The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte (36 page)

“It sounds very good.” She rose and fetched Bo some paper. As he settled at the table, Betsy recalled the stories Henriette had told her. Although Betsy had not wanted to admit it at the time, she now thought Henriette was right. Jerome sounded sad.

NOTICING THAT BO had become moody after Tousard’s departure, Betsy decided that he needed more men in his life—men other than her father. She also wanted him to receive a more systematic education than she could give him, so in the spring, she wrote Bishop Carroll to inquire about enrolling her son at the same boarding school Dolley Madison’s son had attended. Being separated from Bo would pain her, but she was determined to do what was best for him.

While she waited for an answer, she spent hours trying to cut expenses and increase her income. Ever since the news that Napoleon had put aside Josephine, Betsy had feared his arbitrary power. Somehow, she had to accumulate enough money to remain independent even if he should cut off her pension.

One afternoon, Betsy pulled up a chair to the round tea table, placed a thick book on the seat, and settled Bo there so he could write comfortably. She gave him a page of addition problems to solve while she went over her accounts. After a few minutes, Bo said, “Mama?”

“Yes?” She did not stop working at her calculations.

“Why are you frowning?”

Betsy looked across at her son and consciously smoothed her forehead. “I was trying to think of ways to save more money.”

Bo bit the blunt end of his pencil. “Did the emperor stop your income?”

“No, but I want you to go to school in Europe someday, and that will cost more than I have right now.”

“I can go to school here like my uncles.”

Betsy laid down her pencil. “Bo, I have explained this. Your grandfather wanted your uncles to go into business, so they did not need a university education. You are quite different. You must be educated in a manner suitable for a prince.”

Bo thrust out his lip in a way that reminded Betsy of Jerome in a petulant mood. “But I can go into business too. I can get rich like grandfather and take care of you.”

“Oh, dear boy.” Betsy went to him and kissed the top of his head. “Your job is to apply yourself to your lessons, not to worry about me.”

“But Grandfather says—”

“Bo, you are my son, not his. Please remember that.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Betsy squeezed his shoulder lightly. “Don’t you know that I love you more than anything in the world?”

“Yes, Mama,” he answered. Hurt that he did not return the declaration of love, Betsy returned to her seat, picked up her pencil, and added a column of figures. After a moment, Bo blurted, “Mama, I think you are an angel, and I just want to make you happy.”

“Then do your arithmetic,” Betsy answered, but she smiled warmly at him as she said it. Bo grinned before bending back over his arithmetic problems.

ON JUNE 18, 1812, the United States declared war on Great Britain. Supporters called it a Second War for Independence, while critics disparaged it as “Mr. Madison’s War.”

Almost immediately, Baltimore descended into violence. Most people there favored the war, but one editor named Alexander Hanson published protests. On June 22, a mob destroyed his newspaper office. A month later, Hanson attempted to publish his paper from another building. This time, the resulting violence led to a shooting and the arrest of Hanson and his friends. A mob broke into the jail that evening and beat and tortured several prisoners, including Revolutionary War heroes James Lingan and Light-Horse Harry Lee. Lingan died of his wounds, and Lee suffered permanent injuries, including partial blindness.

The wanton viciousness horrified the rest of the country, and it made Betsy feel justified in her contempt for her hometown. The events had confirmed her belief that a strong monarch like Napoleon was preferable to democracy, in which ignorant mobs held too much sway.

Although tensions had been mounting with Britain for years, the U.S. government had not prepared for war, and the first campaigns of 1812 went badly. An attempted invasion of Canada by General William Hull ended in the capture of his army and the loss of Detroit.

The U.S. Navy was equally unprepared with only about 20 ships when the war began. However, the government authorized privateers to attack British shipping, and in the first four months, Americans seized more than 200 British merchantmen.

When Betsy’s brothers gleefully reported such captures, she scoffed, “To the British, such losses are no more than flea bites. You had better hope that Napoleon stays on his throne and the British remain mired in Spain. France is the only thing preventing Great Britain from crushing us.”

