When Napoleon left the country Jerome was assured by the ambassador of Wurtemberg that he would find a refuge in the dominions of his father-in- law; but when he arrived there he was informed that if he did not wish to be, according to the original intentions of the Allies, handed over to the Prussians, and separated from his wife, he must sign an engagement to remain in Wurtemberg under strict surveillance. He was then imprisoned at Guppingen, and afterwards at Ellwangen, where he was not even allowed to write or receive letters except through the captain of the chateau.
Part of Jerome's troubles came from the conduct of his wife Catherine, who had the idea that, as she had been given in marriage by her father to Jerome, as she had lived for seven years as his wife, and as she had borne a child to him, she was really his wife, and bound to remain with him in his misfortunes! The royal family of Wurtemberg, however, following the illustrious example of that of Austria, looked on her past life as a mere state of concubinage, useful to the family, and to be respected while her husband could retain his kingdom, but which should end the moment there was nothing more to be gained from Napoleon or his brother. It was all proper and decorous to retain the title of King of Wurtemberg, which the former Duke and then Elector had owed to the exile of St. Helena, but King Frederick, and still less his son William, who succeeded him in 1816, could not comprehend Catherine's clinging to her husband when he had lost his kingdom. "I was a Queen; I am still a wife and mother," wrote the Princess to her disgusted father. Another complaint against this extraordinary Princess was that she actually saw Las Cases on his return from St. Helena, and thus obtained news of the exile.
After constant ill treatment Jerome and his wife, as the Count and Countess of Montfort, a rank the King of Wurtemberg afterwards raised to Prince, were allowed to proceed to Hainburg near Vienna, then to Florence, and, later to Trieste, where Jerome was when his sister Elisa died. In 1823 they were permitted to go to Rome, and in 1835 they went to Lausanne, where his true-hearted wife died the same year. Jerome went to Florence, and lived to see the revival of the Empire, and to once mare enjoy the rank of a French Prince. He died in 1860 at the chateau of Villegenis in France, and was buried in the Invalides.
The mother of the Emperor, Letitia, in 1814, had retained her title of Imperatrice Mere, and had retired to Rome. She then went to Elba in June, and stayed there with her daughter Pauline until Napoleon had sailed for France. On 2d March 1814 she went from Elba to San Vicenzo near Leghorn, and then to Rome. Her son sent a frigate for her, the 'Melpomene', which was captured by the English 'Rivoli'; another vessel, the 'Dryade', brought her to France, and she joined Napoleon in Paris.
We must have a regard for this simple old lady, who was always careful and saving, only half believing in the stability of the Empire; and, like a true mother, always most attentive to the most unfortunate of her children. Her life had been full of startling changes; and it must have been strange for the woman who had been hunted out of Corsica, flying from her house just in time to save her life from the adherents of Paoli, to find herself in grandeur in Paris. She saw her son just before he left, as she thought, for America, and then retired to the Rinuccini--now the Bonaparte-Palace at Rome, where she died in 1836. She had been anxious to join Napoleon at St. Helena, and had refused, as long as Napoleon was alive, to forgive her daughter Caroline, the wife of Murat, for her abandonment of her brother. She was buried at Albano.
Letitia's youngest daughter, the beautiful but frail Pauline, Duchess of Guastalla, married first to General Leclerc, and then to Prince Camille Borglle, was at Nice when her brother abdicated in 1814. She retired with her mother to Rome, and in October 1814 went to Elba, staying there till Napoleon left, except when she was sent to Naples with a message of forgiveness for Murat There was a characteristic scene between her and Colonel Campbell when the English Commissioner arrived to find Napoleon gone. Pauline professed ignorance till the last of her brother's intentions, and pressed the Colonel's hand to her heart that lie might feel how agitated she was. "She did not appear to be so," says the battered old Colonel, who seems to have been proof against her charms.
She then went to Rome, and later to Pisa. Her health was failing, and, unable to join her brother in France, she sent him her only means of assistance, her jewels, which were captured at Waterloo. Her offer to go to St. Helena, repeated several times, was never accepted by Napoleon.
She died in 1825 at Florence, from consumption, reconciled to her husband, from whom she had been separated since 1807. She was buried at Sta Maria Maggiore, Rome.
Elisa, the eldest sister of Napoleon, the former Grand Duchess of Tuscany, which Duchy she had ruled well, being a woman of considerable talent, was the first of all to die. In 1814 she had been forced to fly from her Government, and, accompanied by her husband, she had attempted to reach France. Finding herself cut off by the Austrians; she took shelter with Augereau's army, and then returned to Italy. She took the title of Comtesse de Campignana, and retired to Trieste, near which town, at the Chateau of Sant Andrea, under a wearisome surveillance, she expired in 1820, watched by her husband, Felix Baeciocchi, and her sister Caroline. Her monument is in the Bacciocchi Chapel in San Petronio, Bologna.
