she found Napoleon’s insistence that she call herself Miss Patterson rather than Madame Bonaparte a social embarrassment for them both.

  Minister Turreau did not dismiss her appeal out of hand. Instead, he sent her a series of questions meant to test her willingness to bow to any conditions Napoleon might impose. Although these questions were, on the surface, personal, it was clear that Napoleon’s motives were political. He wished to prevent any further diplomatic advantage to his archenemy, Britain. His goal was to neutralize this troublesome woman, to ensure that her “plight” would never again be grist for the English propaganda mill. Would she, the emperor’s surrogate asked, promise never to marry without the consent of the French government if the emperor gave her a title and a pension? Would she renounce forever any idea of going to England? Would she renounce the United States and go to Europe? If she moved to Europe, would she consent not to leave the town chosen by the emperor for her residence without first informing the prefect of the place? If Betsy agreed to these restrictions, she would, in effect, cede control over where and with whom she lived to Napoleon. This she seemed willing to do. But the last question gave her pause: Do you demand that your son should remain with you until the age of seven? This was itself a demand that she turn over her son at that point, to Napoleon or someone of his choosing.

  By September it was clear that her former husband, Jérôme, might be the “someone” who planned to take Bo away. That month Alexandre Le Camus arrived in New York and forwarded to Betsy two letters written in May by Jérôme, one addressed to her and one to William Patterson. Addressing her once again as “beloved Elisa,” he asked that she give up her son to him. “Do not give in to grief, my good Elisa,” he added, “be hopeful, and count on a happier future.” He failed, of course, to provide details of what this happier future might be for a mother who sacrificed her son. In his letter to William, Jérôme was blunt: he wanted to bring up his son in Westphalia and, he claimed, Napoleon had approved of the plan.

  Jérôme’s conciliatory tone vanished in his next letter. Perhaps he had gotten wind of Betsy’s negotiations with Turreau; perhaps he had simply heard rumors that she was attempting to communicate directly with his older brother. Whether it was gossip or fact, Jérôme was offended by the possibility that she would not rely exclusively upon him for assistance. I am a king, he reminded her, and I can provide for you and our son. He clearly thought he was making a magnanimous gesture when he told Betsy that she could come to Westphalia and keep Bo with her until the boy turned twelve. He promised more. He would make her the princess of Smalkalden, a small town that lay thirty leagues from the capital city, Cassel, and provide her with a beautiful home and 200,000 francs a year.

  Betsy’s reply is lost, but at some point she wrote comments on the margins of his letter. She owed him nothing, she observed, and the only rights he had over her were the “right to be despised and hated.” She dismissed the offer of a title as princess of Smalkalden, writing, “Westphalia [is] not large enough for two queens.” But her contempt for Jérôme came through most clearly when she contemplated choosing between Napoleon’s assistance and Jérôme’s: “I would rather be sheltered under the wings of an eagle than dangle from the beak of a goose.”

  It may have been satisfying to vent her anger and show her contempt for this “goose,” but Betsy’s first consideration was, after all, Bo’s future. What if Jérôme’s new wife had no sons? Would Bo then be heir to his father’s throne? Was she indeed being selfish? Was she letting her feelings toward Jérôme cloud her judgment? She did not know. She decided to write to the former ambassador to France, James Monroe, for advice.

  Despite Jérôme’s assurances, she told Monroe in October 1808 that she worried that Bo might in reality “be consigned to obscurity by being probably educated in an inferior condition & in ignorance of his birth & name.” She was ready to sacrifice herself for her son: “My maternal duties certainly prescribe a total dereliction of all self interested motives & I possess sufficient energy to submit implicitly to any privation how painful soever which the interest of my son dictate.” But, Betsy asked, were Jérôme’s promises real? She did not need to remind James Monroe, or herself, how empty Jérôme’s promises to her had proven to be.

  Monroe replied in early November. He knew the “hard destiny which has attended you” and admired her response to it. She had behaved perfectly and with great dignity. In his judgment, Napoleon was smart enough to realize that, if anything bad happened to Bo in Westphalia, it would be a stain on his own reputation. The real danger, he thought, would come from Queen Catherine, especially if she produced a family. To Monroe, the matter boiled down to this: Would Bo be better off with his father or in the circle of his maternal relatives?

  The following spring Betsy reached out to General John Armstrong, the current American minister at Paris. By this time, negotiations with “the eagle,” Napoleon, had been going on for almost a year, and Betsy knew that a “necessary provision” for herself was now on the table. She did not want Armstrong to carry on the negotiations without consulting her first. She would not agree to Bo going to France without her. But she was flexible as to the terms of her own settlement. She was resolved, she said, “to accede to any offer which guarantees to me an independent & respectable Situation in life.… Should I be offered a title & Pension I will certainly accept them. I prefer infinitely a residence in France to one here.” In short, Napoleon’s largesse could satisfy her most urgent personal goal: escape from Baltimore.

