Napoleonic Literature
Memoirs of Constant - Vol. I
Chapter XIII
Return of the First Consul to Paris— Arrival of Prince Camille Borghese— Pauline Bonaparte and her first husband, General Leclerc— The General's love for his wife— Portrait of General Leclerc— Departure of the General for Santo Domingo— The First Consul decrees the departure of his sister also— Revolt of Christophe and Dessalines— Arrival of the General and his wife at the Cape— Courage of Madame Leclerc— Insurrection of the blacks— The remains of the army of Brest, and twelve thousand revolted negroes— Heroic valor of the General-in-Chief, attacked by a fatal disease— Courage of Madame Leclerc— Nobleness and intrepidity— Pauline saving her son— Death of General Leclerc— Marriage of Pauline— Chagrin of Lafon, and response of Mademoiselle Duchesnois— M. Jules de Canouville and the Princess Borghese— The Princess in disgrace with the Emperor— Generosity of the Princess toward her brother— The only friend that remained to him— The diamonds of the Princess in the Emperor's carriage at the battle of Waterloo.

THE First Consul quitted Boulogne to return to Paris, where he wished to be present at the marriage of one of his sisters Prince Camille Borghese, a descendant of one of the most noble families of Rome, had arrived there to marry Madame Pauline Bonaparte, widow of General Leclerc, who died of yellow fever at Santo Domingo.

I remember having seen this unhappy general, at the house of the First Consul, some time before his departure for the fatal expedition which cost him his life and France the loss of so many brave soldiers and of enormous sums of money. General Leclerc, whose name is now almost forgotten, or even in some sort abandoned to contempt, was a kind and benevolent man. He was passionately enamoured of his wife whose levity, to say nothing worse, afflicted and plunged him into a profound and habitual melancholy which it was painful to behold. The Princess Pauline (who was far enough from being a princess then) had nevertheless married him freely and from choice; which did not prevent her from tormenting her husband by caprices without end, and telling him a hundred times a day that he was very fortunate in having a sister of the First Consul for his wife. I am convinced that, with his simple tastes and pacific temper, General Leclerc would have liked less brilliancy and more repose much better.

The First Consul had required his sister to accompany the General to Santo Domingo. She was obliged to obey and to quit Paris, where she wielded the sceptre of fashion and eclipsed all other women by her elegance and her coquetry as much as by her incomparable beauty, in order to go and brave a dangerous climate and the ferocious companions of Christophe and Dessalines. At the close of the year 1801, the flag-ship Océan had sailed for the Cape, with General Leclerc, his wife, and their son on board.

On arriving at the Cape, the conduct of Madame Leclerc was above all praise. On more than one occasion, but particularly on that which I am going to try to recall, she displayed a courage worthy of her name and the position of her husband. I have these details from an eye-witness, whom I knew in Paris in the service of the Princess Pauline.

The day of the great insurrection of the blacks, in September, 1802, the bands of Christophe and Dessalines, composed of more than twelve thousand negroes exasperated by their hatred against the whites, and their certainty that if they failed no quarter would be given them, came to assault the Cape town, which was defended by only a thousand soldiers. These were the only remnants of that numerous army which had gone out of Brest a year earlier, so brilliant and so full of hope. This handful of heroes, the majority of them weak from fever, commanded by the general-in-chief of the expedition, who was likewise suffering from the malady of which he died, repulsed the repeated attacks of the negroes with unheard-of efforts and heroic valor.

During the combat, in which the fury if not the numbers and force were equal on both sides, Madame Leclerc was with her son, and under the guard of a devoted friend who had only a weak artillery company at his orders, in the house where her husband had established his residence, at the foot of the rocks bordering the coast. The General-in-Chief, fearing lest this residence might be surprised by a part of the enemy, and unable to foresee the result of the struggle he was maintaining at the upper end of the Cape, where the blacks were making their most furious assaults, sent orders to have his wife and son taken on board the French fleet. Pauline would not consent to it. Always true to the pride inspired in her by her name (though there was this time both grandeur and nobility in her pride), she said to the ladies of the city, who had taken shelter with her, and who were entreating her to depart, and telling her horrible things about the treatment to which women were exposed by the negroes: "The rest of you can go. You are not Bonaparte's sisters."

However, the danger increasing every moment, General Leclerc sent an aide-de-camp to the residence, who was enjoined, in case of a new refusal on the part of Pauline, to take her on board in spite of herself. The officer was obliged to execute this order strictly. Madame Leclerc was held by force in an armchair carried by four soldiers. A grenadier marched at her side, with the son of his general in his arms; and during this scene of flight and terror, the child, already worthy of his mother, played with his conductor's plume. Followed by her cortege of women, all trembling and in tears, of whom her courage was the only rampart on this dangerous transit, Pauline was transported in this way as far as the seashore. But just as they were about to put her in the boat, another of her husband's aides brought her news of the defeat of the blacks. "You see," said she as they were returning to the house, "I was right in not wishing to embark." Still she was not yet entirely out of danger. A troop of negroes belonging to the army which had just been so miraculously repulsed, and seeking to effect their retreat among the piers, met the feeble escort of Madame Leclerc. The insurgents seemed to be intending to attack them; they had to be driven off by muskets fired in their very faces. Pauline maintained an imperturbable presence of mind in the midst of this affray.

