Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [110]
Fashion, of course, was what the ladies-in-waiting mostly talked about among themselves and with Princess Augusta during the afternoon stroll or after their game of cards at Petit cercle. There were tedious disquisitions on the merit of short sleeves over long sleeves, on the latest designs from Paris, on the colours in vogue that season. Conversation was seldom lively and never brilliant. No one touched politics. Very little was mentioned about art, literature or even music. In the early days of the Cisalpine Republic, when poets and artists had been drawn to Milan by the young Bonaparte, the intellectual life had been quite vibrant. But after the proclamation of the Empire and the transformation of the Cisalpine Republic into the Kingdom of Italy, the monotonous rituals of royal etiquette imported from Paris created a soporific atmosphere.
Milan was an emasculated capital. All the important decisions were made in Paris. Prince Eugène took his orders directly from Napoleon. Members of the government, senators, courtiers: everyone wanted to be in Paris rather than Milan. Carriages with travelling officials crowded the road to France across the Alps that was being enlarged. “There seems to be a permanent migration to the French court,” Lucia grumbled. “Every minute one dignitary or another is leaving town with the excuse that he must go fetch his orders.”22
In 1809, Prince Eugène travelled to Paris to be at his mother’s side as she faced one of the most trying periods in her life. Napoleon had made it clear to Empress Joséphine that there would come a time when she would have to step aside and allow him to marry a young European princess capable of bearing him an heir. After ruminating over the matter for many months, Napoleon decided the time for a divorce had come. It was not an easy decision; he remained deeply attached to his wife, even as they saw less and less of each other and other women came into his life. But having learnt that, contrary to what he had long assumed, he was not sterile—at the end of 1806 Eléanore de la Plaigne, one of his lovers, had given birth to a boy named Léon—he now wanted a legitimate son in order to ensure a Bonaparte dynasty. The divorce papers were signed on 14 December 1809, during a tense, tearful ceremony at the Tuileries. Joséphine read a note handed to her by the foreign minister, Prince Talleyrand, declaring that, since she could no longer hope to bear children, in the interest of France she was “happy to offer this greatest proof of her devotion and attachment.” The emperor, to the irritation of the Bonaparte brothers and sisters who had always detested her, paid one last homage to the woman “who has illuminated my life for fifteen years and whose memory shall always be present in my heart.”23
Joséphine retained the title of empress. She was given full ownership of Malmaison, the beautiful country palace outside Paris where she lived, and her yearly stipend rose to a combined three million francs, a huge sum of money even for a profligate spender like her. Behind the scenes, Talleyrand and the interior minister, Fouché, were already putting the finishing touches to Napoleon’s offer to marry Marie Louise, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the Austrian emperor, Francis I. The news was leaked to the papers and in early February 1810, Lucia read about it in the Milanese gazettes.
Alvise joined the senate delegation that headed to Paris to congratulate the emperor on his marriage. Lucia was also making the trip: the vicereine was taking all her ladies-in-waiting with her to attend the wedding. At first, the thought of leaving Alvisetto threw Lucia into a state of turmoil. “I am desperate about this sudden departure and I can’t wait to be back,” she told her sister. “Oh, do write to my little boy, and