The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte (46 page)

Bo met her in Switzerland, and they traveled to Florence, where they stayed for three weeks so Betsy could introduce him to her friends and perhaps excite some interest in a noble match for him. She also made inquiries among the ambassadors she knew, particularly Demidov, about a possible diplomatic career for Bo. All who met him thought he showed an aptitude for the life.

Then, because Betsy had no wish to see her ex-husband ever again, Bo traveled by himself to Rome to visit his Bonaparte relatives. The plan was for the two of them to return to the United States the following spring so Bo could commence his law studies with Betsy living nearby.

While in Rome, Bo wrote Betsy that Pauline, who died of stomach cancer the year before, had left him $4,000. Jerome was not in Rome because he feared his wife’s relatives might feel that, by acknowledging his eldest son, he was casting doubt on his second family’s legitimacy. So at the end of October, Bo traveled to meet his father at a secluded country estate near Camerino, Italy, where they would be out of the public eye. He remained there two months. Then in January, when it became apparent that Catharine’s relatives made no objection to Bo’s visit, the entire family traveled to Rome.

Bo wrote Betsy that his father and stepmother treated him kindly, and he enjoyed meeting his half-siblings, Jerome Napoleon, Mathilde, and Napoleon Joseph (nicknamed Plon-Plon). He did say, however, that his father and Catharine’s way of life was very hard to get used to after the long hours of study he had been keeping. They rose late, breakfasted at noon, did not take their last meal of the day until eleven or twelve at night, and went to bed two hours later. All they did was sit around and gossip, and Bo found it impossible to read. He estimated that his father spent three times his income, and Bo worried that if he stayed with them too long, he would get used to a way of life he could not afford.

In early March, Bo rejoined his mother in Florence. As they sat together over breakfast the morning after his arrival, he said, “I am glad I took this opportunity to get to know my father. He was very affectionate and tried to persuade me to stay with him, but their mode of living and thinking is so entirely different from my habits that I cannot accustom myself to it. I have always known that America is the only country for me.”

Betsy set down her coffee cup with a clink. “Really, I wish you would not discount all of Europe simply because you do not find your father’s way of living congenial. I manage to live economically and still gain admittance to the first circles of European society.”

“Mama, I don’t care about the first circles of Europe. I am too much attached to the government, customs, and manners of America to be happy anywhere else.”

“If you are to be a diplomat, you must adapt to all manner of society.”

He frowned at the mention of a diplomatic career. “At any rate, I must go home and study the law before I can embark on a profession. Shall I book passage for us?”

“Do we have to go just yet?”

Bo chose a hard roll from the breadbasket, tore it in half, and began to butter it. “I thought you had agreed that we would sail for home in the spring.”

“So we shall, but spring has just begun and will run for three months more. Surely after having stayed five months with your father, you can spend a few weeks humoring me.”

“If you wish. But I must sail home by summer so I can begin my studies in the fall.”

They spent the next three months attending balls and parties, with Bo riding in the mornings on a horse he borrowed from a cousin. At the end of May, he knocked on the door of Betsy’s boudoir and, after she gave him permission to enter, came to stand behind her as she styled her hair. Gazing at her in the mirror, he said, “Mama, I mean to sail by the end of June. Do you intend to come too, or has your partiality for Europe entirely overcome your affection for me?”

Betsy set down her brush and twisted around to look at him directly. “What a cruel thing to ask! After all the economies I practiced and the diligence I exercised on your behalf, how can you begrudge me a time of freedom and amusement now that you are a grown man? Yes, I have a partiality for Europe. I am only surprised that you should wonder at my resembling every woman who has left America. I never heard of one who wanted to return after she got away.”

Folding his arms across his chest, Bo said, “Then what are we to do? I fear I am frittering away my life here. I am now of an age when I must think of doing something that will enable me to support myself.”

