After the initial shock, Betsy mustered enough of her old spirit to fight back. She still had her marriage contract of 1803 in which her father had stipulated that he would leave her an equal share of his estate. She and her son consulted lawyers, including Roger B. Taney, who only a year later became the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
The lawyers found the will so extraordinary that they doubted Patterson’s sanity, but they could not prove he was out of his right mind. As they explained to Betsy and her son, the legal situation was complicated. Although Patterson left no money to Betsy, he did leave a bequest to Bo—which, though sizable, was not as large as what he would have inherited through his mother if she had received her equal share. If Betsy succeeded in using the marriage contract to break the will, she would receive a larger inheritance, but Bo would lose his portion because the estate would be divided equally among Patterson’s children.
Betsy’s legal inquiries delayed the settlement of the estate, and the family reacted furiously. John, Joseph, Edward, and Henry lined up against her and tried to amass evidence that she deserved their father’s censure. They searched Patterson’s papers and took away his copy of the marriage contract, hoping that Betsy had lost hers. They gathered up the letters their father had received from Betsy and paid Aunt Nancy for the letters Betsy had sent her, so they could use their sister’s correspondence against her. As a result of these schemes, Betsy’s relationships with her aunt and four brothers were irrevocably broken.
Only George found the will unjust. He disagreed so strongly with the decision to exclude Betsy from sharing their mother’s money that he signed over his portion to her. She wrote him her thanks and tried to enlist his support in the lawsuit, but when she realized that he did not want to become embroiled in his siblings’ conflict, she did not push him.
The nastiness even affected Bo. Although he never confronted his mother directly, his correspondence to her lost its warmth as though he blamed her for being so imprudent as to lose his inheritance. Sadly, she noted that he never called her “dearest mama” anymore.
Finally, exhausted by the acrimony, Betsy gave up the lawsuit. She contented herself with the city properties her father left her and continued to live off the income from the investments she had tended so carefully since 1810.
The irony was that over time, her urban property grew in value more dramatically than the stock or country estates her brothers had inherited, so her estate was now worth well over a million dollars. In the end, her father benefitted her far more than he had intended. But nothing could heal the knowledge that William Patterson had deliberately held her up to public derision. Betsy became almost a recluse, living in a boarding house, pouring over the mementoes of her past, and taking pride in her grandsons, but rarely traveling or receiving guests. She took little interest in the affairs of the United States, and not even the cataclysm of the Civil War and its destructive effect on Maryland stirred her from indifference.
In the 1840s, Betsy did receive one foreign visitor who brought her some consolation. Marshal Henri-Gatien Bertrand, who had been with Napoleon in exile, came to Baltimore to say that Napoleon had admired her talents to the end and regretted the shadow he had thrown upon her life. The former emperor was grateful that she always praised him, saying, “Those I have wronged have forgiven me; those I have loaded with kindness have forsaken me.”
Sighing at the memory, Betsy glanced up to see Charley coming down the hallway, holding a glass of water. “How are you now?” he asked.
“I am well. It was merely an attack of an old pain, but it has passed.”
She drank the water and then rose. Taking Charley’s arm, she allowed him to lead her down the corridor as slowly as he thought prudent. As they walked, she thought of her older grandson, who bore an uncanny resemblance to his grandfather Jerome and had inherited the military interests of his great-uncle Napoleon. He was serving as a colonel in the French Army. “It is a pity Jerome Jr. cannot be here.”
“Grandmama, he cannot leave France right now. They say tension is brewing with Prussia.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” She refrained from reminding him that she had been following French politics since decades before his birth. “But surely, as cousin to the emperor, Jerome could take leave during a family crisis.”
“Papa forbade us to send him a wire. He believes he will recover.”
She stopped and tilted her head to look up at him. “Do you think he will?”
Charley shook his head gravely and opened the master-bedroom door.
Bo was lying in the massive mahogany four-poster with his wife sitting beside him, one hand laid upon his chest. As Betsy entered, Susan May stood. “I will leave you alone.”
“No need, my dear,” Betsy said. “I have nothing to say to my son that you cannot hear.”
Charley carried the chair from his mother’s dressing table to the side of the bed and helped Betsy into it. Then he and Susan May withdrew to a far corner.
“Mama,” Bo said in a harsh whisper that hurt Betsy’s heart. She grasped his hand. They gazed at each other a long moment and then he whispered, “Forgive me.”
“Oh, my dear boy. I forgave you long ago.”
For an instant, his eyes shifted to his wife across the room and then he refocused on Betsy’s face. “Understand—don’t—regret my choice.”
“Nor should you,” Betsy said firmly, speaking loudly enough for her daughter-in-law to hear. “Susan May has been an excellent wife and mother.”
Bo winced, whether from emotional or physical pain Betsy could not tell. Then he spoke again in the same agonized whisper, “Sorry—excluded you.”