  Betsy’s expectations and demands appeared likely to be met. Napoleon, busy campaigning in Spain, had nevertheless taken the time to comment on the matter in November 1808, although Turreau did not r
eceive his instructions until the spring of 1809. The emperor seemed willing to give Betsy everything she desired—and more. “Tell Turreau that he is to inform her that I will receive with pleasure her son and will be responsible for him if she wishes to send him to France; as for her, whatever she may desire will be granted; that she may count on my esteem and my wish to be agreeable to her; that, when I refused to recognize her, I was led by considerations of high policy; that I am resolved to assure for her son a future that she desires.” All Napoleon demanded was that the affair “be quietly and secretly managed.”

  If “high policy” had motivated Napoleon’s annulment of Betsy’s marriage, it may have played an equally important role in the olive branch he now held out to Betsy. For the physical desire she had once aroused in Jérôme was now raging in two current suitors. And now as then, the courtship of the belle of Baltimore had political implications, for both of the men hoping to marry her were English.

  Chapter Six

  “I Intend to Be Governed by My Own Rules”

  Betsy had once enjoyed celebrity in America as the happy young bride of a Bonaparte. Now, the tragic tale of her abandonment and persecution at the hands of the Bonapartes drew public attention. The romance of her tragedy worked like an aphrodisiac on young men, and soon after she arrived home, suitors appeared at her doorstep. Although Betsy’s full attention was focused on her negotiations with Napoleon, she could not prevent these men from focusing their attention on her.

  Her beauty seemed to dazzle those who met her. The English ambassador considered her the “most beautiful woman in America,” and when she spent a few months in the nation’s capital, anonymous love notes were passed under her hotel door. Even men of the cloth fell under her spell. Reverend Horace Holley, on his way from Boston to Kentucky to take up the duties of a college president, admitted to walking up and down the main street of Baltimore, hoping to meet her. Nothing, not even her vocal hostility toward American culture, could prevent him from confessing to his wife, only half in jest, that in Betsy she had a rival for his affections.

  Perhaps if Betsy’s most serious admirers had been local Baltimore merchants or Washington officeholders, their pursuit of her affections would only have prompted admiration or envious gossip. But two of her most persistent suitors, Samuel Graves and Charles Oakley, were highly placed Englishmen, and this made their success or failure a source of political anxiety and rumination.

  Such entanglement of romance and politics was not new in Betsy’s life, of course. Only a few years earlier her marriage to a Frenchman, and a Bonaparte at that, had spurred political speculation about a possible shift from neutrality to a pro-French policy on the part of the American president. Now that she had returned to America, a new set of questions arose: What were the international implications of a marriage between Betsy and one of her two prominent English suitors? Would the transfer of her affections from a French husband to an English one enrage the French? How would the British react? How would American voters respond to Betsy’s marriage to an Englishman? Betsy’s personal life once again seemed fraught with political implication, but this time her only thought was how to turn this to her own advantage.

  Although Betsy had done nothing to encourage him, Samuel Colleton Graves was undoubtedly in love with her. The twenty-year-old had traveled to America as a secretary to his father, Admiral Graves of the Royal Navy. Here he had caught sight of the beautiful Madame Bonaparte—and fallen immediately in love. On May 16, 1808, he confessed his devotion in a letter marked by an odd combination of boldness and insecurity, not to mention tortured sentence structure. “When I first saw you,” Graves gushed,

  your beauty won my admiration, & since that you have acquired most truly (to call it no other) my esteem & my regard, I regretted that seclusion and dereliction should be the lot of youth and beauty, and determined to require your hand in marriage, if your opinion do not operate against me, or your situation when explained, appear to be such as to preclude an object so strongly desired by me. In this preliminary I make only a simple proposition, to entertain an idea that it will offend you, would much afflict me, but I write with confidence, when I say I am sure that at least politeness, will bid you favor me with an answer, if that answer is by return of post it will much oblige me, the tenor if this letter sufficiently indicates that anything like insult, that anything like offence to you, is most remote to the wishes of your devoted S Colleton Graves.

  In short, Graves was ready to marry her immediately but would settle for her willingness to begin a courtship.

  Betsy might have found Samuel’s adoration flattering, but she showed no signs that his passion was—or would ever be—returned. She had no interest in marrying him, or anyone, especially in 1808, when her only concern was securing her son’s “brilliant destiny” and achieving a successful escape from her father’s household. She had no intention of repeating past mistakes; she would not rely on a callow youth to rescue her. Napoleon, not the young Mr. Graves, held her future in his hands. Yet she sympathized with her suitor, for she knew what it was like to be young and madly in love. Because of this she made every effort to avoid crushing the spirit of her overzealous suitor.