“I know. It is time for you to settle to a career.” Even as Betsy said that, the thought of returning to Baltimore made her feel as though she were being sent to an exile every bit as barren as Napoleon’s imprisonment on St. Helena. Her shoulders slumped.

“Oh, Mama.” Bo stepped forward and kissed the top of her hair. “I know it will not be much fun for you to sit embroidering while I slave over my law books. Perhaps you should stay in Europe one more year while I pursue my studies.”

Lifting her head, Betsy shot him a saucy look. “Are you sure you would be happy if I did? I would not have you think I prefer Grand Duke Ferdinand to my own son.”

To her relief, Bo laughed. He chucked her under the chin as though she were a girl. “I do believe the grand duke has turned your head, Mama, but I know you quite well enough to feel secure of your affections. Stay in Florence and enjoy your much-deserved year of amusement. But don’t let any of these rogues talk you into becoming his mistress. My fencing is not proficient enough to fight a duel in your defense.”

“Impertinent child.” She turned back to her dressing table. “As if an old woman like me is still in want of protection.”

After Bo left Europe, Betsy consoled herself for his absence by telling herself that she could do more to secure his future on the continent than she could in Baltimore. To that end, she continued to make inquiries about both a noble marriage and a diplomatic post.

She began to receive letters from her father complaining that Bo showed little inclination for the law and an increasing tendency toward indolence. Betsy wrote her son reminding him of the necessity of working to achieve prominence, but she remained in Europe rather than hurrying home to chastise him. She felt confident that her father was already riding the young man hard.

The next year, Betsy’s plan to return to Baltimore fell through. She was delayed in the early summer by the need to go to Paris and see to her European investments. By the time her business was complete, the only ship available at Le Havre was a rickety old vessel she would not risk taking, while traveling to an alternate port would make it too late in the year to sail. Knowing that Bo was still tied up with his studies, Betsy felt little regret about stretching her extra year in Europe into two. Then almost effortlessly, she found that another year had passed, and by late summer 1829 she had decided to add a third year to her sojourn.

On November 3, 1829, Betsy received a letter from her father announcing that twenty-four-year-old Bo had become engaged to Susan May Williams, a seventeen-year-old Baltimore girl whose late father had left her a large fortune. Mrs. Williams was not eager to see her daughter marry so young, but Patterson had offered to give the couple several valuable pieces of property and a cash gift of $50,000, so the mother agreed to the match.

Betsy wrote back furiously, repeating all her old arguments against an American marriage. In the weeks that followed, she talked at length upon the subject with her friends, and finally after a month, she wrote what she believed to be a more temperate letter:

I tried to give my son all my ideas and tastes, and, in the first weeks after hearing that he meant to marry an American woman, I was in despair. I think that I did my duty in trying to elevate his ideas above marrying in America, and you well know that I left nothing undone to effect this. I have considered now that it is unreasonable to expect him to place his happiness in the only things which can make me happy…. He has neither my pride, my ambition, nor my love of good company; therefore I no longer oppose his marriage…. As the woman has money, I shall not forbid a marriage which I never would have advised.

While waiting for further word, Betsy learned through mutual acquaintances that Bo had written to his father and his Bonaparte relatives to announce his upcoming marriage as early as September. At first, she told herself that his letter to her must have been lost. Perhaps he had been mistaken about her itinerary and sent the news to the wrong city.

Then she received two letters from home, not from Bo as she had every right to expect, but from Edward and her father. Only then did she learn the full extent of the deception that had been practiced upon her. The wedding had already taken place; indeed, it occurred on the very day she received the original letter from her father announcing a “possible engagement.” With his grandfather’s collusion, her son had deliberately excluded her from this event in his life.

Betsy screamed when she realized what they had done and then sobbed for days. Princess Galitzin consoled her by reminding her of what she had already written home, that she could not force her son to desire the same things from life that she wanted.

“You don’t understand! They have treated me as if I were a maniac or a wretch convicted of an infamous crime. Look at this copy of the letter I wrote after I learned of the engagement. I said I would accept the marriage. But how can I forgive treachery and deceit?”