“I blame that on your grandfather,” Betsy said, unable to restrain her anger even though she knew how much Bo had loved her father. “That bad old man wanted to pay me back for marrying against his wishes.”
Shaking his head, Bo whispered, “No. My cowardice.”
“Don’t think of it anymore.”
Despite her reassurance, Bo retained a troubled expression. After a moment, he released a shuddering sigh. “Are you sorry—married Father?”
“How could I be when he gave me such a fine son as you? You have always been my shining prince.”
Closing his eyes, Bo grew so still that Betsy thought he had fallen asleep. After a minute, though, he shook his head. “No. Denied me.”
Betsy patted his hand, knowing exactly what he meant. After Bo’s cousin Louis-Napoleon, the son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense, became Emperor Napoleon III, he had restored Bo’s French citizenship and made it legal for him to use the Bonaparte name in France. Bo had not, however, been included in the imperial line of succession, so he and Betsy had filed suit in the French courts after Jerome died. In spite of all the documentation they were able to produce—the original marriage contract, the love letters from Jerome to Betsy, and years of correspondence from the Bonapartes greeting Bo as dear son, grandson, brother, nephew, and cousin—the ruling went against them.
“Never mind that now. We did our best. Refusing to make you an heir was their mistake, which they will regret eternally if Plon-Plon ever becomes emperor.” In spite of his pain, Bo smiled at the disparaging nickname for his universally disliked half-brother. “Besides, I hope that Jerome Jr.’s obvious worth and service to France may eventually induce the imperial family to reverse their decision in his favor.”
Shaking his head, Bo said, “You never change.”
“I set my feet upon a certain course the day I met your father, and I have never deviated from it.”
Sighing, Bo closed his eyes. Knowing that this might very well be their last meeting, Betsy wanted to sit with him for hours, but she could tell from the shadows beneath his eyes and the lines etched by his mouth that he was exhausted. Reluctantly, she rose. “I will let you rest.”
Bo stirred and met her gaze. “I love you, dearest Mama.”
“I love you too, my boy.”
Betsy smoothed back his hair, taking some sli
ght comfort in the fact that he still wore the upswept hairstyle she had given him as a boy, and then she kissed his forehead in a gesture of farewell. As Charley led her from the bed, her daughter-in-law stepped in front of her. Although Susan May’s face held no warmth, she whispered, “Thank you,” and Betsy felt they had made peace at last.
Out in the hall, Betsy gave way to tears and Charley held her close. “Don’t cry, Grandmama. Papa loves you.”
Pulling away, Betsy nodded and wiped her eyes. “Thank you for trying to comfort your poor old grandmother. You are exceptionally adult for your years. At your age, your grandfather thought of nothing but amusement.”
“You and Grandpapa must have made quite a pair.” Charley tucked her hand in his arm again. “I wish I could have seen you when you were young and taking society by storm.”
“We were as thoughtless and vain as peacocks.” Thinking of her son lying on his deathbed, Betsy reflected how strange it was that, with herself and Jerome as parents, Bo should have turned out to be such an unambitious man. He had wanted nothing more than a quiet life on his country estate, raising his sons and breeding his horses. “A pair of peacocks who somehow gave birth to a house sparrow.”
“Father is a good fellow, and he is proud of being a Bonaparte even if he did not want to live in Europe.” Charley’s voice cracked. “I am going to miss him dreadfully.”
Pressing herself tightly against his arm, Betsy murmured, “We will miss him together.”
Charley drove her to Mrs. Jenkins’s boarding house and helped her up to her rooms, where he settled her into the rocking chair he had given her on her last birthday. Then Betsy asked him to drag the trunk that held her most precious mementos so that it stood next to her. She did not open it right away.
Remembering a long ago ball in Florence when Gorchakov had watched with thinly masked jealously while she danced with the French writer Lamartine, Betsy murmured, “Once I had everything but money. Now money is all I have left.”
“Grandmama, that isn’t true.” Charley squatted before her and took herhands. “You have Jerome Jr. and you have me. We will always love you.”
“Thank you, my boy,” she murmured, grateful for the reassurance and yet not entirely satisfied. How could she tell this nineteen-year-old boy, who knew her only as a grandmother, that she had always longed for more than a merely domestic existence?
Charley rose. “Shall I come back tomorrow to fetch you for another visit?”
Betsy shook her head. “No, your father and I have said what we needed to say to one another. To see him again would only upset us both needlessly.”
“If you say so, Grandmama. But I shall look in on you just the same.”
After he left, Betsy opened her trunk. On the very top, wrapped in tissue paper, was the dress in which she had been married. Directly beneath it lay Jerome’s purple wedding coat. Fingering the plush velvet, she thought back to the first time she danced with him and the way her necklace had caught on his uniform. “Do you see, chère mademoiselle?” he had whispered. “Fate has brought us together, and we are destined never to part.”