That fall, after spending weeks debating whether it was wise to be separated from her child in time of war, Betsy enrolled Bo in the boarding school at Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, fifty miles from Baltimore. Bishop Carroll had assured her that the teachers, all priests, would be strict with her son and instill in him the discipline she felt he needed. And Emmitsburg was further inland than Baltimore, so there was less likelihood that it would come under attack. Hardening her resolve, Betsy told herself she was doing what was right for her boy.

Her brother Edward accompanied them, and Betsy was glad of his company when she had to leave Bo. As their coach drove away from the school, her throat tightened so that she felt she was choking on sorrow, and her entire body ached as though she had just gone through a second ordeal of labor. Not even watching Jerome ride away from her in Lisbon had hurt so much as this.

Bo’s first letters deepened Betsy’s unhappiness. He described how lonely he felt and how much he missed her. Bo was used to rough-and-tumble interaction with his uncles, but he had associated with few boys outside the family. Now he complained that the other students mocked him. They called Napoleon a tyrant and harassed Bo because of his expectations to be a prince.

Betsy was about to fetch him home when she received a letter from the headmaster, Dr. DuBois. He reported that her son had been in a few minor scuffles—but only because he fought back when other boys tripped him or boxed his ears. “It is best for parents not to interfere in these contretemps. Jerome is learning to stand his ground, and this will go far toward achieving your purpose of making a man out of him.”

A few days after receiving that communication, Betsy joined President and Mrs. Madison for a private supper. President Madison seemed unusually grave that evening, and over soup, he said, “Forgive me, ladies. This afternoon I received a most troubling dispatch from our forces in the Northwest Territory. As Fort Dearborn was being evacuated in mid-August, a band of Potawatomi attacked and massacred more than fifty people, some of them women and children. I will not trouble you with the distressing details, but they weigh heavily on my mind.”

Dolley Madison frowned. “The newspapers are bound to use this report to print more unfair criticisms of you.”

Her husband raised his eyebrows as he gazed down the table at her. “Mrs. Madison, my own reputation is the least of my concerns.”

Dolley turned a faint pink. She was spared from having to answer as the servants came to clear away the soup bowls.

Once the main course was served, Mr. Madison changed the subject by asking Betsy about her son. She barely touched her roast beef as she spent the next several minutes pouring out her worries about Bo. When she finished, Dolley sighed and fingered her necklace. “My dear, I fear I am not the person to give you advice. My own son Payne continues to be unruly and shows no sign of settling down to a career even though he will reach the age of majority next year.”

Mr. Madison gave his wife a tender smile and then said, “Madame Bonaparte, I believe the worst thing you could do would be to rush to remove your son from school. You would undermine his confidence and brand him as a mama’s boy. Because of who he is, Bo will encounter jealousies his entire life, and he must learn how to win over his detractors.”

Dolley leaned over to pat Betsy’s hand. “I think Mr. Madison is right. I was over-indulgent with Payne after his father died, and now I regret it.”

Biting her lip, Betsy gazed at her plate. The food had cooled so much that the gravy had formed skin, and the sight spoiled what remained of her appetite. She sighed and reflected that nearly everything in life turned out more disappointing than anticipated. It was true that Dolley’s twenty-year-old son had a reputation for drunken mischief. Betsy did not want Bo to turn out like that, but oh, how she missed him. That, she realized, was the heart of the matter. She wanted her little boy by her side and had seized on the trouble at school as an excuse to bring him home.

Reluctantly, Betsy decided to give it more time. Two weeks later, Bo wrote to say that he had not had any recent battles, but he hated having to learn Latin. He pointed out that even though his grandfather had never studied it, he became a millionaire. Betsy knew from teaching Bo that he had inherited her ease with numbers, but that languages vexed him. In her next letter, she repeated that she meant to send him to a European university and that he must do well in all his subjects. Over the next few months, he stopped mentioning fights and reported improving at Latin, and Betsy was glad she had not given in to her impulse to rescue him.

