Eugène Beauharnais and the Wittelsbach family

Jerôme did write to Boney similar thoughts, but who cares about Jerôme - König Lustick

Oh, I do, actually. I love to make fun of him (and to some degree I think it is well-deserved). But when it comes to Napoleon's behaviour towards his family, I am very much on Jerome's side. He was just as unfairly treated as Louis or Murat, he just didn't dare (or care enough) to oppose the master's will in a similar way.

(On a sidenote, I've received the book by Jacques Presser today. And I can already say that I will take a while until I get to it. First thing, I've checked what he has to say about Eugène - I do that with every new book, because - well, Eugène 😁, but also because that is a topic that I have studied enough to be able to tell if an author is trustworthy or not. And just in case you wondered: Presser, on this topic, clearly is not. I doubt he has read much on Eugène except Octave Aubry. In any case he does not do more than regurgitate secondary sources, and he does it in the most malicious and polemic way possible, for the most part without backing the narrative up by any sources. If this is the general tone and value of the book, then I am not astonished it has not become better known. But I will leave my verdict about the whole book until I've read it, whenever that is. I just thought you might be interested in my first impression 😊.)

often I do the same, like what does this book tell about Bernadotte, or about Auerstedt, the Prussian Army of 1806, let's see what your overall assumption will be.

With my very limited knowledge about all this, I cannot see how Bavaria could wriggle out of this without jeopardizing its exsitence as well. Max did see how perilous his position was without patronage of a major power and France was still a superpower then and not yes destroyed by Napoleon. It mus have slowly dimed on them that a marriage with a "Bonaparte" was not such a bad choice - regardless being "standesgemäß" or not.

Agreed, there was no way for Bavaria to stay neutral, and I think both Max Joseph and Montgelas were very aware of this. Bavaria was placed between two millstones, and their only chance to survive was to hide behind one of them. It was only a question of which to pick. And in this case, an alliance with France seemed much more lucrative, and Napoleon had promised both Tyrole and independence from Vienna by upgrading the country to a kingdom.

As to the marriage however, they really tried to get around it, literally to the very last minute. And if Napoleon had not stayed in person until the wedding and had seen the whole thing through, they would have found a way to get out of it somehow. Max was very good at not committing himself 😁.

Here's what happened at the outbreak of the war:

On September 6, 1805, the family of Bavarian elector Max Joseph was still staying at their summer residence, Nymphenburg Castle. On that very day, Austrian prince Karl Philipp zu Schwarzenberg, escorted by 100 dragoons, reached Munich and demanded an audience. (Yes, that's the same Schwarzenberg commanding at Leipzig 1813 and Paris 1814). Depending on who you ask, the tone of the ensuing interview and the purpose of this visit vary: According to Austrian sources, Schwarzenberg merely wanted to ensure that Bavarian troops would fight alongside the Austrians in the upcoming war against France. According to Bavarian sources, Schwarzenbergs dragoons surrounded the castle, and Schwarzenberg set an ultimatum: Either Bavaria's army would fight under Austrian command, or Austria would consider Bavaria an enemy.

Both versions actually are not mutually exclusive. They could just be two very different perceptions of the same request.

Max Joseph reacted the same way he always did: he got sick. During the interview with Schwarzenberg he looked so miserable the Austrian prince was really sympathetic and also wrote to Vienna about it. Max Joseph declared himself too ill to do anything and sent Schwarzenberg to Montgelas (who was actually ill). As soon as Schwarzenberg had left Nymphenburg, Max Joseph wrote a long letter to Montgelas that started with "The bomb has gone off!", then detailed Bavaria's situation within European foreign policies under all aspects and then some, and ended with announcing Schwarzenberg's visit to Montgelas the following morning, stating "See what can be answered to him. I'm beside myself, in a horrible situation!" Adding a jolly "Good Night!"

To summarize: "Dear Montgelas, the Austrians are here! Please do something, while I'm going to bed."