All these circumstances were of course reported to the First Consul, his self-love was flattered by them, and I think it was to the Prince Borghese that he said one day at his levee: "Pauline was predestined to espouse a Roman; for she is all Roman, from head to foot."

Unhappily this courage, which a man might have envied her, was not accompanied in the Princess Pauline by those less brilliant and more modest virtues which are nevertheless more necessary to a woman and more rightfully expected of her than audacity and indifference to danger.

I do not know whether it is true, as has been written somewhere, that Madame Leclerc had an affection for an actor of the Théâtre Français at the time she was obliged to go to Santo Domingo. Neither can I say whether Mademoiselle Duchesnois did really have the naïveté to exclaim in the presence of a hundred persons, apropos of this departure: "Lafon will never be consoled for it; he is capable of dying on account of it." But what I personally knew of the frailties of this princess would easily incline me to believe this anecdote.

All Paris knew the particular favor with which she honored M. Jules de Canouville, 1 a young and brilliant colonel, of great bravery, perfect figure, and a recklessness which gained him innumerable successes with certain women, although he employed very little discretion with them. The Princess Pauline's liaison with this amiable officer was the most durable that she ever formed. Unfortunately, neither of them was at all reserved, and their mutual affection soon acquired a scandalous publicity. Later, I shall have occasion to relate, in its own place, the adventure which caused the disgrace, banishment, and perhaps the death of Colonel de Canouville; the whole army deplored his death, so premature and above all so cruel, because it was not by an enemy's bullet that he was struck. 2

Yet, whatever may have been the weakness of the Princess Pauline for her lovers, and although such incredible examples of it may be cited, without departing from truth, her admirable devotion to the person of His Majesty the Emperor, in 1814, should cause her faults to be treated with indulgence.

A hundred times had the heedlessness of her conduct, and especially her failure in attention and respect toward the Empress Marie-Louise, irritated the Emperor against the Princess Borghese. He always ended by forgiving her. Still, at the time of her august brother's fall, she was again in disgrace. On being informed that the island of Elba had been assigned as a prison to the Emperor, she hastened to shut herself up there with him, abandoning Rome and Italy, whose most beautiful palaces belonged to her. At the critical period before the battle of Waterloo, His Majesty found the heart of his sister Pauline faithful. Fearing that he might need money she sent him her richest diamond ornaments, the price of which was enormous. They were found in the carriage of the Emperor, which was taken at Waterloo and exposed to the curiosity of the inhabitants of London. But the diamonds have been lost, at least to their legitimate owner.


1.  M. Bousquet, a celebrated dentist, was summoned to Neuilly (the residence of the Princess Pauline), in order to examine the teeth of Her Imperial Highness. On being introduced into her apartments, he made ready to begin his operation. "Sir." said a charming young man in a dressing gown, lying negligently on a sofa, "take good care, I entreat you, about what you are going to do. I am extremely attached to my Paulette's teeth, and will make you responsible for any accident." "Be easy, my Prince; I can assure Your Imperial Highness that there will not be the least danger." The advice continued all the time that M. Bousquet was occupied in arranging this pretty mouth at last, having finished what he had to do, he passed into the attendants' hall where the ladies of the palace, the chamberlains, etc., were assembled, awaiting their time to enter the apartment of the Princess. They made haste to ask M. Bousquet questions. "Her Imperial Highness is very well," said he, "and she ought to be very happy in the tender attachment of her August spouse, which he has just been displaying before me in such a touching manner. His anxiety was extreme, and it was with difficulty that I could reassure him about the consequences of the simplest thing in the world. I shall tell everywhere what I have just witnessed. It is sweet to be able to cite such examples of conjugal tenderness in so elevated a rank. I am really impressed by it." Nobody tried to interrupt the worthy M. Bousquet in the expression of his enthusiasm; the longing to laugh prevented a word from being said, and he went away convinced that nowhere was there to be found a more admirable family life than that of the Prince and Princess Borghese. The former was in Italy, and the handsome young man was M. de Canouville. I have borrowed this curious anecdote from the Mémoires de Josephine, the author of which, who has seen and observed the courts of Navarre and Malmaison with so much truth and good judgment, is, I am told, a woman, and who cannot, in fact, be other than a very intelligent woman, and one better placed than any one else for knowing the private life of Her Majesty the Empress. Return to paragraph text.

2.  He was killed by a bullet from a French gun, discharged by some one after an action in which he had displayed the most brilliant courage. Return to paragraph text.
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