The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel (18 page)

Eliza continued to vacillate over whether to return to Europe. “For two years Mad
^e
Jumel and Mr Desobry have been telling me that she is going to come,” Stephen wrote to a business associate in 1820.
²³
But early that year, his wife was leaning toward departure. Perhaps she felt lonely living year-round in the countryside, as her desire to occupy the Broadway house might suggest. Or she may have found it difficult to maintain the living standard she preferred, given the strain on Stephen's finances from the weak economy.

Eliza began to try to lease Mount Stephen. She had a potential renter for the mansion in mind: Joseph Bonaparte, who had reigned as king of Spain for five years while his brother, Napoleon I, was
conquering Europe. Joseph had taken refuge in the United States after the fall of the First Empire and in 1816 had purchased a country estate in Bordentown, New Jersey. The beautifully decorated home, known as Point Breeze, had burned to the ground in an accidental fire in January 1820.
²⁴

Eliza was in contact with Bonaparte's agent about the possibility of the dethroned monarch renting the Jumel mansion.
²⁵
Had the deal gone through, she would have savored the social triumph—but the ex-monarch decided to rebuild Point Breeze. On March 25 he wrote to Eliza politely from Philadelphia:

Madame:

I am sorry for all the trouble you have taken in sending me a list of the furniture, and your kind offers of your beautiful country place, but since I have decided not to leave my estate in New Jersey, I can only reply by thanking you and renewing my compliments.

Joseph Bonaparte
²⁶

Eliza kept the brief note for the rest of her life.

Napoleon's brother failing her, Eliza advertised the property for let in 1820 and early '21, lauding the virtues of the “roomy and convenient mansion house,” “collection of superb Paintings,” “spacious ornamental garden,” and “vineyard of the best table grapes.”
²⁷
But she was unsuccessful in securing a tenant. There is no indication that she considered selling the estate, which would be hers for life if she survived Stephen. Ten years his junior, she could expect to outlive him and have the opportunity to return to her native land.

Ultimately Eliza had to arrange to auction the furniture and pictures—it would have been impractical to ship them back to France—and trust that an agent would be able to lease the vacant dwelling.
²⁸
An itemized list of the artworks was printed in advance, grandly titled
Catalogue of original paintings, from Italian, Dutch, Flemish and French masters of the ancient and modern times, selected by the best judges from eminent galleries in Europe, and intended for a private gallery in America
.
²⁹

When the sale took place on April 24, 1821, it attracted more rubberneckers than serious purchasers. Thanks to her return to Mount Stephen without her husband and the exhibition of her paintings at the Academy of the Fine Arts, Eliza had become the subject of gossip. It was probably around this time that the rumor began to circulate that she had tricked Stephen into marrying her. John Pintard, who, as we have seen, was the first to record the tale, wrote that the auction “attracted all the Ladies, as well to look at the pictures as at their decayed mistress.” His wife and younger daughter Louisa went “to see what is to be seen, with little inclination and less money to buy.” Although they acquired nothing, they “passed a very pleasant day & returned in the evening high[ly] delighted.”
³⁰

Too many other attendees left empty-handed as well. The American economy was still fragile after the Panic of 1819.
³¹
The mixed reception of the artworks at the 1817 exhibition may have affected their salability in particular. According to Pintard, Eliza's paintings “were considered
pas grandes choses
” (i.e., nothing much) when they were exhibited at the Academy of the Fine Arts.
³²
The comment suggests that John Rubens Smith's cranky reviews had biased potential purchasers against them. A tale that the paintings had belonged to Cardinal Joseph Fesch before Eliza acquired them—a story she must have circulated in an attempt to boost their sale value—wasn't enough to create strong demand.
³³
(There is no indication that more than one or two, at most, were owned previously by that avid art collector, an uncle of Napoleon.)
³⁴

Two months later Eliza put the remainder of her once-cherished possessions, imported from France at great expense, up for sale at the Park Hall Auction Room. At 10 am, potential purchasers could bid on

a splendid assortment of elegant Furniture, Paintings, Looking Glasses, &c. the property of the family going to Europe, consisting of 2 large canopy bedsteads, mahogany and gilt, 3 dozen elegant mahogany chairs, satin backs and bottoms, latest French fashion; 2 large looking glasses, 1 elegant cut glass chandelier, 2 down beds
[i.e., mattresses], 2 hair mattresses, 1 hand organ, 1 marble statue, 2 glass stands, 2 bathing tubs, a large collection of original paintings of the most celebrated European masters, &c. &c. Sale peremptory for cash.
³⁵

Eliza's “elegant barouche and pair of horses” was also available, and would be auctioned at Byrnes Repository in Walker Street.
³⁶

Ten or twelve of the paintings and possibly some of the furnishings returned unsold to the mansion on Harlem Heights.
³⁷
But it would not have been Eliza who reinstalled them. On June 16, two days after the auctions, she and Mary sailed for Europe.
³⁸

18

I
n a letter book Stephen used during the 1820s, a short sentence is penned among notations relating to business: “I love my dear uncle Stephen very much.”
¹
The tribute was written by Stephen's youngest niece, Felicie Lagardere.

