Read Online Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte by Carol Berkin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Carol Berkin
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of other people’s motives that was the darker side of self-reliance. For the moment, however, it was enough that she was determined to find her own voice, to make her own decisions. She would no longer rely on her father or brothers to protect her interests, and thus she would no longer have to justify her choices. She would choose her own path and negotiate, if need be, with emperors, kings, ambassadors, and congressmen for what she wanted.
She grew quickly adept at reading the motives of her enemies and allies alike, and she now clearly understood that men with power operated in their own best interest. She would do the same. She knew what she wanted: to secure a future for her son and to find a way out of Baltimore. The question was, How to achieve both?
In 1807 Bo, as the three-year-old Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte was called, was a handsome, healthy child with an uncertain legal and social status. In Europe he was the illegitimate son of the king of Westphalia. In America he was the sole offspring of a marriage still recognized as legal in Maryland. He was thegrandson of one of America’s wealthiest citizens and the natural nephew of the emperor of France. Above all, he carried the surname Bonaparte, and this alone made him an object of considerable interest on both continents. Perhaps most significant, he would become a pawn in a struggle between William Patterson and Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, for each believed his choice of loyalty would vindicate their respective actions.
Betsy might have pursued a course of action that reduced, if not resolved, the importance of her son’s paternity. She could have quickly filed for a divorce in her home state and just as quickly remarried, giving Bo a father figure and a refuge from political intrigue and social notoriety. This was a choice William Patterson would surely have approved. It was true that Betsy was not a widow, the most respectable status for remarriage; but a dowry from her father could have swept away any concerns about this. Her family wealth, her beauty, and what many saw as her tragic betrayal combined to make her desirable to several eligible bachelors. But Betsy had no intention of remarrying. She meant instead to fight for recognition of her son as a full member of the French imperial family. She meant to see him ranked among the successors to the throne of France. She had once thrown down a challenge to Napoleon—“Tell him that Madame Bonaparte is ambitious and demands her rights as a member of the imperial family.” Now it was Bo’s rights that consumed her thoughts and that would shape many of her actions for the rest of her life. It seemed not to occur to her, until it was too late, that Bo did not value those “rights” as much as his mother did.
Betsy’s attention was no longer focused on her former husband,the king of Westphalia. She dismissed him, and his excuses for abandoning her, with contempt. In November 1807, when an American visitor to Jérôme’s court wrote to Betsy that the king “speaks of you as the only woman he ever loved or ever shall love tho’ united to another much against his Inclination which the Emperor his Brother cruelly imposed on him,” Betsy was unimpressed. On the margin of the letter, she later wrote her own commentary: “The Kindness of my ExHusband the King was ever of the unremitting kind as no money accompanied it.”
It was Napoleon, not Jérôme, who she believed could provide Bo with the recognition she desired so intensely for him. And there were many who believed the emperor would do just that. Eliza Anderson, who had accompanied Betsy on the
Erin,
wrote to her at the end of May 1808 with news she had received from France. The emperor, Eliza declared, intended to make Betsy duchess regent of someplace or another. The news was little more than rumor, Eliza admitted, but she was convinced it reflected Napoleon’s softened attitude toward the woman he had once dismissed as “that little girl.”
She grew quickly adept at reading the motives of her enemies and allies alike, and she now clearly understood that men with power operated in their own best interest. She would do the same. She knew what she wanted: to secure a future for her son and to find a way out of Baltimore. The question was, How to achieve both?
In 1807 Bo, as the three-year-old Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte was called, was a handsome, healthy child with an uncertain legal and social status. In Europe he was the illegitimate son of the king of Westphalia. In America he was the sole offspring of a marriage still recognized as legal in Maryland. He was thegrandson of one of America’s wealthiest citizens and the natural nephew of the emperor of France. Above all, he carried the surname Bonaparte, and this alone made him an object of considerable interest on both continents. Perhaps most significant, he would become a pawn in a struggle between William Patterson and Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, for each believed his choice of loyalty would vindicate their respective actions.
Betsy might have pursued a course of action that reduced, if not resolved, the importance of her son’s paternity. She could have quickly filed for a divorce in her home state and just as quickly remarried, giving Bo a father figure and a refuge from political intrigue and social notoriety. This was a choice William Patterson would surely have approved. It was true that Betsy was not a widow, the most respectable status for remarriage; but a dowry from her father could have swept away any concerns about this. Her family wealth, her beauty, and what many saw as her tragic betrayal combined to make her desirable to several eligible bachelors. But Betsy had no intention of remarrying. She meant instead to fight for recognition of her son as a full member of the French imperial family. She meant to see him ranked among the successors to the throne of France. She had once thrown down a challenge to Napoleon—“Tell him that Madame Bonaparte is ambitious and demands her rights as a member of the imperial family.” Now it was Bo’s rights that consumed her thoughts and that would shape many of her actions for the rest of her life. It seemed not to occur to her, until it was too late, that Bo did not value those “rights” as much as his mother did.
Betsy’s attention was no longer focused on her former husband,the king of Westphalia. She dismissed him, and his excuses for abandoning her, with contempt. In November 1807, when an American visitor to Jérôme’s court wrote to Betsy that the king “speaks of you as the only woman he ever loved or ever shall love tho’ united to another much against his Inclination which the Emperor his Brother cruelly imposed on him,” Betsy was unimpressed. On the margin of the letter, she later wrote her own commentary: “The Kindness of my ExHusband the King was ever of the unremitting kind as no money accompanied it.”
It was Napoleon, not Jérôme, who she believed could provide Bo with the recognition she desired so intensely for him. And there were many who believed the emperor would do just that. Eliza Anderson, who had accompanied Betsy on the
Erin,
wrote to her at the end of May 1808 with news she had received from France. The emperor, Eliza declared, intended to make Betsy duchess regent of someplace or another. The news was little more than rumor, Eliza admitted, but she was convinced it reflected Napoleon’s softened attitude toward the woman he had once dismissed as “that little girl.”
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