Free Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte by Carol Berkin

whenhe told Betsy that she could come to Westphalia and keep Bo with her until the boy turned twelve. He promised more. He would make her the princess of Smalkalden, a small town that lay thirty leagues from the capital city, Cassel, and provide her with a beautiful home and 200,000 francs a year.
    Betsy’s reply is lost, but at some point she wrote comments on the margins of his letter. She owed him nothing, she observed, and the only rights he had over her were the “right to be despised and hated.” She dismissed the offer of a title as princess of Smalkalden, writing, “Westphalia [is] not large enough for two queens.” But her contempt for Jérôme came through most clearly when she contemplated choosing between Napoleon’s assistance and Jérôme’s: “I would rather be sheltered under the wings of an eagle than dangle from the beak of a goose.”
    It may have been satisfying to vent her anger and show her contempt for this “goose,” but Betsy’s first consideration was, after all, Bo’s future. What if Jérôme’s new wife had no sons? Would Bo then be heir to his father’s throne? Was she indeed being selfish? Was she letting her feelings toward Jérôme cloud her judgment? She did not know. She decided to write to the former ambassador to France, James Monroe, for advice.
    Despite Jérôme’s assurances, she told Monroe in October 1808 that she worried that Bo might in reality “be consigned to obscurity by being probably educated in an inferior condition & in ignorance of his birth & name.” She was ready to sacrifice herself for her son: “My maternal duties certainly prescribe a total dereliction of all self interested motives & I possess sufficient energy to submit implicitly to any privation how painfulsoever which the interest of my son dictate.” But, Betsy asked, were Jérôme’s promises real? She did not need to remind James Monroe, or herself, how empty Jérôme’s promises to her had proven to be.
    Monroe replied in early November. He knew the “hard destiny which has attended you” and admired her response to it. She had behaved perfectly and with great dignity. In his judgment, Napoleon was smart enough to realize that, if anything bad happened to Bo in Westphalia, it would be a stain on his own reputation. The real danger, he thought, would come from Queen Catherine, especially if she produced a family. To Monroe, the matter boiled down to this: Would Bo be better off with his father or in the circle of his maternal relatives?
    The following spring Betsy reached out to General John Armstrong, the current American minister at Paris. By this time, negotiations with “the eagle,” Napoleon, had been going on for almost a year, and Betsy knew that a “necessary provision” for herself was now on the table. She did not want Armstrong to carry on the negotiations without consulting her first. She would not agree to Bo going to France without her. But she was flexible as to the terms of her own settlement. She was resolved, she said, “to accede to any offer which guarantees to me an independent & respectable Situation in life.… Should I be offered a title & Pension I will certainly accept them. I prefer infinitely a residence in France to one here.” In short, Napoleon’s largesse could satisfy her most urgent personal goal: escape from Baltimore.
    Betsy’s expectations and demands appeared likely to be met.Napoleon, busy campaigning in Spain, had nevertheless taken the time to comment on the matter in November 1808, although Turreau did not receive his instructions until the spring of 1809. The emperor seemed willing to give Betsy everything she desired—and more. “Tell Turreau that he is to inform her that I will receive with pleasure her son and will be responsible for him if she wishes to send him to France; as for her, whatever she may desire will be granted; that she may count on my esteem and my wish to be agreeable to her; that, when I refused to recognize her, I