Montgelas in all likelyhood did not have a good night. As a matter of fact, Bavarian diplomats and military went into a flurry of activities from that moment on.

The other day, prince Schwarzenberg met with Montgelas. Montgelas immediately told him that a decision about war and peace could only be made by the elector himself. Over the course of the next two days, poor Schwarzenberg wandered from Max Joseph to Montgelas and back, received lots of very polite statements and assurances, to the point when he and Austrian ambassador Buol were convinced Bavaria was on Austria's side. Max Joseph also sent a letter to emperor Franz in Vienna, asking for Bavaria's neutrality (which he already knew he'd never get).

And then, during the night of September 8/9, the court left town. Completely. When Buol and Schwarzenberg showed up on the 9th, they were handed a letter from Max Joseph, stating that as his health required an immediate change of air, he had left for Würzburg. And so had pretty much everybody else, including Montgelas. At the same time, Bavarian diplomat Gravenreuth and some others were informing and gathering the Bavarian troops and also sent them north, where they would later team up with Bernadotte's corps coming from Hanover. (A certain colonel Beaumont, travelling along the borders of Bavaria at the same time, a dashing cavalryman with long dark curls, who in Paris would have been immediately recognized as Prince Joachim Murat, was already very well informed about the elector's whereabouts and must have been in contact with Bavaria's court as well.)

Only when the Austrians crossed the inn onto Bavarian territory and met the first Bavarian parliamentary they were told that Bavaria would not comply with Austria's demands and would consider the Austrian forces enemies. Oops. (Allegedly, this news didn't quite spread, and Austrians politely let the Bavarians empty their depots and even gave them carriages and horses to do so.)

In the meantime, Max Joseph and Co. were waiting in Würzburg. It's quite unclear to me if Karoline and Auguste were even aware that Austria was the enemy this time, at the very least there were still debates about which side to choose, even after Austrian forces had occupied Munich. Karoline of course was pro-Austrian, and Max apparently just smiled nervously and kept mum. The letters French ambassador Otto sent to Parus during this time are very funny. "My greatest enemies here are the tears of the electress." At some point, even Austrian ambassador Buol showed up and was happily welcomed by Max Joseph, as if nothing had happened. That was the moment an exasperated Montgelas was ready to retire from office.

But then, in the last days of September, came Bernadotte, and all was well. Except for Max Joseph, of cours. The poor guy now had to confess his sin (the alliance with France) to his electress. And to his son, who was still travelling and had already asked if he should go to the Austrian headquarters at Ulm. He was sent to Strasbourg to see empress Josephine instead, and decidely better off there.

After Ulm, Napoleon came to Munich and probably expected to meet Max Joseph in his capital. However, Max Joseph, after all these political and domestic worries, had taken to his bed again. And just to be on the safe side, he stayed there until Napoleon had left. In the meantime, Ludwig also had reached Munich, and in November father and son set out for Linz, where they were very well received by Napoleon. We have some remarks by Ludwig himself of this meeting (as much as he hated Napoleon, he was also fascinated enough to scribble down plenty of notes on him).

According to Napolen, during this meeting in Linz he and Max Joseph agreed that Auguste would marry Eugène. According to Max, he had promised no such thing. At least that's what he told Auguste and Karoline. As late as mid-December, while Gravenreuth in Schönbrunn was negotiating with Napoleon and Talleyrand about Bavaria's future borders, Max Joseph in Munich still talked about Auguste being engaged to Carl von Baden. This led to a rather unpleasant encounter between Napoleon and Gravenreuth in Schönbrunn, because Otto of course informed Napoleon of this. Montgelas still tried to make everyone happy, suggesting that Auguste, as she declared to be so very much in love with Carl, should marry the guy, and the younger princess Charlotte should be given to the viceroy. Gravenreuth sent a sarcastic reply ("How many centuries removed from the one we currently live in are you?"), arguing that the time for negotiations had long passed and that Napoleon since the victory of Austerlitz was in an all powerful position that would make any refusal dangerous. Max Joseph, however, still would not budge, until Duroc showed up with the official marriage offer on christmas day, making it also clear that the French had read Max Joseph's letters to the Baden court and knew precisely how the Wittelsbach family truly felt about this Beauharnais person.

