“Morny … was certainly courageous, capable of intrigue and clever … and the most impudent, the most brazen man I have ever known.” 1
—MAXIME DU CAMP
“It is rare indeed to come across such a considerate and intelligent man like Morny, a man of solid common sense and decision.” 2
—ANTONIO PANIZZI, HEAD LIBRARIAN, BRITISH MUSEUM
In June 1830, a desperate Charles X—the last Bourbon king of France—on the advice of Prime Minister Jules de Polignac invaded Algeria. He did so not because of any real threat from, or even interest in, that nominal Ottoman province, but in order to distract from a popular revolt of the French people against the king’s attempt to return to the seventeenth century and the Divine Right authoritarian rule of France of Louis XIV. Indeed Charles X had already reduced the electorate of more than five million under Napoléon I to a mere 25,000—that is, the ruling aristocracy.
On the fifth of July, 1830, the white Bourbon fleur-de-lys was hoisted over the ramparts of Algeria. By the second of August, this same Charles X had abdicated and fled to England. On the ninth of August, Louis Philippe d’Orléans was crowned “King of the French.” “Most assuredly France is rich enough to afford an [Algerian] Opera Box,” the Duke [Victor] de Broglie argued, “but the cost is far too dear.”3 Charles, Count de Montalembert, strongly disagreed. “So important is our occupation in Algeria that any minister who dared sign the order for its evacuation would be charged with treason!”4 The newly crowned Louis Philippe agreed, and the French army in Algeria dug in to secure their latest colony. Little could he realize that this was just the beginning of a colonial war that France would still be waging well over a century later, costing hundreds of thousands of lives, draining the French treasury, and ultimately leading to a near national revolution in the very heart of metropolitan France.
Now completing his second tour in Algeria, a much battered Lieutenant Auguste de Morny, having narrowly survived the disastrous siege of Constantine, sailed back to France in January 1837, resigning his commission shortly thereafter. Louis Philippe had committed France to the conquest of that new colony, which was to prove the training ground for hundreds of thousands of French soldiers over the decades to follow and for a whole series of colonial governors, including Clauzel, Bugeaud, Changarnier, and MacMahon among them, who would through their actions in turn shape French politics, often directly. But Lieutenant Morny, for his part, had had enough and never wanted to see North Africa or the army again.
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Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, Count de Morny was the openly acknowledged illegitimate son of one of Napoléon’s favorite aides-de-camp and most courageous and highly decorated general officers, Charles Joseph, Count de Flahaut de la Billarderie. Morny was also the grandson of Bonaparte’s celebrated foreign minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. And of course General de Flahaut, a staunch Bonapartist to the end, also remained a personal friend of King Louis Philippe, to whom he had earlier applied for Morny’s army commission.
Second only to his father, Charles de Flahaut, women played a very real role in the formation of Morny’s life. He was raised by his paternal grandmother, and surrogate mother, Adélaïde [de Flahaut] de Souza, well known as a novelist, but more importantly a close friend of Louis Philippe, with whom she had shared exile during the French Revolution. She remained close to him and his wife, the queen, Marie Amélie, during the July monarchy. Adélaïde was also one of the few to know the identity of Morny’s mother, the wife of King Louis Bonaparte of Holland, Hortense de Beauharnais (the daughter of Joséphine and mother to Louis Napoléon). Separated early from her violent, unstable husband, Louis, Hortense had fallen in love with Charles de Flahaut, by whom she had one son, Auguste de Morny, and it was Adélaïde who arranged for Hortense’s secret arrangements in Geneva, Switzerland, where Auguste de Morny was born on September 17, 1811, far from the prying eyes of her stepfather, Napoléon I, and his secret police.5 In the meantime de Flahaut married the daughter of the wealthy Admiral Lord Keith in 1817 and spent most of his time in Scotland and England.
Adélaïde remained in close, if secret, communication with Hortense throughout the ensuing years, and Hortense entrusted her with a large sum for Auguste’s education (largely spent by Adélaïde). In the meantime, in the 1830s, Adélaïde, as the wife of the Portuguese ambassador, Dom José de Sousa, came into contact with Fanny Le Hon, the wife of Belgium’s first ambassador to France, and attended Fanny’s celebrated Saturday evening soirées in the Rue Mont Blanc (today’s Chaussée d’Antin).