THE WAR WAS not going well. The American forces were repulsed in their efforts to invade Ontario, and New Englanders—who generally opposed the conflict—were reputed to be carrying on a lively trade smuggling with Canada. The war had such mixed support that Betsy wondered whether James Madison would be reelected, but in November, he defeated the Federalist candidate DeWitt Clinton by winning nearly three-fifths of the electoral vote.

The war with Britain was not the only conflict discussed in Washington that autumn. People returning from Europe reported that Napoleon had invaded Russia. The French did not meet with early success. Armies led by Jerome, Marshal Davout, and Eugene de Beauharnais were sent to approach Prince Bagration from different directions, cutting him off from the other Russian forces and destroying his army, but the attack failed through lack of coordination. Most blamed it on Jerome. The more charitable reports said that his army arrived late because it had bogged down in mud, while others claimed he had dawdled for several days in a pleasant village.

Such stories made Betsy realize what a laughingstock Jerome had become. Travelers brought back tales of his dissolute, extravagant behavior. One scurrilous story concerned the Marble Bath at Kassel, a grand chamber ornamented with marble walls, statues, and carved reliefs surrounding a pool-sized bathtub. It was said that whenever Jerome indulged in a night of strenuous exertions with one of his mistresses, he would bathe in wine to restore his strength.

People often passed on such gossip to Betsy, usually with a malicious gleam in the eye that meant the rumormonger hoped she would respond with one of her stinging insults. Betsy refused to gratify such pot-stirrers.

Despite her pretended indifference, the reports of Jerome’s overspending worried her. She believed she was still his only lawful wife, which meant he had the right to control her money. Betsy did not really believe Jerome would deprive her of her carefully accumulated savings, but for the sake of her son’s future, she had to protect herself. Therefore, she filed a petition asking the General Assembly of Maryland to grant her a divorce by decree.

As the news of that request raced through the drawing rooms of Washington, Minister Sérurier informed Betsy that according to international protocol, reigning monarchs could not be named in lawsuits. Betsy shrugged and said that she was seeking a divorce from the man she had married in Baltimore, not the European king he became afterward. When Sérurier tried to argue the matter, she gave him the stare she used when Bo was being stubborn. “Monsieur, I did not realize you were the ambassador from Westphalia as well as France.”

Her divorce petition emboldened men to court her more aggressively. Jan Willink—the son of a Dutch investor whose land company owned much of western New York—had paid marked attention to Betsy for months. Now, other men tried their luck, including Supreme Court Justice William Johnson Jr., who wrote her maudlin poetry; Henry Lee IV, son of the injured hero Light-Horse Harry Lee; and a married senator who signed his love letters with a false name.

Although Betsy enjoyed flirting with her admirers and proving that she was still an accomplished coquette, none of the suitors tempted her to place herself under the power of a husband. She smiled, laughed, danced, and teased, but whenever anyone grew serious, she reminded him of her solemn resolve not to marry and grew cold until he behaved himself again.

Betsy’s divorce became official in January 1813, and when she heard the news, she felt no regret but rather a deep, heartfelt sense of relief. Jerome could now be as foolish as he chose. She and her son were safe from the consequences of his self-indulgence.

XXVIII

B
ETSY returned to Baltimore in March when Washington emptied at the end of the congressional session. By then, the British navy had blockaded Chesapeake Bay, and the impediment to shipping was further damaging William Patterson’s business. Whenever Betsy visited South Street, she found her father in such a bitter mood that she was glad to retire to her own house in the evenings, although she hated leaving her mother to deal on her own with his complaints.

That spring, news reached the United States of the disastrous outcome of Napoleon’s Russia campaign. He had begun his invasion the previous June with a force of 600,000 men. During the following months, the French army endured starvation, illness, Cossack raids, a bloody and indecisive battle at Borodino, a month-long stay in deserted Moscow where elusive Russians set fire after fire, and a devastating winter retreat through snow, ice, and temperatures that plunged to 22 degrees below zero. Horses froze to death in droves. When the army staggered out of Russia in mid-December, fewer than 100,000 men remained alive, and most of those were skeletal, frostbitten cripples.

