Before her marriage Hortense had an attachment for General Duroc, who was hardly thirty years of age, had a fine figure, and was a favorite with the chief of state, who, knowing him to be prudent and discreet, confided to him important diplomatic missions. As aide-de-camp of the First Consul, general of division, and governor of the Tuileries, he lived long in familiar intimacy at Malmaison, and in the home life of the Emperor, and during necessary absences on duty, corresponded with Mademoiselle Hortense; and yet the indifference with which he allowed the marriage of the latter with Louis to proceed, proves that he reciprocated but feebly the affection which he had inspired. It is certain that he could have had. Mademoiselle de Beauharnais for his wife, if he had been willing to accept the conditions on which the First Consul offered the hand of his step-daughter; but he was expecting something better, and his ordinary prudence failed him at the time when it should have shown him a future which was easy to foresee, and calculated to satisfy the promptings of an ambition even more exalted than his. He therefore refused positively;
and the entreaties of Madame Bonaparte, which had already influenced her husband, succeeded.
Madame Bonaparte, who saw herself treated with so little friendship by the brothers of the First Consul, tried to make his family a defense for herself against the plots which were gathering incessantly around her to drive her away from the heart of her husband. It was with this design she worked with all her might to bring about the marriage of her daughter with one of her brothers-in-law.
General Duroc doubtless repented immediately of his precipitate refusal when crowns began to rain in the august family to which he had had it in his power to ally himself; when he saw Naples, Spain, Westphalia, Upper Italy, the duchies of Parma, Lucca, etc., become the appendages of the new imperial dynasty; when the beautiful and graceful Hortense herself, who had loved him so devotedly, mounted in her turn a throne that she would have been only too happy to have shared with the object of her young affections. As for him, he married Mademoiselle Hervas d'Almenara, daughter of the banker of the court of Spain. She was a little woman with a very dark complexion, very thin, and without grace; but, on the other hand, of a most peevish, haughty, exacting, and capricious temper.
As she was to have on her marriage an enormous dowry, the First Consul had demanded her hand in marriage for his senior aide-de-camp. Madame Duroc forgot herself, I have heard, so far as to beat her servants, and to bear herself in a most singular manner toward people who were in no wise her dependants. When M. Dubois came to tune her piano, unfortunately she was at home, and finding the noise required by this operation unendurable, drove the tuner off with the greatest violence.
In one of these singular attacks she one day broke all the keys of his instrument. Another time Mugnier, clockmaker of the Emperor, and the head of his profession in Paris, with Breguet, having brought her a watch of very great value that madame, the Duchess of Friuli had herself ordered, but which did not please her, she became so enraged, that, in the presence of Mugnier, she dashed the watch on the floor, danced on it, and reduced it to atoms. She utterly refused to pay for it, and the marshal was compelled to do this himself. Thus Duroc's want of foresight in refusing the hand of Hortense, together with the interested calculations of Madame Bonaparte, caused the misery of two households.
The portrait I have sketched, and I believe faithfully, although not a flattering picture, is merely that of a young woman with all the impulsiveness of the Spanish character, spoiled as an only daughter, who had been reared in indulgence, and with the entire neglect which hinders the education of all the young ladies of her country. Time has calmed the vivacity of her youth; and madame, the Duchess of Friuli, has since given an example of most faithful devotion to duty, and great strength of mind in the severe trials that she has endured. In the loss of her husband, however grievous it might be, glory had at least some consolation to offer to the widow of the grand marshal. But when her young daughter, sole heiress of a great name and an illustrious title, was suddenly taken away by death from all the expectations and the devotion of her mother, who could dare to offer her consolation? If there could be any (which I do not believe), it would be found in the remembrance of the cares and tenderness lavished on her to the last by maternal love. Such recollections, in which bitterness is mingled with sweetness, were not wanting to the duchess.