After the initial storm of grief, Betsy took a hard look at her son’s character and realized that she had been pushing him to fulfill her own dreams and had refused to listen when he said he had little taste for them. Bo’s choice of an American wife and an American life was truly not surprising, but Betsy had thought more highly of their relationship than to imagine he could act in such a mean, dishonest fashion as to marry behind her back. Bitterly, she reflected that for all of her husband’s faults, at least Jerome had been man enough to write his family to plead for their marriage.

Betsy found it impossible to write to Bo, who still had not sent her a line. Every time she tried to describe her hurt, she suffered a headache and nausea for days. Eventually, she calmed herself enough to write again to her father:

I have no right to oppose his living in the way he likes best. It is possible that your judgment and his are better than mine. I hope that they are. I tried to give him the ideas suitable to his rank in life; having failed in that, there remains only to let him choose his own course. A parent cannot make a silk purse of a sow’s ear; and you found that you could never make a sow’s ear of a silk purse…. When I first heard that my son could condescend to marry any one in Baltimore, I nearly went mad. Every one told me that it was quite impossible for me to make him like myself, and that, if he could endure the mode of life and the people in America, it was better to let him follow his own course than to break off a marriage where there was some money to be got.

In spite of her deep hurt, Betsy decided not to disinherit her son, which would violate her principles of how parents should act. Even so, her feelings about her duty to Bo changed. Now that he had married into money, she no longer felt obligated to sacrifice her own comfort for his, so she cut off his monthly allowance. She increased her spending to make use of her full income and gave up any thought of returning home.

The following spring, five months after his marriage, Bo wrote to her about some business having to do with her Baltimore property, and thus, at least a formal level of communication was restored between them. To Betsy’s chagrin, her son never apologized or explained the clandestine manner of his marriage, so she kept their correspondence as brief and businesslike as possible.

During one of her extended stays with her friend Princess Galitzin, Betsy complained, “He is just like his father. My ex-husband was never able to acknowledge that he chose to betray his solemn vows to me. My sainted mother once told me that men often have difficulty owning up to the hurt they inflict upon those they love, but I find it hard to excuse such thoughtlessness.”

“My dear.” Princess Galitzin laid a hand upon Betsy’s, which was resting on the tea table between them. “You are not listening to your better nature. You yourself told me that your son has never possessed your ambition nor your drive.”

“No, he has not. Do you mean to say that excuses his weakness?”

Sitting back in her chair, the princess shook her head. She picked up the teapot and refreshed Betsy’s cup. “No, but I think I can understand the situation from your son’s point of view. Remember that I know young Jerome. I have often seen you together, and I am convinced that he loves you deeply. He has spent his entire life trying to please you, but I believe he hated the very thought of the life you had chosen for him.”

“Then why did he not tell me so instead of shutting me out like a stranger?”

Prince Galitzin smiled at her fondly. “You are rather a force of nature when you set your heart upon something, you know.”

Betsy frowned and dropped extra sugar in her tea to sweeten the bitter conversation. “So you are saying that it is my fault because he knew I would have trampled upon his expressed wishes. In short, you blame me for my son’s disloyalty.”

“No, my dear, I do not. I am asking you to see your son as he is. He could not endure the course you set for him, yet he could not bear to confront you and witness the pain of your disappointment. So he took the child’s way out of acting without your knowledge.”

Tears pooled in Betsy’s eyes as she remembered all the times that her little boy had sworn he would take care of her and ease her difficulties. In her heart, she wanted desperately to believe that Bo still loved her. Was it possible that his fear of her temper could have led him to commit such a dishonorable act?

She sighed. “You may be right, but I need more time to recover from this blow. I cannot endure seeing my son again. As long as he refuses to apologize, I don’t know if I ever shall.”

The princess nodded and did not look surprised. “You will know when you are ready to reconcile. Keep your heart open, and it will tell you.”