Although the world rejoiced to see the invincible Bonaparte stumble, Betsy did not. The stories stunned her. How could Napoleon have erred so badly in failing to consider that the enemy might not play by his rules? The Russians refused to give battle until they were ready, burned their crops rather than let the French eat, and drew the French further into their vast country with constant retreats—allowing the logistical problems of supply and the unconquerable Russian climate to defeat the invaders.

For Betsy, only two aspects of the news were good. One was that because Jerome had resigned in a pique after losing his command early in the campaign, he sat out most of it in Kassel. Betsy found it exasperating that Jerome’s prickly, unjustifiable pride was what saved him, yet she could not help but be glad he had survived. The second piece of good news was that despite the terrible losses, Napoleon held onto his throne, so Betsy’s pension continued.

On April 16, a British fleet anchored at the mouth of the Patapsco River, and the residents of Baltimore worried that their city would come under attack. As soon as she heard the news, Betsy arranged to fetch Bo from school and flee to Virginia if the threat became more tangible. She did not trust the British to leave her Bonaparte son alone just because he was a child. Eight days after the fleet appeared, however, it sailed on without battle.

That summer at Springfield, Betsy read newspapers and wrote to friends to keep abreast of events in Europe. Just as Oakeley had predicted, a Sixth Coalition had formed consisting of the United Kingdom, Russia, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and several German states. The allies no doubt assumed that France was fatally weakened by its losses in Russia. Somehow Napoleon raised another huge army, and during two battles in Germany that May, he drove back combined Prussian and Russian forces.

Then family matters pushed both wars from Betsy’s thoughts. Ever since her last pregnancy, Dorcas had suffered shooting pains down her legs, which worsened until she had trouble standing or walking. That summer, a new set of symptoms plagued her. Her back ached, and her face, hands, and feet grew swollen. Once when she and Betsy were alone, Dorcas confided that she was having difficulty passing water, and when it came, it was dark. At Betsy’s insistence, her father sent for a doctor, who diagnosed a kidney ailment. The doctor bled Dorcas and told her to take warm baths. Because the bleeding weakened her mother, Betsy instructed the housekeeper to prepare menus with plenty of fresh vegetables to build up Dorcas’s strength. Gradually over the next few weeks, the back pain and swelling subsided.

Usually, Bo enjoyed summer more than any other season, but that year he worried about his grandmother. To lift his spirits, Betsy took him riding nearly every afternoon, with Bo on a pony and herself riding sidesaddle on a mare. A few days before his eighth birthday, Betsy went out to the kitchen building to talk to the housekeeper, a black-haired woman in her forties named Nancy Todd. Betsy instructed Mrs. Todd to make Bo’s favorite foods for his birthday meal.

On the day itself, Dorcas came downstairs for the feast in spite of her discomfort. As the family sat around the dining table, Betsy was charmed to see her son make his grandmother laugh by repeating jokes he had learned at school.

Once dinner was over, the family retired to the drawing room to watch Bo open his gifts. From his grandparents, he received copies of
Aesop’s Fables
and
Robinson Crusoe.
When he opened the latter, he exclaimed, “Oh, Mama, the boys at school told me this is a wonderful adventure. Can we start reading it right away?”

Betsy laughed. “Perhaps at bedtime. Now, thank your grandparents.”

Bo jumped up and kissed first his grandmother and then his grandfather, who tousled his sandy hair and said, “You’re a good boy.” As Bo returned to his pile of gifts, Patterson excused himself and left the room.

Edward had sent Bo a set of ceramic-glazed marbles, Henry and Octavius together gave him a carved wooden horse for his collection, and Caroline had made him a spinning toy called a whirligig, which was a button strung on two pieces of yarn.