That was when Max Joseph just had no way to get out of this quagmire anymore. But instead of going to his daughter in person and talking to her, he wrote her a letter, basically telling this 17-year-old girl that the French emperor was dead set on the marriage to this awful Beauharnais person (who might not be so bad after all, maybe?) and that Bavaria's future and the future of the whole family depended on it and that so he begged her to agree. But no pressure, child. By the way, please spare my poor nerves the agitation of a direct confrontation and send me your answer in writing, okay? Love, Dad. - To which Auguste then dutifully replied that she would gladly sacrifice herself for father and fatherland, asking for Max Joseph's blessing which would help her to bear her dark fate in resignation.

As I said, much of this could be part of a comedy, the punchline being that the bridegroom really turned out to be about the nicest guy who could be found in Napoleon's extended family, friendly, amiable, charming, very eager to make himself loved ... According to one of Josephine's ladies-in-waiting, bride and bridegroom at their first meeting had a private conversation of about ten minutes, from which they returned beaming, holding hands and very ready to sacrifice themselves for their respective fatherlands or any other reason. Auguste's diary suggests that it did indeed take a bit longer for her to fall in love, and Eugène probably would have preferred to remain single. But they really ended up being very happy with each other (despite Eugène, like pretty much every husband of the era, having multiple affairs), and all the negative things that would happen to them only brought them together more closely.

The one who fell in love with Eugène the hardest, however, was probably Max Joseph 😋. First of all, he was relieved and grateful that Eugène made Auguste truly happy, when Max had broken his promise that his daughter would marry her cousin Carl von Baden. But Eugène also was similar in character to Max himself in many aspects. Actually, that was the son Max had always wanted, brave soldier, optimistic, humble, sociable, good-natured, friendly, French! ... (and what had he gotten instead? Ludwig.). As family was an important matter to Max Joseph, the personal friendship to his son-in-law turned into yet another thing linking Bavaria to Napoleon's empire. And this friendship survived plenty of obstacles, including them being technically at war since autumn 1813.

And as to this being a comedy: Ludwig actually did write a play about his sister's marriage and his own discarded engagement to a Russian grandduchess (albeit transferring the plot into the early middle ages). However, he of course made a tragedy out of it, with both him and Auguste dead in the end.

He was very fond of his earrings, he still wore them even as king.

They were a souvenir of his days as French colonel before the Revolution. (Max was actually in Strasbourg when the first riots broke out.) And he was very fond of his days in Strasbourg, too. As a matter of fact, I've seen so many people mentioning how much he loved to talk about those times that I can only imagine he annoyed the hell out of everybody with his stories 😁. But it's true, he never lost his love for France, even after the Revolution. It's one of the things that stood between him and his crown prince, as Ludwig felt quite the opposite.

As to Austria, he had already learned to distrust the court in Vienna in his youth. Max Joseph's predecessor as Bavarian elector, Charles Theodore, was on rather good terms with the Habsburg court (rare for a Wittelsbach) and had at several reprises tried to exchange Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands (Max Joseph and his older brother always intervened). When Max Joseph became elector in 1799, he also "inherited" the ongoing war against France. Bavaria was occupied and ransacked by both French and Austrian troops for the umpteenth time, before the battle of Hohenlinden put an end to that war. In a way, the Austrians did not act much differently than the French: both sides did not fight on their own soil, and as soon as Habsburg main lands were threatened, the emperor in Vienna sued for peace. But as long as it was only the territory of their allies that was ravaged by war, all was fine. Adalbert argues that this, together with Max Josephs general preference for France, was the decisive reason for the alliance with France in 1805.

I always wondered when Ludwig became anti - Napoleon, I don't know if he was anti French as such.