Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XXIV

On February ninth, 1796, their banns were proclaimed; on March second the bridegroom received his bride's dowry in his own appointment, on Carnot's motion, not on that of Barras, as chief of the Army of Italy, still under the name of Buonaparte;[63] on the seventh he was handed his commission; on the ninth the marriage ceremony was performed by the civil magistrate; and on the eleventh the husband started for his post. In the marriage certificate at Paris the groom gives his age as twenty-eight, but in reality he was not yet twenty-seven; the bride, who was thirty-three, gives hers as not quite twenty-nine. Her name is spelled Detascher, his Bonaparte. A new birth, a new baptism, a new career, a new start in a new sphere, Corsica forgotten, Jacobinism renounced, General and Mme. Bonaparte made their bow to the world. The ceremony attracted no public attention, and was most unceremonious, no member of the family from either side being present. Madame Mère, in fact, was very angry, and foretold that with such a difference in age the union would be barren.