During Eliza's four-year absence in the United States, Stephen was in regular contact with his extended family in Mont-de-Marsan. As early as 1809 he had sent money from New York to pay for a house for his brother François.
²
More recently he had become close to his sister Madelaine's daughters, Felicie and Rose, and the latter's husband, Jean Lesparre Jeantet. He trusted Lesparre, a cloth merchant, to handle business matters for him in Mont-de-Marsan, and wrote to him regularly when away from his hometown.
³

In late May 1821, as Eliza wound up her affairs in New York, Stephen made an important contribution to his own family's welfare. Twenty-four-year-old Felicie had only a modest dowry, an income of three hundred francs per year. Stephen made possible her marriage with a wealthy landowner by promising the couple fifteen thousand francs, to be paid a year after his death.
⁴

Before the summer ended, Eliza, now forty-six, had rejoined her husband. In 1821 or '22 the Jumels moved to 16, place Vendôme, a
more elegant address than the rue de Clèry. Planned at the beginning of the eighteenth century by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who designed much of the royal domain of Versailles, the square was lined on all sides by attached townhouses boasting mansard roofs and uniform façades. In the center, a 133-foot-tall column covered with bas-reliefs commemorated the French conquest of the German states during the Napoleonic wars. Although the monument was crowned originally with a statue of Napoleon, the white flag of the restored Bourbon monarchy was fluttering gaily from its peak by the time the Jumels settled in the place Vendôme. A “delightful” view of Paris and its suburbs was available from a gallery encircling the top of the column.
⁵

Number sixteen, the townhouse the Jumels rented, had been inhabited for a time in the eighteenth century by Antoine Mesmer, a pioneering advocate of hypnotism (originally known after him as “mesmerism”).
⁶
During the Napoleonic period, it was leased to senior officials passing through Paris.
⁷
The French Ministry of Justice was (and is still) located on the opposite side of the square, visible from the Jumels' windows.

Eliza circulated in Parisian society, renewing her earlier connections. The marquis de Cubières had died of a stroke on August 10, 1821, but Eliza stayed in contact with his widow and daughters.
⁸
Adèle wrote to her from the country one day: “Maman is definitely going to Paris tomorrow. She has promised to dine there, but Henriette and I will have the pleasure of dining with you if that suits you, as long as it can be around four o'clock.” Their mother wanted to return home the same evening. “As soon as we arrive, we will hurry to join you,” Adèle added, “so then we can do our shopping together.”
⁹

Another evening might have found Eliza visiting a neighbor in the place Vendôme: “M
^de
Butler presents her compliments to M. and Madame Jumell [
sic
] and Mademoiselle their Niece, and requests the pleasure of their company at her house next Tuesday evening.”
¹⁰

Now that Mary was an adult—she turned twenty in 1821—she could join Eliza for more than family parties. Rosalie Pinel, a close
friend of the marquise de la Suze (who persisted in her attempts to convert Eliza to Catholicism), arranged an escort for them for a special event: “I have the promise of two tickets for six o'clock, for you and Miss Mary, and besides that, a cavalier whom you will find most agreeable and who will be delighted to accompany you. He is Mons. the General Controller. He will be in uniform.”
¹¹
Since a uniformed official had the entrée to court, they may have been attending a levee or official function.
¹²

An evening at the opera offered another opportunity for a brush with royalty. In an undated letter, Adèle wrote excitedly to Eliza, “We have just learned, madame, that the king will go Tuesday to the Grand Opera … I hasten to tell you of it, because the boxes are very quickly sold out as soon as this news is known in Society.” Would Mr. Jumel please engage a box right away? she asked. “I have the honor to remind him that the king, at present, does not go to the fine Royal Box that we so greatly admire, but that they have set aside for him a big one where gather all the princes and the service, right in the middle of the auditorium at the front of the theater.”
¹³

“The service” referred to the well-born gentlemen, military officers, and civil servants in immediate attendance on the king. Posts in the king's train were sought-after honors, because their occupants received admission to court, as well as reflected glory from proximity to the monarch.
¹⁴
Thus madame d'Egvilly informed Eliza with pride that her husband, who bore the title of
maître d'hotel
(making him a sort of glorified steward in the royal household), could not accept an invitation because he was at the Tuileries Palace: “He is on duty serving the king and cannot budge from the château.”
¹⁵

Eliza wished that she could brag in the same way about her own husband. An undated sheet survives on which she drafted a letter to Louis XVIII:

Sire:

Every time I have had the honor of seeing your Majesty, the graciousness with which you have deigned to notice my carriage and the great kindness with which you bow to me, makes me feel like
writing to you. But once out of your presence, courage fails me. The return of your Majesty—day [
sic
] I have so ardently wished for—caused me so much joy that I seem to be inspired with new courage to present a petition in favor of my husband.

My husband left France at the beginning of the Revolution and established a home in New York (U.S.A.) with the resolution of never again seeing his native land until the return of the Bourbons. He became a merchant and has been very fortunate in his business, becoming one of the most influential men in New York. He is so patriotic that he has been unwilling to have commercial relations anywhere except with France. He was the first to introduce La Soirée [she means
la soierie
, i.e., silk goods] at wholesale in the United States, and in doing this has created a demand for French merchandise, in consequence bringing about an enormous trade, so that the most celebrated manufacturers of France have worked for him and have sent millions … through his business.