A surprisingly close, almost mother-daughter relationship developed between Hortense and Fanny. Hortense was especially impressed by Fanny’s total devotion to Morny. Their correspondence was warm, Hortense for the first time addressing a joint letter to her son, Auguste, and Fanny, closing, “A thousand thanks to you both, my dear children, you are my consolation.”6 After the death of Adélaïde de Sousa early in 1836, it was thanks to Fanny that Hortense decided to publicly recognize Auguste as her son and to adopt him legally. In addition to formal adoption, she could provide him “with complete financial independence and that is what I must do.”7 Meanwhile, aware of her own rapidly declining health (she was suffering from cancer), Hortense invited Fanny to the Schloss Arenenberg in October 1836 to draw up the final papers regarding the adoption of Auguste. It was apparently during this visit that her son Louis Napoléon learned from his mother of the existence of his half brother, Auguste, and he was deeply distraught by the news. They all dined together for the last time on the twenty-fourth of October—Louis Napoléon, Hortense, Valérie Masuyer (her lady-in-waiting), Henri Conneau (Hortense’s surgeon), and Fanny Le Hon. It was a tense affair, the main topic ostensibly Louis Napoléon’s engagement to his first cousin, Mathilde, the daughter of Jérôme Bonaparte, the ex-king of Westphalia; the real issue, Hortense’s recognition of Auguste, unmentioned.8
Of all the women in Auguste de Morny’s life, it was the lovely Fanny Le Hon who was to play by far the most significant role, and by whom he was to father at least one child. The countess, born Françoise Zoë Mathilde Mosselman, was the daughter of one of the wealthiest “industrialists” of Belgium and wife of Charles, Count Le Hon, who had been instrumental in the selection of the newly created country of Belgium’s first monarch, Leopold I.9 A petite, strikingly attractive ash-blond beauty—“the lady of the iris blue eyes,” the bewitched novelist Honoré Balzac described her—une dame cultivée, a talented linguist who spoke Greek, Latin, French, Flemish, German, and English, and an accomplished pianist, her salon dominated the Parisian diplomatic community. With her captivating, unrevealing smile, Fanny Le Hon was undoubtedly the most brilliant woman Auguste de Morny ever knew. Balzac was not alone in his rapture with the divine Fanny. Homme de lettres, novelist, art historian, and future director of the Théâtre Français Arsène Houssaye, with his celebrated Tolstoyan-length beard, was a friend of both Morny and Fanny, and clearly smitten with her utter sexuality, finding her “like a flower awakened by love … her provocative grace tantalizing … simply voluptuous and feline.”10 Perhaps a little more riveting than the allure of flesh was Fanny’s fabled collection of Russian and Indian rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. She was reputedly the greatest heiress of the day, and her Saturday salons were always well attended by the diplomatic corps, including the Metternichs and Apponyis, the leading artists, musicians, and politicians of the day. This included the royal family: Louis Philippe, the otherwise shy Queen Marie Amélie, and her handsome sons.
* * *
Like most young aristocrats, Auguste de Morny was largely educated at home, in this case by tutors, his doting father, General de Flahaut, and by his devoted if eccentric paternal grandmother, Adélaïde. English, Latin, Greek, history, and mathematics were the core subjects he studied prior to attending the elite Collège Bourbon of Paris. His social education was then completed during visits to Grandfather Talleyrand, who was notorious for his antipathy to children, where Auguste, the exception, was spoiled in a truly princely fashion.
Auguste, like so many brilliant students, was lazy when he could get away with it, but when it came to education, his father put his foot down and enrolled the boy at the Sorbonne at the age of fourteen, to study mathematics. When he worked, he did exceptionally well, but he soon rejected mathematics and the university altogether. His father finally completed his education by introducing him into the world of actresses.
* * *
Morny’s friend and fellow member of the Jockey Club, Edmond d’Alton Shée, who had an intimate knowledge and understanding of the young man, described him in his Memoirs: “Having been educated throughout his youth [by his famous father] to be a dashing man of the world, Auguste managed to combine a natural nonchalance and ease with a real taste for diligence and hard work.”11 Clearly Auguste was very much his father’s son, except for an atavistic distaste and respect for the military. As for his once beautiful but now ailing grandmother, Adélaïde, not only did she do nothing to discourage this type of upbringing but she assiduously fostered and rewarded it. Unfortunately, her own lifelong utter irresponsibility in money matters, a trait shared by Talleyrand, was to prove equally destructive in Morny’s life as well. It was hardly surprising, then, that young Auguste turned out as he did.
Much shorter than his father, and blond and blue-eyed if prematurely bald, “while perhaps not qualifying as truly handsome, nevertheless he had fine, kindly features, and bore himself erect as a gentleman of elegance and distinction,” d’Alton Shée recalled. “He was a brilliant success with the ladies of all ages,”12 Queen Hortense’s elderly companion and lady-in-waiting, Valérie Masuyer, fully concurred. “He exuded the most exquisite old world charm and manners! This boy is quite simply a born diplomat, just like his father.”13
By the same token, his obvious intelligence and superior knowledge in most subjects inevitably led either to admiration by many or to jealousy by some. This was especially so where the ladies were concerned, including with a fellow member of the Jockey Club, Count Alexander Walewski, Napoléon’s illegitimate son by his Polish mistress. The lives and politics of Walewski and Morny were to intertwine closely over the ensuing years. Nor was the Duke of Orléans, Prince Ferdinand Philippe, the eldest son and heir of Louis Philippe, any less of a competitor. In one instance the jealous young duke, as the king’s son, apparently had the military records of Auguste de Morny’s brief but distinguished military career destroyed, and with them any mention of citations, medals, and decorations. Much taller and more handsome than Morny, the frustrated young duke on another occasion had reputedly challenged Auguste to a duel over a woman, possibly Fanny Le Hon.