  Graves proved persistent if not perceptive. A year after his opening salvo, he was writing to her once again from Philadelphia. He was, he said, headed home to England but intended to return to America as soon as possible to press his suit once again. “In returning,” he wrote, “I have but one object, that one is but too powerful.”

  Two days later Betsy sent a letter addressed to Samuel and included with it a note to his father, the admiral. She clearly intended the older man to read what she had to say to his son. Her rejection was put as tactfully but as firmly as possible: “I should extremely regret that a sentiment more painful to yourself should impel a voyage, the result of which can only be disappointment. My time & attachment must be devoted exclusively to my Son from whose destiny whether inauspicious or the reverse I can never divide myself. The resolution of consecrating to him every sentiment & action of my life, is irrevocable—which with other Circumstances peculiar to myself, will ever preclude a change of my Situation.”

  The admiral should have recognized that Samuel had been politely rejected. But affection for his son, who was clearly in agony, prompted him to support a second effort to change Betsy’s mind. On July 27, 1809, the younger Graves wrote to her once again from England. “After the letter I received from you last May … I should not have again addressed you, were not my affection stronger than my hope.” Despite all efforts to forget her, “the warmth of my attachment is unchilled by absence, is unabated by time and distance.” Because of this, he confessed, he had enlisted his parents in the effort to change her mind. “The enclosed,” he declared, “is the expression of their sentiments.” And indeed, enclosed with his own declaration that his “love will be as lasting as my recollection” were letters from his mother and father.

  Mrs. Graves addressed Betsy as one mother to another: your maternal devotion is admirable, she wrote, but surely your son would be better off with his paternal relatives; why not turn him over to the Bonapartes and thus free yourself to marry my son? The advice regarding Bo’s future was both unwelcome and presumptuous, and what followed it was a burst of English patriotism. If Betsy would consent to marry Samuel, Mrs. Graves declared, “My husband & myself will accompany our Son to meet you at Paris to celebrate Nuptials.” There was, of course, no possibility of Betsy entering Europe, let alone marrying an Englishman in the capital of France, as long as Napoleon remained emperor. And in 1809 Mrs. Graves’s assumption of a speedy victory by Britain in its efforts to unseat the French emperor might well be seen as folly.

  Betsy felt compelled to reply: on December 1, 1809, she wrote to Mrs. Graves. She had no intention of turning Bo over to the Bonapartes, she said, and no intention of marrying Samuel. Once again she phrased her rejection as gently but firmly as possible, assuring Samuel’s doting if impolitic mother that her son
was thoroughly admirable. “I feel regret at having inspired an attachment in Mr. Graves to whose superiority of talent & acquirements I render justice.”

  Betsy’s rejection transformed Samuel’s eager optimism into melancholy. He fled to Germany in an effort, once more, to forget her, he said in July 1810, but alas, he feared he could not. His lovelorn condition persisted for at least one more year, but his heart proved resilient. When he died suddenly in 1823, the thirty-five-year-old Graves would leave an “affectionate and devoted wife” and an infant child.

  While Samuel Graves was not a member of the royal family, his father held high rank in the Royal Navy. Thus a marriage between the young man and Betsy might have created some embarrassment for the American government. Napoleon might read it as an American shift away from the policy of neutrality, just as Anthony Merry had done in 1803, when Jefferson entertained Jérôme and Betsy in Washington. Public opinion might have opposed such a marriage as well, for anti-British feelings were running high in 1808 because of the Chesapeake affair.

  Only a year before, in June 1807, British naval officers from the HMS Leopard had boarded the USS Chesapeake and demanded that the American commander deliver to them four of his sailors, believed to be British subjects. When the commander refused, the British officers returned to their ship, and immediately afterward the Leopard’s guns fired on the American vessel. The Chesapeake was forced to surrender. Insult was added to injury when the British commander refused to honor the code of battle between two sovereign nations and rejected the American ship as a prize of war; instead he took the four alleged British subjects and sailed away. This slap in the face to American pride stirred anti-British feelings. On the other hand, rage had been building among American shippers as President Jefferson’s 1807 Embargo Act began to cripple the shipping industry. The ban on trade with the two central protagonists, Britain and France, had already driven former Jeffersonian supporters like William Patterson into the opposition camp. With tensions running high, it was not unreasonable to worry that any incident, even the marriage of a Baltimore matron, might add to the diplomatic crisis that was clearly brewing.