Last, Betsy handed Bo her present, an imported English puzzle called Spilsbury’s Dissected Maps; this one was a map of Europe that had been affixed to a thin wooden board and then sawn apart along the countries’ borders so that each piece represented a different state. Betsy thought reassembling the puzzle would be a fun way for her son to learn the geography of the continent where he would live one day.

As Bo and the other boys started to play with the map, Betsy cautioned, “Be careful not to lose any pieces.” Then she glanced at her mother to see if she was enjoying herself.

Dorcas’s face was ashen, and she was grasping the arms of her chair. “Mother, are you all right?” Betsy asked.

“Yes,” Dorcas answered, but she sounded out of breath. “Just—tired.”

“Do you want to go back to bed?”

When Dorcas nodded, Betsy asked, “I will find Father to help you up the stairs.”

“No need.” Caroline rose from her seat. “I can take her to bed.”

As his grandmother left, Bo’s face fell, so Betsy said he could tell the housekeeper to serve the rest of his birthday cake at tea. He eagerly ran from the room, but when he returned minutes later, he was scowling. All evening as he and Octavius played with the map, Bo appeared troubled, but he swore nothing was wrong when Betsy questioned him at bedtime.

Two days later, Dorcas had a prolonged attack of vomiting, so Betsy could not take Bo riding. She gave him permission to go with Octavius but warned her brother to refrain from jumping or racing. In spite of her admonition, the boys were reckless, and Bo fell off his pony and landed on his shoulder. To Betsy’s relief, it was only sore, not broken. That night before she tucked Bo in, Betsy had him lie on his uninjured side so she could knead mustard oil into his muscles to reduce the pain.

“Mama?” he began, and Betsy could tell from Bo’s tone that he was about to ask something that weighed on his mind. She prepared herself for a query about his grandmother, but instead he asked, “Has Mrs. Todd been feeling poorly?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“No reason,” he mumbled.

“Bo, what is it? Did the housekeeper say something to you?”

He rolled onto his back to gaze at her. “Do you remember when I went out to the kitchen to tell her about my cake? Grandfather was there rubbing her.”

Anger swept over Betsy, but she masked her emotion. “Where was he rubbing her?”

Bo bit his lip and said, “Her bubbies. Her dress was open, and she moaned like it hurt.”

“Why did you keep this from me?”

“Grandfather said not to tell. He gave me a silver dollar.”

Betsy began to pace to keep from venting her fury before her child. She could not believe her father was so callous to his wife’s suffering as to seek carnal pleasure with a servant while Dorcas was in so much pain she could hardly walk. And what about the children? Bo had nearly walked in to see his grandfather mounting the woman like a bull on a cow. After nearly a minute, Bo asked plaintively, “Mama, did I do something bad?”

“Not you, dear. Your grandfather.”

“But he was just trying to make Mrs. Todd feel better.”

She halted to gaze at her son. Was it possible that with so many older uncles, he was still ignorant of such matters? Thinking quickly, she said, “Have you ever seen your grandfather tend the sick? That is not his job. Your grandmother and I can look after Mrs. Todd.”

“Oh.” His frown melted away, and he relaxed more deeply into his pillow. “Do I have to give Grandfather back his dollar?”

Betsy’s immediate impulse was to say yes, but she forced herself to consider the matter. As much as she distrusted her father’s influence, there was no denying that Bo adored him, and she did not want to destroy that relationship. She of all people knew how unforgiving her father could be if a child crossed him. “You may have the dollar, but only because you told me the truth. You must not keep secrets from me, Bo.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Pulling a thin sheet over him, she said, “Now go to sleep.”

She kissed his forehead and left the room, but she stopped on the landing to think. Confronting her father about his philandering would reveal that Bo had betrayed his confidence, so she could not do that. She would prefer to have one of her adult brothers handle the situation, but John was in Virginia, Joseph was in Europe, Edward was staying with the Smiths to court his cousin Sidney, and Robert was summering with Marianne’s family.

After weighing the possible options, Betsy decided to alert Edward to the affair before she returned to Washington.