Betsy closed her eyes, and almost immediately, her imagination carried her to another place, to Napoleonic France at the height of the emperor’s power. In her vision, she was still young and beautiful, and her husband was at her side. Together they crossed the parquet floor of an imposing reception room decorated with red draperies, neoclassical paintings, and gilt moldings. Crowds of courtiers watched their progress, but she and Jerome kept their gaze fixed straight ahead on a gilded throne with a round back that held a uniformed man who, although of no great physical height, towered over all of Europe by virtue of his genius. When they reached the dais on which he sat, his grey eyes drilled into Betsy. Jerome introduced her, and she made a deep curtsy. Napoleon rose and, taking her by the hand, raised her up and kissed her on each cheek.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank the Maryland Historical Society for preserving the Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte papers and for giving me permission to quote from them. I am grateful to the staff of Homewood House Museum on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and to the guides at Fort McHenry for historic information that helped shape this novel.
My intrepid team of readers made many helpful suggestions. My gratitude goes to Ginni Davis, Susan Eisenhammer, Kate Elledge, Steve Hillis, Deb Modde, Lise Nauman, and Erika Nicketakis. I also want to thank Sid Allen-Simpson, Rich Elliot, Richard Halstead, and Chris Johnson for useful and timely advice. Kathryn Ariano provided an invaluable service as my Baltimore-based research assistant.
I owe very special thanks to the wonderful people at Amika Press: to Jay Amberg for giving me a chance to bring this story to completion, to John Manos for insightful editorial suggestions, and to Sarah Koz for creative design work.
Last but not least, I want to thank my husband, Michael Chatlien, for being a reader, critic, cheerleader, and travel companion on the journey of discovery that was this novel.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHIES OF BETSY, JEROME AND BO
Atteridge, A. Hilliard. Napoleon’s Brothers. London: Methuen & Co, 1909.
Bourguignon-Frasseto, Claude. Betsy Bonaparte: The Belle of Baltimore. 1988. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2003.
Burn, Helen Jean. Betsy Bonaparte. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2010.
Didier, Eugene L. “An American Bonaparte.” The International Review. Volume II. July 1881.
Didier, Eugene L. The Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte. New York: Scribner’s, 1879.
Lewis, Charlene M. Boyer. Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte: An American Aristocrat in the Early Republic. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2012
Mitchell, S. A Family Lawsuit: The Story of Elisabeth Patterson and Jérôme Bonaparte. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, 1958.
Saffell, W.T.R. The Bonaparte-Patterson Marriage in 1803 and the Secret Correspondence on the Subject Never Before Made Public. Philadelphia: privately published, 1873.
Sergeant, Philip W. The Burlesque Napoleon. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1905.
HISTORIES, MEMOIRS, AND OTHER RESOURCES
Adams, Henry. History of the United States in 1800. Library of America, Book 31. New York: Library of America, 1986.
Arthur, Catherine Rogers and Cindy Kelly. Homewood House. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2004.
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Callcott, Margaret Law, editor. Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert 1795–1821. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1991.
Childs, Frances Sergeant. French Refugee Life in the United States 1790–1800: An American Chapter of the French Revolution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins P, 1940.
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Volume V, 1807-1816. Edited by Stanislaus Murray Hamilton. New York: Putnam, 1901.
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Parton, James. Daughters of Genius. Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers. 1886.
Perkins, Mary Mendenhall. “The Marble Bath of Jerome Napoleon.” Art and Achaeology. Volume 12. July 1921
Rath, Molly. “You Never Know What Will Turn up Among the Collectibles at the Maryland Historical Society.” Baltimore Sun. November 20, 1994.
Reynolds, William. A Brief History of the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. Baltimore: Session of the First Presbyterian Church, 1913.
Wake, Jehanne. Sisters of Fortune: America’s Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad. New York: Touchstone, 2010.
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
The novel contains excerpts from several of the letters written by the people whose lives are the basis for this story as well as other documents from the time. The sources for those letters and documents are listed below. If a letter does not appear in this list, I wrote it.—RHC
VI
Anonymous writer to William Patterson. In W.T.R. Saffell. The Bonaparte-Patterson Marriage in 1803 and the Secret Correspondence on the Subject Never Before Made Public. Philiadelphia: privately published. 1873. 29–30. [Hereinafter, Saffell.]
XI
Robert Patterson to William Patterson, March 12, 1804. Saffell. 36–39.
XII
French government decree, 11 Ventose, 1804. In Eugene L. Didier. The Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte. New York: Scribner’s. 1879. 16. [Hereinafter, Didier.]
XIV
Jerome Bonaparte to Minister Decrès, August 18, 1804. In Philip Sergeant. The Burlesque Napoleon. London: T. Werner Laurie. 1905. 87. [Hereinafter, Sergeant.]
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