One of the greatest mysteries of the Napoleon Memoirs involves Napoleon’s Stepdaughter and Sister in Law Hortense de Beauharnais Bonaparte. She is the writer of one of the most critical honest memoirs about Napoleon and yet she covered her exile home in images of him, she named three of her sons Napoleon and she raised her son, Louis Napoleon, to vindicate the Emperor.
One of Hortense’s many complaints against Napoleon in her memoirs is that he set it up so that his siblings would hate her by holding her up as a standard of exemplary behavior. In this letter below, Hortense shows real disturbance that Napoleon is setting the Murats up to hate her son by treating him as his heir. Hortense had no illusions about the ferocity of their ambition. Looking back based on their actions, we can have no question about this reality. Why didn’t Napoleon understand that he was creating discord amongst his family? Or was he up to something? It really is a mystery. The more I examine this story, the more I come to believe that despite Napoleon’s towering genius there were some gaps in his ability to read people’s true intentions. He really was duped a lot by people who were pretending that they were good.
Dear Eugene,
12 Fructidor, Year XIII, August 30, 1805.
The whole of General Nansouty’s division, who were at Lille, have all just left to go to the Rhine. All the dragoons also have left the coast, and the division of grenadiers commanded by General Oudinot is also ordered to march.
You see that these are great reasons to believe there will be continental warfare. Marshal Duroc left Boulogne incognito, to go I do not know where, but he passed through Brussels. This is all my news.
I had forgotten to tell you, in my last letter, that I had spoken of you with the Emperor. I told him how much you wished to do what would be agreeable to him, and that if you did not exactly fulfill his aims, that it would never be your fault. I told him how sad you are to be separated from him. That I would like you to be married. He told me that it would be necessary to find a little Parisienne.
I confess that it surprised me a lot, but I thought maybe he did not remember that he had spoken to me on different terms this winter and perhaps he doesn’t want to include me in his projects.
Despite this, he has been very good to me. He caressed Napoleon one day, in the presence of Murat and his wife as he said to us: "This poor child, I pity him. He would be much happier if he had three hundred thousand francs a year and that he may enjoy his liberty rather than to rule a great country. It is a very sad thing.” You know that I do not much like the Emperor predicting the future of this poor little one. Who knows what will become of him? In the meantime, it is making people jealous and it is creating enemies.
Good bye, my dear Eugene, I embrace you as I love you.
HORTENSE.
The whole story so far is here.