IN AUTUMN 1813, news arrived of more fighting in Europe. In June, the British under General Arthur Wellesley, the Marquess of Wellington, won a resounding victory in Spain and caused Joseph Bonaparte to flee the country. The Sixth Coalition also achieved victories in Germany and Bohemia. Everyone was certain that Napoleon’s days were numbered.

Betsy resumed her social life in Washington, attending Dolly Madison’s open houses, dinners and dances throughout town, and concerts when they were offered. But the game of being the enchanting Madame Bonaparte had grown stale. At parties, Betsy worked hard to be amusing, and she defended Napoleon against his detractors, but she began to feel like an actress repeating the same lines performance after performance. Many men courted her, and the suitors generally fell into two camps—either inexperienced young men who burned with the desire to bed her or men of the world who wanted to win the distinction of conquering the notoriously aloof Madame Bonaparte. As she neared her twenty-ninth birthday, Betsy wondered if she would ever meet a man who loved her for her wit and strength of character as well as her beauty.

Sometimes when she looked in a mirror while dressing, Betsy saw not the reflection of a living woman but that of a beautifully painted porcelain figurine. On the outside she was lovely, but within she felt hollow and scarred with hairline cracks.

Then a new friend helped ease her brittleness—Elbridge Gerry, Madison’s second vice president. The sixty-nine-year-old Gerry had signed the Declaration of Independence, attended the Constitutional Convention, and served as a U.S. representative and Massachusetts governor. His friendship with Betsy was intellectual and free of romance; Gerry was devoted to his wife, who remained behind in Massachusetts as an invalid, having lost her health bearing ten children.

Betsy and Gerry often called together on mutual acquaintances, accompanied by Betsy’s maid Sadie to safeguard her reputation. As they rode in Gerry’s carriage, they debated the relative merits of various political systems. Like Betsy, the vice president did not trust the mob, having once said, “The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are dupes of pretended patriots.” Unlike Betsy, he despised Bonaparte for having abandoned republican government for empire. Gerry thought the ideal system was one in which officials were elected indirectly, and government powers were scrupulously kept in check. Even when they disagreed, Betsy was grateful that he spoke to her as an equal.

That Christmas, when Betsy went to Baltimore, Edward told her privately that he had seen no sign of intimacy between Mrs. Todd and their father. Betsy shrugged. She had more pressing concerns on her mind. Dorcas still tired easily. She was only fifty-two but had the frail appearance and stiff movements of a much older woman. According to Caroline, she frequently spent a day or two in bed with fevers, and Betsy feared that her mother’s body was failing her.

Dorcas did not seem to be facing an imminent crisis, however, so at her mother’s urging, Betsy returned to Washington before New Year’s Day. In early February, she learned that Jerome had lost his kingdom the previous October. The war had gone badly for Napoleon’s forces, leading to the loss not only of Westphalia but also of Holland.

When Betsy shared the news with her aunt over supper, Nancy said, “If Jerome has lost his throne, he can divorce that princess and come back to you.”

Betsy was so astonished that she dropped her fork. “I would not take him back. He has proven himself unworthy of me.”

“But you know he has not forgotten you. Surely you could forgive him and start anew.”

Shaking her head, Betsy quoted La Rochefoucauld: “It is impossible to love a second time those whom we have really ceased to love.”

She spent a few days trying to decide how to convey the bad news to Bo at school, but then a letter arrived in which her son reported hearing that his dear father had lost his kingdom. Bo did not seem personally upset by the news, yet he worried that she might be depressed because of “the late calamities” that the French had suffered.

Betsy smiled over this proof of her son’s affection and took out paper to write to him. The fact that he cared so little about how the “calamities” might affect his own future puzzled her, but then again, she reminded herself that Bo was only eight and had not yet displayed the ambition that had seized her at such an early age. Perhaps it was not in his character. Instead of upbraiding him for his indifference, Betsy wrote that she was fine and then gave a lively account of her latest social engagements, including a humorous story about a man who tried to convert her to an all-vegetable diet.