Neither Morny nor Fanny ever made the slightest attempt to conceal their very open affair, which indeed they flaunted with total disregard. The lovely wife of the Belgian ambassador appeared everywhere in public with Auguste. The jealousy and passion continued for years. The competition between Morny and Ferdinand Philippe extended to racing, common enough in a world of thoroughbred horses. Both men had fine stables and were excellent equestrians. Therefore, despite all, given Louis Philippe’s powerful influence throughout society, it was fortunate indeed for Morny that the king remained on cordial terms with Morny’s grandmother and father, the general, whom the king was to appoint as ambassador to Vienna. In any event, the premature death of the duke at thirty in a carriage accident removed that problem.
Morny “had an absolute faith in himself,” d’Alton Shée recalled. “He was audacious and fearless whilst always remaining in complete control of events, regardless of the situation. He could act with a total aloof sang-froid at all times, combined with an exceptionally balanced mature judgment [except notably in his personal financial affairs].” A born boulevardier, he never allowed emotions to interfere with his numerous dalliances and affairs, nor did he pretend otherwise, and he was accepted by “the ladies” on those terms. No one really expected marriage as a result of a tryst. As for embarrassing emotional scenes in public or private, he avoided them like the plague. He was “a most generous chap, cheerful and positive by nature, but more capable of good fellowship than of true intimate friendship,” d’Alton Shée shrewdly noted, “while remaining a loyal ally, but he more set on protecting the interests of acquaintances than of any personal devotion to them.”14
“[Morny] greatly enjoyed social events, but never with the usual calculating eye as to how those individuals encountered might be of use or profit him.… His ambitions were held in another distinct category, and they were quite open and direct. And he was faithful to any personal engagement he undertook. His word in such instances was his bond,” d’Alton Shée made quite clear. “He was certainly addicted to a life of ease and luxury [tempered with an unrelenting energy and restlessness]. He made absolutely no attempt to conceal from the world that he had no political principles or that he held little faith in his fellow man. Nor did he ever let anything interfere with his personal freedom [in politics, business affairs, or his private life].”15
And yet to those who knew him more intimately than the d’Alton Shées and hommes des lettres Du Camps and Mérimées, in the course of daily work at the Palais Bourbon or when sharing his unquenchable nocturnal passion for the filles du ballet, the theater, and the music hall, yet another Auguste de Morny emerges. “I have never known anyone so imbued with such a sincere desire to be of assistance, to help one out, and without any of the usual upper class condescension.… He was such a fair and fine human being!” Ludovic Halévy, his senior secretary later responsible for preparing the daily agenda and minutes of the Corps Legislatif, recalled of their daily meetings and breakfasts together at his presidential residence in the Hôtel de Lassay adjoining the Palais Bourbon. He was “such a forward looking, clear thinker!… And he was always so unassuming, so charming and decent!… He embodies in his daily life [as president of the legislative body],” Halévy found, “the same refinement that can be found in his meticulous work.”16 In addition to his official duties at the Palais Bourbon, Halévy, along with Henri Meilhac, knew Morny in his capacity as librettist for composer Jacques Offenbach, to whose work and musical world Morny gave a surprising amount of his time during the 1850s and 1860s. Offenbach, too, had only good things to say about him. “You know better than anyone all that he has done for me … how he went out of his way to protect us [from administrative restrictions regarding musical productions],” he later wrote Ernest Lépine, private personal secretary to Morny.17 That Morny surrounded himself with very talented Jews—Halévy, Meilhac, and Offenbach—did not go unnoticed by a disapproving aristocracy.
On the other hand, when it came to fortune and finances, Morny again proved himself worthy of Grandfather Talleyrand. Money regularly flowed through his hands—indeed tens of millions of francs, like the endless waters of the Nile. He never played for small stakes, whether at cards, horses, or business. Because he was a supreme egotist, apart from his well-publicized personal pleasure and comfort, the drive for riches grew to be perhaps the most consistent driving force, if not obsession, in his life, not for the sake of accumulating vast wealth, however, but rather to support the easy and at times openly decadent lifestyle that wealth alone could provide. And again like Talleyrand, he lived for the moment, not the morrow, in his case perhaps as a result of having lost several young friends in battle in Algeria. As for the words “legality” and “illegality,” they simply had no place in either his lexicon or his conscience. Short of murder, blackmail, or openly robbing a bank, any proposition was valid, including the evasion of importuning creditors, which drove him to England on more than one occasion. Where a highly lucrative financial proposition was involved, all scruples and professional banking loyalties were abandoned with utter disdain.
Morny’s overweening confidence and sense of superiority over all men in all matters obviously intimidated and distanced all but a few. On the other hand, he could be sincere and perfectly at ease when dealing with the other classes, including peasants on his estates and the hands working in his various stud farms, and they were at ease with him. Unlike Grandfather Talleyrand, however, within his inner sanctum he lived with surprising simplicity, dining most sparingly, and in the morning no servants were present for breakfast. By nature generous to a fault, and utterly devoid of jealousy or envy, he had little patience with the mediocrity, spite, and petty attitudes of others. But in the final analysis, as Maxime Du Camp summed up, Auguste de Morny “traveled through life effortlessly, a spoiled child of fortune.”18